Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has offered multiple accounts of how politically charged flags came to fly in front of his homes in Virginia and New Jersey, the kind of display that is usually out of reach of judges, who They must remain impartial and avoid even the appearance of bias in handling cases.
From the public unveiling of the flags engulfed the nation’s highest court in criticism last month and sparked calls for Alito’s recusal in certain cases, the judge He has said that it was his wife who raised the banners, not him, and that she raised one of them after a neighborhood dispute. But the successive explanations of him… in a statement, an interview with KeynoteUSA and letters to Congress: They have raised additional questions and, in some cases, conflicted with known facts.
Alito has yet to fully explain some key aspects of the controversy: How long was an upside-down American flag flying at the Alitos’ Virginia home? Where did they get the “Appeal to Heaven” flag that flew at his beach house in New Jersey? And more.
Here are the main discrepancies in what Alito says and what he hasn’t fully answered yet. Neither he nor His wife, Martha-Ann Alito, responded to a request for comment.
Alito has consistently cited the dispute between Martha-Ann Alito and a neighbor as a backdrop for his wife to raise the issue. Upside-down American flag at his Fairfax County, Virginia, home in the weeks following the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol. But his description of the episode is contradicted in important points by police records, descriptions of the events by the neighbors and other facts.
Alito told KeynoteUSA reporter Shannon Bream that the neighborhood dispute began when his wife went to talk to their neighbor, Emily Baden, in January 2021. Martha-Ann Alito was upset because the woman was holding up an anti-Trump sign. , with an insult, “within 50 feet of where the kids wait for the school bus,” as Bream said on X, formerly Twitter.
But Fairfax County schools were closed at the time due to the coronavirus pandemic and had been since March 2020. All but a small handful of students were learning virtually. Students did not return to the classroom until February 16, 2021, after the flag episode occurred.
Besides, Baden and her mother said in interviews that the school bus stop near their home was moved before the dispute began and confirmed that no students were taking the bus at the time.
Baden told The Washington Post that the dispute began shortly after Christmas 2020, when Martha-Ann Alito stopped by his house to thank him for removing an anti-Trump sign that contained a slur: What the judge’s wife said It was offensive.
Baden said he told Alito that the sign would remain on display and that it had not been removed, just blown up. He also said Alito never mentioned the school bus stop. The conflict soon escalated.
Judge Alito has portrayed Baden and her then-boyfriend as the aggressors in the dispute, writing in letters to Congress that his neighbors had displayed a sign “attacking” his wife “personally.” But photographs provided by Baden and interviews with a neighbor indicate that the signs made no explicit mention of Martha-Ann Alito.
One featured the off-color Trump reference on one side and the phrase “Goodbye Don” on the other. A second said “Trump is a fascist,” while a third said “You are complicit.”
The Alitos may have thought the latest sign was about them, but Baden said it was directed at Republicans who they believed were complicit in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A neighbor who saw the signs at Baden’s house confirmed that none of them made a direct reference to the Alitos.
In his account, Baden said that it was Martha-Ann Alito who confronted them on several occasions. After the initial encounter, Baden said Martha-Ann Alito glared at them from her car on Jan. 7, 2021, and ran down the driveway and spit at Baden’s vehicle on another occasion.
Judge Alito told Bream that a key moment in the dispute occurred when he and his wife were walking through the neighborhood sometime after the initial conversation. A man argued with Martha-Ann Alito and called her a vulgar epithet for part of a woman’s anatomy. according to justice. In his letters to Congress, Alito also said the man followed them down the street.
But Baden said that while that confrontation with the Alitos involved both her and her then-boyfriend, it was actually her. WHO He uttered the epithet, a story confirmed by a neighbor who heard it. Baden said he didn’t remember if she and her boyfriend followed the Alitos down the street.
Justice Alito told Bream that after the exchange his wife was “distraught” and raised the flag upside down.
But a photograph obtained by the New York Times showed the flag flying on January 17, 2021.
The profane encounter between Martha-Ann Alito, Baden and her then-boyfriend occurred about a month after the flag was raised upside down, according to a phone call the boyfriend made to police that day. A Fairfax County, Virginia, the government spokesperson confirmed that The call was made on February 15, 2021.
Why did they fly the inverted flag and the “Call to Heaven” flag?
The most fundamental question about the inverted American flag has yet to be fully answered: Martha-Ann Alito’s motivation for flying it.
Many liberals have said that the raising of the flag in the weeks after the January 6th 2021, the attack on the US Capitol suggests sympathy for the “Stop the Steal” movement or solidarity with the pro-Trump rioters who believed the 2020 election was stolen and had adopted the symbol at that time.
They have asked Judge Alito to recuse himself from a pair of high-profile cases involving efforts to block election results. Arguing for the flag indicates political bias or creates the perception that Alito is not impartial. Alito has refused.
The Alitos have not explicitly addressed whether The inverted flag had a connection to January 6, or “Stop the Steal,” and Justice Alito’s comments about his wife’s motivation for flying it have changed.
- In comments to a Post reporter outside his home in 2021, Alito said his wife raised the flag in response to the neighborhood dispute and that it was not political. Martha-Ann Alito, in her only known public comments about the flag, he shouted at the journalist: “It’s an international signal of distress!” The inverted flag has a long history as a sign of distress in the military and has been used by protesters of all political stripes at various times.
- Alito repeated his claim that a neighborhood dispute caused the flag to fly in a statement to the New York Times, which first reported on the flag controversy last month. Justice then he told KeynoteUSA reporter Shannon Bream The dispute began when his wife confronted a neighbor over an anti-Trump sign that contained a slur, indicating the argument likely had a political dimension.
- In letters Alito sent to Congress saying he would not recuse himself from the January 6 cases, However, the judge’s explanation changed subtly. He said his wife flew the flag at a time of “great distress” over the neighborhood dispute, but also indicated that may not have been her only motivation, writing: “my wife’s reasons for flying the flag are not relevant to the current purposes.
The letters include a much more specific explanation of why Martha-Ann Alito flew the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at the couple’s vacation home on the New Jersey shore last summer. That flag has its origins in the American Revolution, but has recently been adopted by some Christian nationalists and was carried by some January 6 rioters.
Alito said he “assumed” his wife was flying it for religious and patriotic reasons. He definitively said that neither he nor his wife knew the flag was associated with “Stop the Steal” and he did not fly it in solidarity with that movement.
Alito did not issue a similar denial regarding the inverted flag that flew at his Virginia home.
How long was the flag flying upside down?
A handful of neighbors who saw the inverted flag at the Alitos residence said in interviews that they couldn’t remember exactly when they first saw it, but they placed it in the second half of January 2021, which coincides with the date of January 17. January of the photo obtained by the Times.
Alito said in an initial comment to the Times that the inverted flag flew “briefly.” alito he later told Bream He flew for “a short time.” In his most recent account in letters to members of Congress, Alito said he asked his wife to remove the flag as soon as he saw it, but she refused for “several days.” Alito did not detail exactly when he saw the flag being raised.
Some residents of the Alitos said they remembered seeing the flag flying for between two and five days.
As for Baden, he said he never saw the flag at the Alitos’ house.
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