Robert Schenk wrote a letter to Chief Justice Roberts alleging that Alito tipped off a friend of his to the outcome of the case in advance, and she told him. A few days before the opinion came down, he told the CEO of Hobby Lobby.NYT has contemporaneous emails corroborating part of the story, but not all. Alito denies, of course - but the real meat of the article is about the network of access and influence that pro-life groups had with the conservative justices.
It is unclear if Mr. Schenck’s efforts [at gaining access and influence among conservative justices in general] had any impact on legal decisions, given that only Justices Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas proved amenable to the outreach, records show, and they were already inclined to overturn Roe v. Wade. That decision was only reversed this year after the addition of new conservative justices altered the court’s ideological makeup. But Mr. Schenck said his aim was not to change minds, but rather to stiffen the resolve of the court’s conservatives in taking uncompromising stances that could eventually lead to a reversal of Roe.
