The Washington Post published previously unreported details about a flag associated with former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement that was flown outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s home in 2021.
On Saturday, the Post revealed it first spoke with Martha-Ann Alito, the justice’s wife, in January 2021. Alito told the Post the flag — an American flag flown upside down — was “an international signal of distress” that was present as part of a dispute with her neighbors.
That reporting corroborates a statement Justice Alito gave The New York Times, which released an investigation into the flag earlier this month.
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito said. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
According to The Washington Post, reporter Robert Barnes, now retired, first visited the Alitos’ home to report on the flag on Jan. 20, 2021 — President Joe Biden’s inauguration day. The Alitos, who did not attend the inauguration, ran into Barnes while exiting their home, and Martha-Ann Alito shouted that Barnes should “ask them [her neighbors] what they did!”
Cameron Barr, the former senior managing editor of the Post, told Semafor he decided not to run the story in 2021 “because it seemed like the story was about Martha-Ann Alito and not her husband.” The actions of the Supreme Court justices and their significant others have come under considerably more scrutiny in recent years after it was revealed Ginni Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally at the U.S. Capitol and made efforts to overturn Biden’s election win.
Following its investigation of the upside-down flag, the Times published a report on another flag embraced by far-right groups being flown outside the Alitos’ beach home in New Jersey. The “Appeal to Heaven” flag, linked to the Christian nationalist movement, flew outside the beach home in the summer of 2023.
Some Democrats have asked Chief Justice John Roberts to meet “as soon as possible” to discuss the flag controversy, arguing Alito should recuse himself from Supreme Court cases relating to the 2020 election.
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