NPR’s Nina Totenberg sent a letter this week apologizing to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. for wrongly reporting that he had announced his retirement.
Ms. Totenberg, who has covered the Supreme Court for nearly five decades, reported Tuesday — the final day of rulings on cases argued this term — that Justice Alito was departing after 20 years on the bench.
She quickly retracted the story.
“Dear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today’s error in reporting your retirement. It was entirely my fault,” she said in her letter, posted on social media.
“I rushed out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized that the usual rush of folks after a few minutes had not happened, I asked somebody what was going on inside, to which the answer was, ’retirement announcements.’ I didn’t hear the ’s’ on ’announcements,’ and I assumed something no reporter should ever do, that you were retiring. It was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism. I could go on, but I don’t know what else to say, except that I am so, so sorry.”
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Her reporting went online and on NPR’s air.
Ms. Totenberg was likely swept up in the usual guessing game that occurs at the end of each court sitting, when retirements are often announced.
Rumors that one of the court’s long-serving GOP appointees might call it quits have circulated through Washington for months.
Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, or more than enough to confirm a Trump pick. But that could change in 2027, based on November’s elections.
President Trump told Breitbart News on Wednesday that he is “certainly prepared” should an opening arise.
Justice Alito has his first book coming out in October: “So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country.”
As for retirement, it doesn’t seem so. It’s been reported that he hired law clerks for the upcoming term, which begins in October and runs through next summer.
