[ad_1]
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Samuel Alito is back to centering himself as the *real* victim over the leaked decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Heath. Sure, he penned a decision that has created a tidal wave of catastrophic outcomes for pregnant people around the country, but won’t someone think of the real victims here? Which to his mind are obviously the powerful people with lifetime appointments who can just decide one day that Americans have fewer rights than they did the day before.
Alito appeared at a Heritage Foundation event last night, and as reported by the Washington Post, he was busy pushing his victim narrative:
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said Tuesday that the leak of his draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade made his colleagues in the majority on the U.S. Supreme Court “targets for assassination.”
The leak last spring before the court eliminated the nationwide right to abortion was a “grave betrayal of trust by somebody, and it was a shock,” he said. The threat to the justices, he added, was not theoretical because it “gave people a rational reason to think they could prevent that from happening by killing one of us.”
He also brought up the man arrested near Brett Kavanaugh’s home, who was upset by the Dobbs decision. But at best the leak only changed when the man was angry, since it’s the decision — not the leak — that’s so upsetting.
Because all the leak did was push up the public’s awareness of the Dobbs decision by a month. The outrage at the decision that continues to ripple through the country was *always* going to happen — THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU STRIP PEOPLE OF THEIR RIGHTS. And if that’s too upsetting, perhaps Alito needs to rethink what he’s doing on the Court.
But some folks see the victim act as just that, and have speculated that it’s meant to distract from finding out the source of the leak.
Hmm, perhaps the right doth protest too much.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).
[ad_2]
