Legal expert Alan Dershowitz on Newsmax on Saturday predicted his "friend," Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, would resign next August in time for the Biden administration and Democrat-majority Senate to bring a new liberal justice forward.
"Next August, he will retire," Dershowitz told "Saturday Report." "That will give the president the power to appoint somebody before there's a new Senate. So, everybody on the left will be happy, and Breyer will be able to say, 'I didn't give into pressure.' That's my prediction."
The calls for Breyer to retire might have backfired for now, Dershowitz told host Carl Higbie, because lifetime appointments for justices are constitutionally constructed to keep judges from being politically pressured to act in any way.
But, ultimately, Breyer will turn 84 next August, and he knows the law, the Court, and the political landscape, Dershowitz noted – with a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat majority – albeit slight 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebeaking vote.
"My prediction: One year from now, after next term, he will leave," Dershowitz said. "He might have left earlier if not for the pressures.
"He does not want to be perceived as giving in to pressures. So he's going to wait a year."
Take this week's U.S. Appeals Court ruling 2-1 that saw two conservative judges appointed by Republican President Donald Trump and George W. Bush decide a case declaring "reasonable" restrictions on gun ownership for adults 18 to 21 years of age unconstitutional.
The dissenting opinion was written by a liberal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama.
Dershowitz said the case is an example of how elected officials determine the balance of the judiciary.
"This Court is going to have a much more open-ended definition of a 'reasonable' – that is more permissive – of gun ownership than a more liberal Court would have, so it really it really depends who's on the Court," Dershowitz said.
"That's why it's so important who is the president and so important who appoints the justices and who are the senators.
"That's why there's so much effort to try to get my friend Steve Breyer to resign, so that he can be replaced by a younger liberal Democrat. There's a tremendous amount at stake: the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, and the Constitution in general."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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