Trump calls for jailing of Roe v Wade ‘leaker’ and reporters who published draft opinion

Ex-president suggests threatening publishers with prison rape as a form of punishment during Texas rally

Donald Trump suggested that a person who leaked a draft of a US Supreme Court opinion to overturn Roe v Wade, as well as the journalists who published it, should be imprisoned, despite not breaking any laws.

The former president suggested that publishers should be threatened with the possibility of being raped in prison in an effort to draw out the “leaker” for a violation that does not exist.

“You take the writer and or the publisher of the paper … You say, ‘Who is the leaker?’ National security,” Mr Trump said in rambling remarks at a rally in Robstown, Texas on 22 October.

“They say, ‘We’re not going to tell you.’ ‘You’re going to jail.’ And when this person realizes that he is going to be the bride of a prisoner very shortly, he will say, ‘I very much would like to tell you exactly who that leaker is,’” he added.

A draft of the opinion authored by conservative US Justice Samuel Alito was published in Politico in May, several weeks before the court issued the landmark opinion in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down a half century of constitutional protections for abortion care.

The ruling revoked a constitutional right to abortion care, allowing states to enact severe restrictions on care or outlaw abortion altogether, triggering a wave of protests and litigation across the US. More than a dozen states have since effectively outlawed most abortions.

An ongoing internal investigation at the court seeks to identify who or what was responsible for the opinion’s “leak”.

Chief Justice John Roberts has called the leak “absolutely appalling” and a “singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.”

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan condemned it as a “horrible” and “terrible” and “obvious, blatant violation of the court’s rules,” while conservative Justice Clarence Thomas likened it to an “infidelity” that has changed the court “fundamentally”.

Mr Trump’s threats to protected First Amendment activities include repeatedly suggesting jailtime for journalists and characterising them as “enemies of the people.” Following the Dobbs leak, he has insisted that the court find the “leaker” and punish them.

“This is a tremendously serious matter that has never happened, to anywhere near this extent, before,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform in June.

“The Court will be compromised and demeaned until this very big problem is solved,” he added.

The Independent has requested comment from Politico.