Justice Samuel Alito told the Wall Street Journal on Friday that he intends to serve another term on the Supreme Court, shutting down months of speculation that he would step aside for a younger conservative successor.
Alito, 76, made the remarks in a rare summertime interview with the Journal’s James Taranto, published Friday. A retirement this year would have handed President Donald Trump a vacancy to fill with a like-minded jurist while Republicans control the Senate.
“Obviously I’m here for another term,” Alito told the newspaper.
Asked whether calls for him to retire bother him, Alito described them as unwelcome.
“It’s not pleasant, in the sense that it’s a reminder of mortality,” he said. “It’s like, what are those vultures doing up there? They are flying around. But it goes with life tenure.”
Alito rejected the notion that he would time his departure to benefit any president or party. He said he decides cases on the merits alone.
“I vote in every case the way I think the case should be decided,” Alito said. “If that means a high correlation with what Trump wants, fine. If it means zero correlation with what Trump wants, fine as well.”
The justice added that he no longer watches cable news and assumes some analysts view the court’s members as interchangeable parts.
“So yeah, 20-somethings, 30-somethings, particularly if they’re not lawyers, I’m sure that’s how they see the court,” he said.
Alito, an appointee of former President George W. Bush who joined the court in 2006, wrote the 2022 opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion. This term he authored rulings upholding several of the Trump administration’s immigration initiatives.
NPR erroneously reported on June 30 that Alito was retiring. Legal correspondent Nina Totenberg said she misheard an announcement about staff retirements, and the outlet pulled the pre-written story within minutes. Totenberg later apologized to Alito directly.
Trump told Breitbart News in a July Oval Office interview that he was “certainly prepared” for a possible vacancy but that “nobody” could truly replace Alito, whom he called “one of the greatest of all time.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said in April he would push Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) or Mike Lee (R-UT) as replacements if Alito retired. His committee was ‘fully prepared’ to process a nominee before the midterm elections, he said. Fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, 77, has drawn less retirement speculation despite being older.
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