Dershowitz Slams ‘Radical Left’ Pushing Justice Breyer to Retire — ‘It Will Backfire’

Sunday on New York City WABC 770 AM radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz called on members of the “radical left” to stop pressing Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to retire.

Dershowitz told host John Catsimatidis that forcing Breyer to retire “will backfire” on them because Breyer does not want to “be perceived as having given in to the pressure.”

“He’s a great, great man,” Dershowitz said of Breyer. “And there are those on the radical left, including some academics, who are trying to force him off the court. They’re saying to him, ‘Look, quit, quit — even though you’re healthy and well and your appointment is for life because we want to make sure that President Biden gets to appoint your successor while there is still a majority of Democrats in the United States Senate. They want to make the Supreme Court a kind of political institution which is loaded with people of their political stripe rather than allowing the natural phenomenon to occur. Justices should sit as long as they are healthy. Oliver Wendell Holmes sat until he was over 90. [Louis] Brandeis sat until he was in his 80s. Some of our greatest decisions were written by octogenarians. And I don’t like the fact that there are people who want to pressure Justice Breyer to leave the court and make it even more political than it now is.”

“It will backfire,” he emphasized. “Even if Steve wanted to leave the Supreme Court this term, he’s not going to want to be perceived as having given in to pressure. I know him. He’s not the kind of guy who’s going to say, ‘I’m going to leave office as a result of pressure from some academics who want me to leave in order to serve their own political interests.’ So, A – It’s going to backfire. B – It’s age discrimination. C – It politicizes the Supreme Court. And it tells us what’s wrong with the hard left today. They see everything politically.”

Dershowitz added, “I hope Justice Breyer will resist it and will stay on the Supreme Court as long as his health permits him to stay on the Supreme Court.”

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