Justice Alito Calls Out Empty Reporting From "Court Watcher" Joan Biskupic

Recently, Justice Alito sat down with Kyle Peterson of the Wall Street Journal for an extended chat about his new book. (The transcript is here.)

There is much to commend here, but I’d like to focus in particular about how Justice Alito responded to claims by Joan Biskupic of CNN.

Kyle asks:

Well, I don’t know how much coverage of the court you read, but you may not be surprised to learn that one light motif is that you are brooding figure. Um here’s a a passage from a book by Joan Biskupic of CNN: you wear a heavy cloak of grievance as if perpetually wronged, destined to be misunderstood.

Biskupic has made similar comments in the past. In December 2025, she published a column titled “Samuel Alito keeps getting his way. So why does he seem so unhappy?” Without any actual evidence beyond staring at the Justice in Court, Biskupic wrote:

Alito’s aggravation is regularly on display in the courtroom, too. . . .

In the courtroom, even the little things can visibly irk Alito. He often grimaces and rolls his eyes. . . .

Other justices laughed. They appear accustomed to his unguarded irritability.

At the time, I remarked how empty this commentary was:

The media does not fairly cover the conservative Supreme Court justices. But it is not enough to criticize their written opinions. Rather, pundits feel compelled to opine on how the Justices feel. Case in point is a recent headline from Joan Biskupic, titled “Samuel Alito keeps getting his way. So why does he seem so unhappy?” Does Biskupic have any evidence that Alito is unhappy? Did she talk to the Justice or his clerks? No, Biskupic apparently no longer has access to that sort of actual information. Instead, she based her conclusions on the Justice’s facial expression on the bench.

Now, Justice Alito has fired back:

I think that’s very unfair, and it is part of a process of caricaturing the justices with whom the people who are writing these things disagree. Nothing similar is written about some of my colleagues who have issued blistering dissents, blistering dissenting statements from the bench, made what can only be described as very angry comments during oral argument. None of that is written about any of them, but this is written about me. Now, what do court watchers, so to speak, see of me? They see me at oral argument, and that’s basically it. Oral argument to me is a serious business. It’s supposed to help us make good decisions. And so I challenged the lawyers. I argued a lot of cases. I expected to be challenged. I actually welcomed it because I thought that I could, by responding to the challenges, I could win over a justice or a judge who came into the argument perhaps disposed to rule against me. But I don’t treat oral argument like a moot court. I don’t treat it like show. I don’t play to the audience. I don’t try to get laughs. I don’t try to show how smart I am. It’s pretty businesslike, and perhaps that’s what they’re referring to.

Good for Alito. Watch this hour long interview, and others. You will not see some sort of brooding, grumpy old man. Alito is charming, funny, and engaging. He just doesn’t waste his time talking to elites who hate him.

Biskupic will never criticize the demeanor of Justice Ginsburg on the bench. Lord help us if someone writes that Justice Sotomayor looks “angry” or Justice Jackson looks “confused.” Only the conservative Justices get this sort of treatment.

The fact is that Joan Biskupic long ago stopped gaining useful information about the Court. Other Supreme Court reporters simply write about the questions and answers during oral argument. They perform a useful subject. But Joan wants to convey the impression that she still has useful things to say, so she reports on body language. I’ve seen her at work in the Court. She stares intently at the bench and takes careful notes. I think it’s best to just skip over her work.

On a related note, Justice Alito commented to NPR about Nina Totenberg’s failed report that he was retiring.

In the privacy of his chambers, how did Alito react to the inaccurate story, quickly retracted by National Public Radio?

“I was amused and puzzled,” Alito told USA TODAY in answers to written questions. “I wondered what had led to the erroneous report. And when the error was corrected, I wondered how many people were crest-fallen.”

Who was sad when the story was corrected? I suspect everyone on the left let out a high sigh of relief when NPR retracted, as the 76-year old would (likely) stay on the bench. Remember, Totenberg successfully spiked the nomination of Doug Ginsburg, nearly spiked the nomination of Clarence Thomas, and failed miserably in trying to spike the nomination of Neil Gorsuch. Their goal is to keep new conservative Justices off the bench.

Speaking of which, Jodi Kantor has come up pretty dry over the past year. She published some memos from ten years ago, which seems to be a fluke that some law clerk held onto things for that long. Her frolic and detour to the Chief’s summer home was pretty pathetic. Longtime readers may remember that I initially called for the Chief to resign back in 2020 after the torrent of leaks–not in response to any particular decision. But it seems that Roberts has locked things down. Maybe the NDAs are working? Maybe the liberal justices realize that leaks can get their colleagues assassinated? (Although Justice Alito insinuated that there was no urgency in the two months after the Dobbs opinion leaked.) Whatever happened, it is working. I think I can rescind my call on the Chief to step down.

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