Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito defended the high court from a “concerted effort to intimidate” the institution after he was asked about President Donald Trump and other groups calling out his fellow justices by name over some of their decisions and talk of reforming the court.
When asked specifically about Trump’s Truth Social post condemning several conservative justices for rejecting his push to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterms, Alito expressed his concerns about the “escalating” discourse from those in “important positions.”
“I put all of that out of my mind. I trust that my colleagues put all of that out of their minds, but I am concerned about the escalation in public rhetoric in general, and about the things that people in important positions say about the Supreme Court as a whole and about individual justices,” Alito said in a rare sit-down interview with Fox News. “I’m concerned about the long-term effect of that on the standing of the court.”
Although he didn’t mention them by name, Trump lambasted Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh for their decision to side with the majority of the court and block Trump’s new regulations for mail-in ballots. When asked specifically if he regretted nominating those three justices in a recent interview with Time Magazine, Trump said he did because they “voted against me too often.”
Trending
“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,” Trump wrote in a Sept. 15 Truth Social post.
Trump directly praised Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas for dissenting in the case, calling them “legends.”
Alito spoke about a broader effort to “intimidate” the court when asked about the push for adding term- or age-limits to the Supreme Court reforms, but said he does not discuss the potential reforms with his colleagues when they come up publicly.
“There has been a concerted effort to intimidate the court and justices on the court try to influence us to decide cases differently from the way in which we have been deciding them, and I am concerned about the future of the court,” Alito said.
Alito sat down with Fox News host Shannon Bream ahead of the release of his new book “So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country.” The pair discussed how Alito’s views as an originalist — which means he believes any issue before the court should be interpreted based on how it was understood at the time it was adopted — can reconcile with issues the Founding Fathers never imagined when writing the constitution, such as artificial intelligence or surveillance.
“Those are the most difficult cases,” Alito said. “But when you’re dealing with something like new technology, history cannot provide that kind of an answer, and so in those instances, the best we can do is to try to understand as clearly as we can the legal principle that is embodied in the Constitution, and then we have to apply that to this new technology and try to apply it in the way that makes the most sense.”
The justice has faced some pressure from Republicans to retire, as the party would be able to more easily push through a Supreme Court nomination while it has control of the Senate.
“I’ve been amused by the retirement speculation,” Alito said. “It’s not too pleasant to look up and see the vultures circling around your head. But the speculation is to be expected. It’s what goes with life tenure.”
Alito told CBS News in an interview this week that he thought about retiring at the end of the last term and will reconsider retirement each year.
The justice wrote the 2022 majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, and he has become one of the court’s staunchest conservatives after being nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005.
When asked about whether or not his Catholic faith opens him up for criticism on abortion-access decisions and other cultural issues, Alito responded by saying he is “not biased” and all decisions must be rooted in the law.
“I think we all, all judges, and certainly all justices, must decide cases that have implications for their personal beliefs.” Alito said. “They could be philosophical beliefs, political beliefs, economic beliefs, or religious beliefs, but we must make a very concerted effort not to base our decisions on our personal beliefs.”
Author
