Mollie Hemingway’s new book, Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution, is released today by Basic Books. Three days earlier, on April 18, 2026, Fox News Digital published the passage that has since consumed Supreme Court commentary: an account of a closed-door confrontation between Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer during the Dobbs deliberations, in which Hemingway writes that Justice Kagan screamed at her colleague so loudly that the wall shook. For Second Amendment readers, the most important takeaway is not the abortion story itself — it is what Hemingway’s reporting, if accurate, suggests about how two Justices in the Court’s liberal bloc approached the deliberative process during a live security crisis.
What Hemingway Reports
According to Fox News Digital’s April 18, 2026 excerpt, the episode followed the May 2, 2022 Politico leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022) — the first leak of a draft majority opinion in the modern history of the Court. By that point, Hemingway writes, Justice Alito’s majority had been ready for months; only the dissents remained outstanding, and under the Court’s custom the final decision would not issue until all opinions were complete.
At a May 12, 2022 conference — a closed session attended only by the nine Justices — Hemingway reports that Justice Alito asked the dissenters to prioritize completing their dissents because the delay itself had become a security threat. As Hemingway describes the exchange, “Alito asked the dissenters to make the completion of their dissents their priority because delay of the decision was a security threat. Abortion supporters had an incentive to kill one or more of the justices in the majority to change the outcome. The dissenters demurred.” Justice Neil Gorsuch, according to the book, then pressed for a completion date. The dissenters declined to provide one.
Hemingway describes Justice Breyer as the member of the liberal bloc most receptive to the request — “fiercely liberal in his jurisprudence and in strong disagreement with the majority decision” but nevertheless “a gentleman and a friend to all on the court.” It is at this point that, according to Hemingway’s reporting, Justice Kagan “remonstrated with Breyer not to accommodate the majority, screaming so loudly, observers noted, that the ‘wall was shaking.’”
The Security Backdrop Was Not Hypothetical
The context in which Hemingway places this conference was not speculative. On May 11, 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the U.S. Marshals Service to assist in protecting the Justices; a week later, DOJ announced around-the-clock security at the homes of all nine. Organized protests appeared outside the private residences of Justices in the Dobbs majority. Hemingway reports that the Alitos were moved to a secure location. Justice Amy Coney Barrett has independently confirmed, in her 2025 memoir Listening to the Law and in public remarks in 2024, that she was sent home with a bulletproof vest during this period — a vest her thirteen-year-old son discovered.
On June 8, 2022, Nicholas John Roske was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, carrying a pistol, ammunition, a knife, zip ties, and burglary tools. Roske pleaded guilty on April 8, 2025, to attempted murder of a United States Supreme Court Justice under 18 U.S.C. § 351(c); on October 3, 2025, U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman of the District of Maryland sentenced him to 97 months — roughly eight years — in federal prison. The physical danger at issue in the May 12 conference was neither theatrical nor retrospective.
Methodology, Not Ideology
The disciplined takeaway from Hemingway’s reporting is not partisan outrage; it is that the book describes two distinct methodological postures inside the Court’s liberal bloc. Justice Breyer, as Hemingway presents him, was prepared to treat the institutional integrity of the Court and the physical safety of colleagues as matters independent of the outcome he preferred. According to Hemingway’s account, Justice Kagan was not — she treated the timing of the dissents as leverage bound up with the substantive result.
That distinction matters far beyond abortion. A Justice who reads coalition preservation as coextensive with result preservation will apply the same calculus to any closely divided case in which the majority’s position is ideologically disfavored. The Court’s Second Amendment docket is the textbook example: narrow conservative majorities on methodology under Bruen, politically charged state laws in the crosshairs, and a growing queue of petitions in which the timing and tone of dissents can shape public reaction and future coalitions.
Why This Matters for the Second Amendment Docket
Petitions the Court has before it or may consider for October Term 2026 include Duncan v. Bonta (California’s magazine ban, No. 25-198), Gator’s Custom Guns v. Washington (Washington’s magazine ban, No. 25-153), the AR-15 challenges in Barnett v. Raoul and ANJRPC v. Platkin, and several young-adult carry petitions. Justice Kagan’s record in the major Second Amendment cases decided since she joined the Court in 2010 — voting with the dissenters in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), and consistently against challengers in subsequent cert grants and denials — is a matter of public record. What Hemingway’s reporting adds, if accurate, is a window into how at least one member of the liberal bloc has reportedly approached the deliberative process itself when the stakes are high and the conservative majority is narrow.
Attribution Note
Hemingway states that the book is based on interviews with the Justices and dozens of others. As with any insider account of a closed institution, its most sensitive claims — including the description of Justice Kagan’s conduct at the May 12 conference — await corroboration from additional sources. The Fox News Digital excerpt of April 18, 2026, by reporter Ashley Oliver, is the primary publicly available source for the passages summarized here; the book is published today by Basic Books.
This article is based on analysis by Mark W. Smith on The Four Boxes Diner. Watch the original video. This does not constitute legal advice.