President Trump asks Supreme Court to overturn E. Jean Carroll’s $5 million judgment
President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to throw out a jury’s findings in a civil lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing author E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s.
scripps news
WASHINGTON – Will President Donald Trump get a chance to nominate a fourth Supreme Court justice?
Speculation has begun to swirl, especially among liberal commentators, over Justice Samuel Alito’s possible retirement plans.
Alito, the second-longest serving justice and one of the most conservative, joined the high court 20 years ago.
“That’s usually a very good milestone toward retirement,” New York University law professor Melissa Murray said on the latest episode of the podcast “Strict Scrutiny,” which she co-hosts.
And if Mr. Alito wants to resign while Republicans control the Senate, he may not want to bet on this year’s midterm elections.
Republicans are expected to have a much easier time holding onto the Senate than the House, but defeat cannot be ruled out. If that happens, it will be difficult for President Trump to identify a successor.
Citric Scrutiny co-host Kate Shaw speculated that Alito could announce his resignation at the end of his term in the coming weeks, as Senate Republicans may not want to hold confirmation hearings in the fall of an election year.
Finally, Alito plans to publish his book in October, just as the court begins its new term.
Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University who writes about the court for Substack, said the publication date is “pretty important information because you can’t exactly go on a book tour during the first argument period of the semester.”
Books published in recent years by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett were published in September, giving the justices time to promote them before they begin their new terms.
But David Rutt, a court watcher and lawyer who writes about the law, has recently wondered whether the October publication date is a sign that Mr. Alito hasn’t changed his position.
“Book buyers are more interested in what the book is about. the current “In contrast to retired judges, justice must speak out,” Rutt wrote on Substack, adding, “I can see that Justice Alito does not want to resign until long after publication.”
And in a recent assessment of the likelihood of a Supreme Court vacancy, Washington consultant Bruce Melman noted that the average age of all justices who have resigned in recent years is 79 years old. (Alito will turn 76 in April.)
Melman also wrote that Alito is one of Trump’s most reliable votes on the court, along with Justice Clarence Thomas.
“While the president retains significant influence over Congressional Republicans, his ability to demand loyalty regarding future nominations may be diminishing,” Mellman told Substack.
But Mellman also pointed out that eight of the past 10 presidents have called the Supreme Court at least once during their first two years in office.
During President Trump’s first term, he nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in President Barack Obama’s final year. President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who will retire in 2018. She nominated Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020.
Since the 1950s, only three presidents have created more Supreme Court vacancies: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.
Alito’s resignation would give Trump the opportunity to appoint much younger justices who could help maintain the court’s conservative majority far into the future.
The only sitting justice to have served longer than Alito was Thomas, making him one of the longest serving justices in history. Mr. Thomas could set a record if he remains in office until May 2028, which is why some court watchers don’t expect him to step down now.
