Details Emerge About Suspicious White Powder Sent To Conservative Supreme Court Justice

In the wake of a high-profile leak regarding the Supreme Court’s decision on a landmark abortion case, the bench’s conservative wing had legitimate reason to be concerned for their safety.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh was reportedly targeted by an armed assailant who later acknowledged his intention was to eliminate as much as one-third of the entire court in an effort to preserve the Roe v. Wade ruling.

But during the same period, another threat flew under the radar. Only recently, The Federalist reported details about an incident involving Justice Samuel Alito:

“Alito’s small staff fielded a constant stream of vicious, threatening, and insulting phone calls,” Hemingway writes. “On June 27, one of the staff members opened an envelope, and powder came spilling out.”

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The substance, initially feared to be anthrax, turned out to be dirt and a ground-up battery, but the staff was shaken up, Hemingway reported. Notably, “Justice Breyer visited Alito’s chambers to comfort the staff when he left that week, his last term on the court.” Such empathy was exhibited by Justice Neil Gorsuch’s “chambers,” which “sent doughnuts over to the Alito chambers and said how sorry they were about what they were going through” after the draft was leaked.

Those gestures stood in stark contrast to what Hemingway describes as “a surprising lack of empathy” from “the justices who were not targeted.”

Meanwhile in the aftermath of the leak itself, the atmosphere inside the court was fearful.

“Many clerks were sobbing, scared, and incredibly upset” with “older staff [trying] to calm them down,” Hemingway writes. The fear was understandable, as Hemingway writes that:

“[Justices] who joined the majority opinion immediately began fielding calls from concerned friends and family. They were moved to secure locations and given increased security. Even their adult children and extended family members had to be moved for their protection.”

The latest revelation sparked significant social media discussion:

And what will be done about it?

Anyone want to make a wager?

— Jon Dempster (@DreadMyRise) April 21, 2026

Why Roberts chose to ignore the leak is something that should be analyzed. Maybe he should retire now.

— LaNinibella (@l_ninibella) April 21, 2026

So they slowed the process hoping one of the justices might be "taken out", leaked to some people, and somehow power was mailed. I'm sure a complete coincidence.

— Philip McBride (@monadical) April 21, 2026

Hot Air published an article this week with additional details about the Dobbs decision fallout:

While the court’s conservatives were being moved out of their homes and receiving these threats, Hemingway reports that the court’s three liberal Justices seemed to be slow-walking their dissents.

“Alito asked the dissenters to make the completion of their dissents their priority because delay of the decision was a security threat,” Hemingway, The Federalist’s editor-in-chief writes in Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution.“Abortion supporters had an incentive to kill one or more of the justices in the majority to change the outcome.”

The dissenters — Justices Stephen Breyer (counting down the days until his retirement at the end of the 2021-22 term ), Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor — “demurred,” Hemingway reports. Justice Neil Gorsuch asked the liberals when they expected to be wrapped up. They refused to provide a date.

Hemingway has said that the draft of the Dobbs decision was done sometime in February. That means by the time it had been leaked and published the liberals had already had more than 2 months to ponder it. But despite that and the plea from Justice Alito to move along the dissents, it took 53 more days for the decision to be issued.

Here’s what Alito himself had to say in 2023 about the leaker’s identity:

What’s your verdict?