Dan Bongino said the Trump administration has moved to reopen an investigation into the leak of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which led to the attempted murder of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) -- The Trump administration intends to reopen the investigation of who prematurely leaked the U.S. Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced on Monday.
“Shortly after swearing in, the Director and I evaluated a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest,” Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and conservative radio host, said on X. “We made the decision to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention, to these cases. These cases are the DC pipe bombing investigation, the cocaine discovery at the prior administration’s White House, and the leak of the Supreme Court Dobbs case. I receive requested briefings on these cases weekly and we are making progress. If you have any investigative tips on these matters that may assist us then please contact the FBI.”
On May 2, 2022, Politico published a leaked draft of a majority opinion by conservative Justice Samuel Alito for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which declared that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” and therefore it was “time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” The Court soon confirmed the draft was authentic but stressed that it did not “represent a final decision by the court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case” and announced the leak was under investigation.
The leak sparked outrage among the abortion lobby, taking the form of intimidating protests outside Republican-appointed justices’ homes – with the approval of the Biden White House and then-House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi – and even a man who sought to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who pleaded guilty this April. The pressure campaign failed to change the vote of the final Dobbs ruling, released June 24, 2022, but left behind severe questions about the integrity and safety of the court.
In January 2023, the Court released the investigation report by the marshal of the Supreme Court, U.S. Army attorney Col. Gail Curley, along with a statement by the Court and one by security consultant Michael Chertoff, a former judge and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, reviewing the investigation.
The marshal’s report states that “investigators have been unable to determine at this time, using a preponderance of the evidence standard, the identity of the person(s) who disclosed the draft majority opinion [...] or how the draft opinion was provided to Politico.” It recommended new procedures for the security of future drafts, including limiting access to certain documents and the number and tracking of physical copies printed, as well as a “universal policy” on “the mechanics of handling and safeguarding draft opinions and Court-sensitive documents.”
Many conservatives and Republicans panned the lack of resolution at the time, speculating that no culprit was ever announced to avoid the political ramification of implicating someone who worked for one of the liberal justices.
Regardless, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas lamented that the leak struck a blow to “such a belief in the rule of law, belief in the court, a belief in what we were doing,” that “now that trust or that belief is gone forever.”
