Nicholas Roske, who planned an assassination attempt on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022, is now identifying as a transgender woman and using female pronouns, according to a recent report.
Mary Margaret Olohan, a White House correspondent for the Daily Wire, revealed in a post on X that “according to documents” obtained by the outlet, Roske, a biological male, “identifies as a transgender woman and was deeply mentally ill and suicidal.”
The Daily Wire reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was “recommending” that Roske, 29, who now uses the name Sophie, “be sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to kill” Kavanaugh:
The Department of Justice is recommending that the defendant, 29-year-old Nicholas Roske, be sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to kill the Supreme Court justice in 2022, according to a Friday filing outlining the case against Roske. Roske pled guilty to the attempt to kill a United States Supreme Court Justice in April 2025, three years after authorities arrested him in Kavanaugh’s neighborhood, carrying a bag full of weapons and burglary tools.
A filing from Roske’s defense attorneys shows that Roske now goes by “Sophie Roske” and that his legal team will refer to him using female pronouns. A footnote on the filing, obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire, explains that the defense will not use Roske’s legal name “out of respect” for the would-be assassin.
The outlet also reported that a “source familiar with the legal proceedings in the case” said that Roske had allegedly been “using female identities online before the attempted murder.”
The report from the Daily Wire comes after Roske plead guilty in April to “attempting to kill a U.S Supreme Court Justice.”
According to a press release from the Office of Public Affairs for the DOJ from April, as part of Roske’s guilty plea, Roske “admitted that on June 7, 2022, he flew from Los Angeles International Airport to Dulles International Airport with a firearm and ammunition in his checked baggage.” Afterwards, Roske “took a taxi from the airport to Montgomery County, Maryland, with the intent to “kill” Kavanaugh.
“This calculated attempt on the life of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice was a heinous attack on the Court itself,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement at the time.
Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large, Joel Pollak, reported in January, that Roske had told law enforcement officials that he had “been inspired by the leak of a draft opinion in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade.”
In June 2022, Roske was arrested “near” Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland.
