NEW: DOJ Opens Criminal Investigation Into Infamous Supreme Court Leak

The Department of Justice is pursuing a criminal investigation into the infamous May 2022 unauthorized disclosure of a draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the case in which the Supreme Court later

overturned Roe v. Wade.

According to a report from the New York Times, prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro have issued grand jury subpoenas in recent weeks seeking testimony and have requested information from individuals who worked at the Court when the draft was disclosed to Politico. The investigation has been underway for at least a year, according to sources cited by Fox News.

Pirro is overseeing the matter along with career prosecutors and one of her senior deputies, Carlton Davis, according to the New York Times. Spokespeople for the Justice Department and Pirro's office declined to comment when approached by the outlet.

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🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: DOJ has just opened a CRIMINAL investigation in the LEAK of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, not long after Justice Sam Alito says he thinks he knows who it was

FINALLY!!

ALITO, RECENTLY: "I do have an opinion [of who it was], but the evidence… pic.twitter.com/9bPIVPuWH4

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 5, 2026

The case stems from an infamous draft leak of the decision that created a political firestorm ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections. On May 2, 2022, Politico published a draft opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito indicating that the Court had voted to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Chief Justice John Roberts directed Court Marshal Gail Curley to investigate shortly afterwards. In a January 2023 report, Curley stated that investigators were "unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence." The inquiry included interviews of 97 Court staff members and clerks, all of whom signed sworn affidavits denying responsibility for the public disclosure, along with forensic examination of systems and devices.

Some employees acknowledged discussing the draft or the vote count with spouses or partners, which violated internal confidentiality rules. Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff reviewed the investigation and found it thorough. The final opinion was issued on June 24, 2022.

In May 2025, then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino publicly stated that the FBI would devote additional resources to the Dobbs leak, among other matters. "Shortly after swearing in, the Director and I evaluated a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest. 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," he said at the time.

Justice Alito told the Wall Street Journal in 2023 that he "personally [has] a pretty good idea who is responsible, but that's different from the level of proof that is needed to name somebody," and that the disclosure was "part of an effort to prevent the Dobbs draft … from becoming the decision of the court."

In a separate interview with Fox News, he added that the leak "was a grave breach of the trust that everybody who worked in this building had before that point. And it very predictably made the five of us in the majority targets for assassination and nearly resulted in the assassination of my colleague Brett Kavanaugh."

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