Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) called the Supreme Court leak suggesting the likelihood that Roe v. Wade will be overturned “bittersweet.”

Monday night, a draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization was leaked. The draft, allegedly written by Justice Alito, seemed to indicate that the Supreme Court would vote to allow states to make their own laws on the controversial topic of abortion.


“It’s bittersweet,” Lee told Fox News’s Shannon Bream. “On the one hand, it’s sweet because we are finally vindicating the constitution and the babies who have been unprotected by the law because the Supreme Court of the United States has told states they may not protect unborn human life. That’s the sweet part.”

“The bitter part is the way this was leaked,” Lee continued. “This was an utter disgrace to the terms of how it’s released. The entire kerfuffle has been brought about as a result of an unscrupulous person trying to subvert 235 years of tradition, trying to subvert the way the Supreme Court operates.”

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Tuesday morning, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement regarding the leaked document, indicating it was, in fact, authentic but that it did “not represent a decision by the Court." Roberts added that any intention to undermine the court’s operations would not succeed.

“To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed,” Roberts stated. “The work of the Court will not be affected in any way.”


Lee, who worked as a Supreme Court law clerk for Justice Alito, said he does not believe the justices who have intended to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade will be swayed to change their decision but that an official final vote will be expedited in an effort to set precedent against future leaks.

“There’s a part of me that wonders whether they will try to accelerate the release now that it’s been leaked,” Lee said. “That’s the only appropriate response, because otherwise, what you’re doing if you allow this to sit out there, you’re allowing this kind of tactic to work, and you are incentivizing future unscrupulous leftist law clerks with an agenda to try to release opinions like this with an eye toward improperly influencing justices. That cannot happen.”

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The senator added that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, he expects Democrats to "delegitimize" the Supreme Court: "They’re going to try to interrupt its procedures, going to try to threaten, intimidate, and harass individual justices, and then they’re going to move on to proposing that we pack the Supreme Court. These things will prove disastrous as a matter of policy and also for the Democratic Party.”