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Justice Samuel Alito shut down any notion he’s planning to imminently retire from the Supreme Court in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday.
It marks the justice’s first known comments on his future plans since NPR erroneously reported that the conservative jurist had announced his retirement on the final opinion day of the court’s term.
“Obviously I’m here for another term,” Alito told the Journal’s opinion section.
Alito has never publicly suggested he intends to retire, but NPR’s report came amid speculation that he may step aside so President Trump could nominate a replacement while Republicans hold a majority in the Senate.
At 76, Alito is the court’s second-oldest justice, behind Justice Clarence Thomas, 78. But both are still younger than the most recent justices who’ve retired.
Alito’s interview lands as the justice gears up to publish his first, full-length book in October as the court kicks off its next term.
“It’s not pleasant, in the sense that it’s a reminder of mortality,” Alito said in the interview, in reference to the retirement rumors. “It’s like, what are those vultures doing up there? They are flying around. But it goes with life tenure.”
The justice also pushed back on critics who’ve taken aim at him for dissenting in favor of Trump in recent major decisions on tariffs, birthright citizenship and the firing of a Federal Reserve governor.
“I vote in every case the way I think the case should be decided. If that means a high correlation with what Trump wants, fine. If it means zero correlation with what Trump wants, fine as well,” Alito told the Journal.
The justice said he wouldn’t decide a cases the other way simply so people would call him objective. He called that “absolutely wrong.”
“There have been people who’ve recommended to me that I do that. I’m not going to do that,” he said in the interview.
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