Justice Alito Confirms He Is Considering Retirement

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has confirmed that he is considering retirement, leaving open the possibility that he could leave after next year’s term and hand another nomination to President Donald Trump.

Alito said in excerpts of a CBS News interview released Friday that he thought about retiring this year and will do so again in 2027.

“It’s something that I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term,” the 76-year-old said in the interview scheduled to air Monday. “But I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place.”

Alito’s interview, the first in a number of expected appearances to coincide with the release of a book about his judicial philosophy, raises the possibility that Trump, whose judicial picks shifted the Supreme Court to the right, may get an opportunity to nominate a fourth justice.

The president, who expressed regret in a recent interview about several nominees who ruled against his administration on some issues, would have a harder time getting a fourth pick through the Senate if Democrats win control in the midterms.

Alito, in the CBS interview, pushed back on concerns that the timing of his retirement and his replacement could potentially unravel his work on the bench.

“It’s too hard to predict what the political situation will be and what any president might do with respect to a replacement,” he said.

Alito also defended his majority opinion in June 2022 that struck down Roe v. Wade and overturned the constitutional protections for abortion that had prevailed for decades. The decision closely matched one that had leaked a month earlier.

“We didn’t know it when we produced the draft that was leaked, but it required courage to go ahead with that because of the implications,” he said.

He said the decision resulted in the loss of old friendships.

“That’s something you have to live with,” he said, adding, “It’s part of the job that you’re going to displease people by making decisions on controversial matters, because one side or the other is going to really dislike you because of the decisions.”