Marco Rubio: SCOTUS abortion ruling leak was ‘strategically planned’ to boost Dems in midterms

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio suggested Thursday that a leaked opinion from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that could change the landscape of legalized abortion was “strategically planned,” with the intention of cowing conservative jurists poised to vote to overturn the 1973 ruling legalizing abortion nationally.

Rubio, appearing on “Mornings with Maria,” contended the timing of the released draft majority opinion, first reported in POLITICO, was convenient for Democrats, who would like to shift the focus of November voters from their failures in the two years they’ve controlled Washington.

“My sense is that this leak was a strategically planned one, designed to get ahead of something and to generate exactly what you’re seeing, primarily to try to intimidate these Justices,” Rubio told Fox Business Network viewers. “And that’s what you’re seeing now: an effort to intimidate them.”

The Senator said conservative justices were doxxed online, alluding to a website listing the home addresses of the potential votes to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and invalidate the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

“There’s a map on how to get there, and they’re asking people and encouraging people to go to their homes and try to intimidate them there,” Rubio said. “Clearly, it was designed to do that.”

The leak was also, per Rubio, a “direct attack” on the institution of the Supreme Court.

“The only time Democrats want to defend institutions or consider a Supreme Court ruling the law of the land is when they agree with it, and when it furthers their political aims,” Rubio contended. “Any other time then they feel free not just to criticize the court, but justices by name, attack them personally. And that’s the world we live in today.”

Rubio suggested the leaker would be a “hero on the far left,” landing a show on MSNBC.

Rubio also addressed near-term politics of the leak, saying it was convenient for the opposition.

“There’s no doubt that Democrats don’t want this election to be about immigration, they don’t want it to be about crime, they don’t want it to be about inflation. They do not want it to be about these things that are impacting people every single day, because they’re doing a terrible job with all three of those. In fact, they’re going to get worse,” Rubio asserted.

Rubio’s comments don’t go as far as those of at least one prominent Florida Republican running for re-election this year. Earlier this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis notably called the leak a “judicial insurrection,” seemingly purposefully lifting the language of the left regarding the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots with that metaphor.

A copy of the draft is available here.