'Watchdog Warns of Trump Plot to Push Alito, Thomas Off Supreme Court While GOP Still Controls Senate' [View all]

"Following a series of major US Supreme Court decisions, NPR retracted an erroneous report on Tuesday that conservative Justice Samuel Alito was planning to retire."

"But while that report turned out to be false, a progressive legal action group is warning that it pointed to something potentially very real: That President Donald Trump could try to push aging right-wing justices like 76-year-old Alito, as well as 78-year-old Justice Clarence Thomas, to retire early so he can replace them with young judges who can cement a right-wing majority for decades."

" 'NPR’s reporting that Justice Alito is retiring was early. But it wasn’t wrong,' said Josh Orton, the president of Demand Justice, and Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of Indivisible, in a statement on Wednesday. 'We know that Donald Trump will do whatever he can to hold onto power, and we are prepared for him trying to force Alito, Thomas, or both off the bench this year, while Republicans still control the Senate and can ram through a replacement.' "

"In April, the president told Fox Business interviewer Maria Bartiromo that he was 'prepared' to appoint as many as three justices before his term is up—perhaps alluding to the possibility that the liberal 72-year-old Justice Sonia Sotomayor could die before the next president is inaugurated or that the 71-year-old conservative Chief Justice John Roberts could retire."

Continued at link:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-force-justices-retirement