Someone leaked a draft Supreme Court opinion for the first time in American history – and walked away without a single charge.
Now the justices' own private papers are on the front page of The New York Times.
Josh Hawley just told the Senate what this is really about – and it's bigger than a leak.
New York Times Published Leaked Supreme Court Memos and Nobody Faced Consequences
The New York Times published a cache of private memos exchanged between Supreme Court justices in the winter of 2016 – internal communications that, by law, belong to the justices personally.
The memos covered the Court's emergency ruling against Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan – a 2016 decision legal experts say launched the modern shadow docket.
The Times published them in full and framed the story as an exposé of conservative justices abusing emergency procedures to block Obama's environmental agenda.
The justification for handing private judicial communications to a newspaper: climate change.
Senator Josh Hawley – who clerked at the Supreme Court and litigated before it as Missouri's Attorney General – called it out during a Senate Judiciary hearing.
"We have, from the justices' personal private papers that by law belong to them, multiple leaks – from February, from January of 2016 – leaked to the press," Hawley told the committee.
"Why? For the sin of the Court's supposed failure to address the global climate crisis."
The Shadow Docket Leak Follows the Same Dobbs Playbook
This is strike two – and the Left learned from strike one.
In May 2022, Politico published a leaked 98-page draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization – the first time in the Court's entire history that an unpublished draft had been handed to outside press.
The goal was to trigger a pressure campaign before the opinion came down.
The Court still overturned Roe v. Wade.
Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation. Investigators interviewed 97 court employees, conducted fingerprint analysis, reviewed printer logs and IT systems, and after eight months announced they could not identify the leaker.
Nobody was charged. Nobody was disbarred.
The leaker watched the entire investigation play out and faced zero consequences.
Now someone has the justices' own private papers – and the pattern is obvious.
Hawley connected every piece on the Senate floor.
"This is part of a coordinated attack on this institution that has gone on now for years," he said. "The point of it is to destroy the independence of the Supreme Court, to browbeat that Court into doing what the Left in this country wants."
Democrats Want to Pack the Supreme Court and the Leaks Are How They Apply the Pressure
Democrat strategist James Carville laid out the full playbook justdays ago.
"If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should make Puerto Rico and D.C. a state, and they should expand the Supreme Court to 13," Carville said on his podcast. "F— it. Eat our dust."
Democrats have already introduced legislation to pack the Court from nine justices to thirteen – and the math is simple.
Three Trump-appointed justices currently hold the conservative majority.
Add four liberals and it flips overnight.
Every leaked memo, every protest outside a justice's home, every Times exposé sends the same message to the six conservative justices: rule our way or we destroy the institution around you.
Hawley made that threat explicit.
"They will be packed with new justices, they will be personally threatened, their papers will be leaked, their security will be threatened," he said. "And in short, the Left will do everything they can to destroy the Court as an institution."
He would know.
In June 2022 – weeks after the Dobbs leak – an armed Biden supporter was arrested outside Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home with zip ties and a knife after telling police he intended to kill the justice.
The man said he was motivated by the leaked opinion.
The leaker's document almost got a Supreme Court justice murdered – and that leaker still hasn't been identified.
Now someone inside that Court has handed another package to The New York Times and is waiting to see what happens.
Hawley has been in that building as a clerk, as a private attorney, and as Missouri's Attorney General — he isn't guessing when he calls this a coordinated effort.
The FBI reopened the Dobbs leak investigation earlier this year under Deputy Director Dan Bongino – more than three years after the fact, still no identified suspect.
If the leaker behind the private papers walks free the same way, the next one will know exactly what the rules are.
Sources:
- Susie Moore, "Hawley Rips SCOTUS Leaks, Threats: Part of the Left's Coordinated Effort to Destroy the Court," RedState, April 21, 2026.
- Kelsey Dallas and Nora Collins, "A leak from the interim docket," SCOTUSblog, April 20, 2026.
- Amy Howe, "Supreme Court investigators fail to identify who leaked Dobbs opinion," SCOTUSblog, January 19, 2023.
- Jonathan Turley, "F**k It…Just Do It: Carville Lays Out Democratic Plan to Add States and Pack the Court," jonathanturley.org, April 17, 2026.
- "FBI Investigates Supreme Court Dobbs Leak," The Christian Post, May 30, 2025.
- "Supreme Court Announces Result of Investigation Into Dobbs Leak," The Daily Signal, January 19, 2023.
