Four of the nine Supreme Court justices are slated to attend the State of the Union address, including Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over President Trump’s impeachment trial.
The decision for Roberts, 65, to watch Trump’s speech bucks the most recent precedent for presidential impeachment trials. Chief Justice William Rehnquist did not appear at President Bill Clinton’s State of the Union address in 1999 while he was presiding over his trial.
Despite not appearing for Clinton’s address, Rehnquist, who died in 2005, was not always in attendance at other State of the Union addresses, according to NBC News.
The other three who will attend Tuesday’s speech are Justices Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. The group of four is the same who attended Trump’s address last year.
Kagan, 59, was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010 and has attended every State of the Union address since. Both Gorsuch, 52, and Kavanagh, 54, were appointed by Trump in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Justice Clarence Thomas, 71, has rarely attended the annual joint session of Congress, and Justice Stephen Breyer, 81, can’t make the event because he is traveling and suffering from the flu. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 65, has attended the speeches sporadically.
Justice Samuel Alito, 69, stopped attending the event a decade ago when he was caught mouthing the words “not true” after Obama criticized a Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 86, has never attended a State of the Union address delivered by a Republican president.
