People close to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito tell The Wall Street Journal that the 74-year-old has no interest in retiring, throwing swamp water on right-wing hopes that Donald Trump will replace Alito with a younger judicial extremist.
“Despite what some people may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job from a political perspective,” one source told the paper, laughably. Considering how overt Alito’s partisanship has been the past few years, it’s worth taking this statement with a bolder of salt.
There has been speculation for months that a Trump presidency would replace both Alito and fellow Justice Clarence Thomas, who is 76 years old, since they are the court’s two oldest members.
But even if Alito has no current plans to step down, Trump will have at least two years of a Republican Senate, so the justice may end up changing his mind, especially if the 2026 midterm forecast looks bad for the GOP.
