Alito Warns Against Congressional Move to Defund Supreme Court

Justice Samuel Alito warned against any potential congressional move to defund the Supreme Court, according to a report by Zach Schonfeld in The Hill. Speaking to the Federalist Society on Thursday, Alito said Congress could "turn off the lights" at the Court and stop its activities if lawmakers chose to defund them, The Hill reported.

The Hill reported that the warning came as Alito defended the importance of an independent judiciary. The summary of the report does not include further quotations from that portion of his remarks, so the wording and emphasis of that defense cannot be drawn from the summary alone.

The summary is an excerpt and ends mid-sentence, so it does not reproduce the full speech. It does not identify any specific bill, appropriations measure, or proposal that prompted the warning, and it does not name any lawmaker who has called for defunding the Court.

The summary also reports no response from the Court, from members of Congress, or from the Federalist Society. Its account is limited to what Alito said at the event, together with the framing The Hill gave the remarks in its headline, which describes them as a warning about what Congress can do to the Court's operations.

Beyond Alito's remarks, the summary contains no further detail on any defunding effort. This account relies only on the summary, and readers who want Alito's full remarks or the complete reporting should consult the original article.

Sources: The Hill: Alito warns Congress can ‘turn off the lights’ at Supreme Court.