Early Wednesday morning, police arrested a California man carrying a gun and a knife outside of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland.
“Authorities identified the man as Nicholas John Roske, 26, of Simi Valley, Calif., charging him with the attempted murder of a federal judge. The criminal complaint did not specifically name Kavanaugh. Efforts to immediately reach Roske’s family were unsuccessful. It is unclear whether he has an attorney,” The Washington Post reported. “Two U.S. deputy marshals spotted Roske get out of a cab in front of a justice’s Montgomery County home around 1:05 a.m. Wednesday, according to the criminal complaint detailing Roske’s alleged actions and motivations.”
According to The Washington Post, the complaint said that Roske “looked at the marshals and then walked down the street… Not long after, according to the complaint, the Montgomery County Emergency Communications Center received a call from Roske saying he was suicidal and came to kill a specific Supreme Court justice.”
People familiar with the investigation told the outlet that the man was taken into police custody after admitting that he wanted to kill Kavanaugh.
The incident comes shortly after a draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion intending to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to Politico.
In the draft, Justice Samuel Alito writes that “Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito added. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”
