This was a chillingly calculated attack.

The Brett Kavanaugh assassination plot was bad enough as it was originally revealed when the assassin (Nicholas Roske, a man identifying as a woman in court proceedings, a fact first reported in 2022) encountered law enforcement and turned himself in. The assassin has pleaded guilty and will soon be sentenced. A Justice Department sentencing memorandum filed on Friday, seeking a 30-year prison sentence, laid out more details, revealing the extent of the assassin’s advance planning:

A map saved in the defendant’s Google account contained location pins marking what the defendant believed to be the residential addresses of four sitting Supreme Court Justices. . . . [Defendant conducted] extensive research on guns and shooting, body armor, breaking and entering, and methods to be silent and avoid detection . . . Roske visited over 30 websites showing head and neck anatomy and graphics depicting knives in the neck . . . [Defendant] also closely researched various manner and means of homicide, including stabbing, strangulation, and killing a human being in a quiet manner.

This was a chillingly calculated attack, and it aimed to go beyond Kavanaugh, although the filing carefully avoids naming the other targets in the unsealed public portion of the filing:

In the spring of 2022, the defendant meticulously researched, planned, and attempted to assassinate at least one — but had a stated target of three — sitting judges of the United States Supreme Court. The defendant’s explicit objective was to single-handedly alter the Constitutional order for ideological ends. . . . The defendant’s own words show that the defendant was “shooting for 3” assassinations. . . . Roske conducted repeated research on the Supreme Court and targeted certain justices. In the month leading up to June 8, 2022, Roske searched “supreme court” and general searches about its cases approximately 12 times. . . . Roske researched the Associate Justice [Kavanaugh] extensively, searching approximately 27 times, including by name and the Associate Justice’s home address. . . Roske researched Justice 2 extensively, approximately 16 times, including Justice 2’s home address . . . Roske researched Justice 3 extensively, approximately 10 times, including Justice 3’s home address. . . . On May 28, 2022, Roske searched “justice home.” . . . On June 1, 2022, Roske searched Justice 4 extensively, approximately 9 times, including Justice 4’s home address…On that same day, June 1, 2022, Roske searched, “mark locations on google maps.” . . . Roske also searched, “has a supreme court justice ever been assassinated.” . . . Roske’s Google accounts also contained a saved map with a “modified date” of June 4, 2022, plotting the locations of the four justices’ homes that Roske had researched on a map.

The motive for the planned mass assassination is also very explicit — to stop the Court from overturning Roe v. Wade and replace Kavanaugh and other conservatives with liberal justices to be appointed by Joe Biden. Samples of the assassin’s text messages on Discord:

The filing notes that many of these text messages were sent between May 18 and May 27, and the plan escalated to its conclusion in early June. The trigger for the plot is also clear: “On May 2, 2022, a leaked draft majority opinion in a highly anticipated pending Supreme Court case about Roe v. Wade was published online. Within two days, Roske searched “roe v wade” online. . . . Over the next two weeks, Roske searched terms relating to combat and body armor approximately 28 times. . . . Within a month, Roske searched firearms-related terms over 90 times.” (The final Dobbs opinion was handed down June 24). As I wrote in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs leak, even before this assassination attempt, this is why the leak was so dangerous: “The leaker knows the risks, and knows the damage it would do to the institution. The leak instantly summoned up protests, some of which may descend on the justices’ homes. So long as the case remains undecided, the risk of an assassination attempt on one of the conservative justices is very real.”

Very real indeed.