Justice Samuel Alito, one of the Supreme Court’s staunchest conservatives, does not plan to retire before the court finishes its upcoming session, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday.
“Obviously I’m here for another term,” Alito told James Taranto. He said that calls for him to step down are unpleasant because they’re “a reminder of mortality.”
“It’s like, what are those vultures doing up there? They are flying around,” Alito said. “But it goes with life tenure.”
His comments put to rest, for now, long-running questions about whether the 76-year-old jurist would step down to give President Donald Trump the opportunity to appoint an ideologically similar, yet younger, replacement while the Senate is controlled by Republicans.
The court’s upcoming session begins in early October and is expected to wrap up in late June.
