But Crawford\u2019s piece also notes that Alito\u2019s plans were first reported by Fox News<\/a>, and if you go back and read what Fox\u2019s sources actually said, it\u2019s worth pausing on the phrasing for a moment. The original Fox quote: Alito \u201cis not stepping down this term and is in the process of hiring the rest of his clerks for the next term.\u201d<\/p>\n Did you catch it? \u201cNot stepping down this<\/em> term.\u201d This term \u2014 the one currently in progress, the one that ends in June. The one that, as far as anyone could tell, nobody thought he was going to step down in the middle of. The retirement speculation we\u2019ve been covering here at Above the Law for months<\/a> has always been about whether Alito would announce before the next<\/em> term begins \u2014 the term that starts in October, coincidentally the day after his book is set to drop. Crawford\u2019s reporting, to her credit, goes further and addresses the whole year, not just the current term.<\/p>\n As for the clerk-hiring detail the Fox report offered up as supporting evidence, well, that\u2019s a bit less dispositive than it might sound. Hiring clerks for next term does not foreclose retirement. Retired justices are entitled to a clerk of their own, and the others typically get absorbed by active justices or whoever fills the vacancy. It\u2019s worth remembering that Justice Kennedy had already hired his four clerks for the following term when he announced his retirement in 2018. As we covered at the time, those clerks were far from abandoned<\/a> \u2014 they still ended up clerking for the Court. Hell, clerking for a retired justice, being shared among active ones, is an established practice<\/a> with its own body of literature at this point.<\/p>\n So, while there is certainly more information about Alito\u2019s potential retirement out there, whether it fully puts the speculation to rest is another question. Prediction markets still have him above 50 percent to step down before year\u2019s end, and the underlying logic Elie Mystal laid out in The Nation<\/em><\/a> \u2014 the midterm headwinds, the book tour timing, the political window closing \u2014 hasn\u2019t changed. <\/p>\n The post The Alito Retirement Denial Has Been Upgraded<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Alito retirement watch has some new data points this weekend, and they\u2019re worth parsing carefully, because not all of them are saying quite the same thing.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with the most substantial: CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who has deep sourcing at the Supreme Court, is reporting <\/a>that sources close to Justice Samuel Alito confirm that he is not planning to retire this year. That\u2019s a more definitive statement than what kicked off this news cycle, and it\u2019s coming from a reporter whose SCOTUS sources are not to be dismissed. Crawford also adds that sources close to Justice Clarence Thomas tell CBS News that he does not plan to step down either, which fair enough, Thomas\u2019s age always made him subject to the retirement speculation, but there wasn\u2019t much behind it. <\/p>\n But Crawford\u2019s piece also notes that Alito\u2019s plans were first reported by Fox News<\/a>, and if you go back and read what Fox\u2019s sources actually said, it\u2019s worth pausing on the phrasing for a moment. The original Fox quote: Alito \u201cis not stepping down this term and is in the process of hiring the rest of his clerks for the next term.\u201d<\/p>\n Did you catch it? \u201cNot stepping down this<\/em> term.\u201d This term \u2014 the one currently in progress, the one that ends in June. The one that, as far as anyone could tell, nobody thought he was going to step down in the middle of. The retirement speculation we\u2019ve been covering here at Above the Law for months<\/a> has always been about whether Alito would announce before the next<\/em> term begins \u2014 the term that starts in October, coincidentally the day after his book is set to drop. Crawford\u2019s reporting, to her credit, goes further and addresses the whole year, not just the current term.<\/p>\n As for the clerk-hiring detail the Fox report offered up as supporting evidence, well, that\u2019s a bit less dispositive than it might sound. Hiring clerks for next term does not foreclose retirement. Retired justices are entitled to a clerk of their own, and the others typically get absorbed by active justices or whoever fills the vacancy. It\u2019s worth remembering that Justice Kennedy had already hired his four clerks for the following term when he announced his retirement in 2018. As we covered at the time, those clerks were far from abandoned<\/a> \u2014 they still ended up clerking for the Court. Hell, clerking for a retired justice, being shared among active ones, is an established practice<\/a> with its own body of literature at this point.<\/p>\n So, while there is certainly more information about Alito\u2019s potential retirement out there, whether it fully puts the speculation to rest is another question. Prediction markets still have him above 50 percent to step down before year\u2019s end, and the underlying logic Elie Mystal laid out in The Nation<\/em><\/a> \u2014 the midterm headwinds, the book tour timing, the political window closing \u2014 hasn\u2019t changed. <\/p>\n The Alito retirement watch has some new data points this weekend, and they\u2019re worth parsing carefully, because not all of them are saying quite the same thing. Let\u2019s start with the most substantial: CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who has deep sourcing at the Supreme Court, is reporting that sources close to Justice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-hDHcFt.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1163818437-300x200.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
\nKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @[email\u00a0protected].<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"