Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday rejected a request by Democratic lawmakers to recuse himself from a major case related to former President Donald Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol after reports that flags linked to Trump supporters had been flown on property he owns.
In two letters to lawmakers, Alito said he had “nothing to do with” an upside-down U.S. flag being displayed at his Virginia home just days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Alito also said he had “no involvement whatsoever” in the display of a flag bearing the “Appeal to Heaven” symbol in the backyard of his vacation home in the summer of 2023.
Rather, he said in the letter that his wife was “fully responsible” for erecting the flagpole and flying the “various flags” “over the years.”
“My wife likes to fly the flag. I don’t,” Alito wrote.
The response means conservative justices remain involved as the court considers Trump’s claim of immunity in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Trump has argued that he enjoys broad presidential immunity for acts he performed as president, even after leaving office.
The Supreme Court’s decision on the case is pending, which could determine whether Smith’s lawsuit against the former president is further delayed or effectively ended. The Supreme Court is next scheduled to announce its decision on Thursday morning, but may not rule on Trump’s lawsuit until later.
The New York Times reported in early May: upside down american flag A “Biden flag,” a symbol used by supporters of Trump’s false claims that Biden’s victory in the 2020 election was fraudulent, was raised on Jan. 17, 2021, in Alexandria, Virginia, the hometown of Supreme Court Justice and his wife, Martha Ann Alito.
Shortly thereafter, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called on Judge Alito to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and the Capitol attack, including President Trump’s immunity lawsuit.
“Displaying an upside-down American flag, a symbol of the so-called ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, clearly creates the appearance of bigotry,” Durbin wrote.
The senator last week Alito to resignAfter the Times reported Appeal to the Heavens The flag is scheduled to be raised at the Alito family summer home on Long Beach Island in New Jersey in July and September 2023.
Both flags were flown by rioters during the January 6th riot at the Capitol.
Justice Alito wrote in his letter Wednesday that the wife’s reasons for flying the U.S. flag upside down were “irrelevant to the present purpose.”
However, he noted that she was “very distressed at the time, mainly due to a very nasty neighbourhood dispute in which I had no involvement whatsoever.”
Alito said a sign “personally attacking her” was posted at a home on her street and that the male occupant of the home “chased her out to the street” and berated her with foul language, including “the most vile insults that can be hurled at a woman.”
Martha Ann Alito is “a citizen making her own decisions,” Alito wrote, adding that as a result of Alito’s service on the Supreme Court, he has had to endure “many loud, lewd and personally insulting protests outside his home.”
Those protests “continue to this day and now threaten to intensify,” he wrote.
One of Alito’s letters was addressed to Senators Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse. The other was sent to a group of 50 House members, most of whom wrote: Conflict of interest“We ask Justice Alito to recuse himself from the Trump immunity lawsuit and other cases.”
As for the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, Alito said he remembers his wife flying it “for a while” but wasn’t familiar with it while it was flying.
“I assumed she might have said it dates back to the American Revolutionary War and that she was holding it up to express a patriotic and religious message,” he wrote.
“I was unaware of the association between that historic flag and the Stop the Steal Movement, and neither was my wife,” Alito wrote.
But he argued that “she did not fly the flag in order to associate herself with that organization or any other organization, and the fact that a new organization uses an old, historic flag does not necessarily erase all of the flag’s other meanings.”
Trump, who is awaiting a ruling in his hush money criminal trial in Manhattan Supreme Court, praised Alito for refusing to recuse himself from the case.
“I congratulate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for demonstrating his intelligence, courage and ‘grit’ in refusing to back away from any decision regarding January 6th.” Trump wrote in the post: upon The truth of society.
