Conservatives are prodding the Justice Department to file charges against protesters who harassed Supreme Court justices after the 2022 leak of the draft opinion in the Dobbs abortion rights case, which would go on to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“So little has been done about attacks on the court,” Mollie Hemingway, the conservative political commentator, said in promoting her new book, “Alito,” a profile of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who authored the Dobbs opinion.
There’s a five-year statute of limitations on the laws that make it illegal to protest with the intent to intimidate or influence a judge. That means the DOJ has about a year to bring charges.
The leak of the draft opinion set off a furor. The Supreme Court launched a futile search for the leaker, and abortion rights supporters showed up at the homes of the GOP appointees who would be the majority in the 5-4 ruling.
One individual even hosted a website telling people where to meet and sharing the justices’ home addresses.
SEE ALSO: Seen, Heard & Whispered: Conservative pressure, Biden missteps and GOP power moves
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley also backed the idea of prosecutions. The Iowa Republican told “Seen, Heard & Whispered” he wants to see the draft leaker and others who acted unlawfully toward the high court face justice.
The leak spurred Nicholas Roske to plan to assassinate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee and one of those in the Dobbs majority. Roske, who now identifies as Sophie, traveled from California to Justice Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland on the morning of June 8, 2022, armed with a gun and knife, zip ties and tools to break into a home.
A judge sentenced Roske to about eight years in prison — far less than the 30 years prosecutors had sought — after a judge decided Roske turned away from the plot at the last minute.
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