U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s defense for why an upside down American flag, associated with the January 6, 2021 insurrection and the “Stop the Steal” conspiracy, was flying outside his Virginia home quickly fell apart barely days after he shared it with Fox News, but that story has now further disintegrated after The New York Times published a report that includes interviews with neighbors and a review of text messages.
Critics responding to The Times’ report are now calling the 74-year old jurist’s credibility into question over the divergent details.
Two weeks ago The New York Times reported on Alito’s insurrectionist “upside down” American flag – one of two flags associated with the insurrection flown at Alito’s two homes. The Supreme Court justice then talked to Fox News host Shanon Bream, who reported, “he told me a neighbor on their street had a ‘F— Trump’ sign that was within 50 feet of where children await the school bus in Jan 21.”
“According to Justice Alito, things escalated and the neighbor put up a sign personally addressing Mrs. Alito and blaming her for the Jan 6th attacks,” Bream also stated, referring to Martha-Ann Alito.
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“Justice Alito says he and his wife were walking in the neighborhood and there were words between Mrs. Alito and a male at the home with the sign. Alito says the man engaged in vulgar language, ‘including the c-word’,” according to Bream. “Following that exchange, Mrs. Alito was distraught and hung the flag upside down ‘for a short time’.”
Some quickly pointed out that school bus children aspect didn’t hold water as it was during the COVID pandemic and schools in the Alitos” county had gone to virtual sessions.
Also, according to the New York Times report Tuesday evening, the argument was with Emily Baden, not her then-boyfriend and now-husband.
The couple had called Fairfax County police “after a series of encounters with Martha-Ann Alito,” The Times reported, “that had gone from uneasy to ugly.”
“‘Somebody in a position of authority needs to talk to her and make her stop,’ said the 36-year-old man making the complaint, according to a recording of the call reviewed by The New York Times. The officer on the line responded that there was little the police could do: Yelling was not a crime.”
Noting there are “some differences” between the Alitos’ story and the Badens’s, The Times importantly reports, “the justice told Fox News that his wife hoisted the flag in response to Ms. Baden’s vulgar insult. A text message and the police call — corroborated by Fairfax County authorities — indicate, however, that the name-calling took place on Feb. 15, weeks after the inverted flag was taken down.”
Also importantly, The Times reports, on the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated, “Mrs. Alito happened to be standing outside” the Alitos’ home.
“According to interviews with Ms. Baden and her husband, as well as messages they sent to friends at the time, Mrs. Alito ran toward their car and yelled something they did not understand. The couple continued driving, they said, and as they passed the Alito home again to exit the cul-de-sac, Mrs. Alito appeared to spit toward the vehicle.”
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The Washington Post last week reported Mrs. Alito shouted at neighbors.
“Martha-Ann Alito …got out of the car and shouted in apparent reference to the neighbors: ‘Ask them what they did!’ She said yard signs about the couple had been placed in the neighborhood. After getting back in the car, she exited again and then brought out from their residence a novelty flag, the type that would typically decorate a garden. She hoisted it up the flagpole. ‘There! Is that better?’ she yelled.”
The Times also reported, “on Feb. 15, the couple were pulling in trash bins when the Alitos, who seemed to be on a stroll, appeared. Mrs. Alito addressed the pair by name, used an expletive and called them ‘fascists,’ the couple told The Times and said in texts at the time. Justice Alito remained silent, they added. The Alitos began to walk away.”
“That was when Emily Baden snapped, she said. She does not remember her precise words, but recalls something like this: How dare you behave this way. You’ve been harassing us, over signs. You represent the highest court in the land. Shame on you.”
Some legal and political experts say Justice Alito’s tale exposes him as a “liar,” others call the Alitos “liars,” and some suggest the nation’s highest court’s impartiality is now in question.
Many responded to this excerpt, posted by the Times’ Jodi Kantor, who wrote Tuesday’s report.
The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, offered this sarcastic take: “I’m starting to think Justice and Mrs. Alito are not entirely trustworthy in their explanations.”
The Nation’s justice correspondent, Elie Mystal, wrote simply, “Oh look, the Alitos are also liars.”
“The entire Alito fiasco is so far from normal decorum-let alone judicial decorum or any ethical standard of objectivity or propriety,” observed Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund (LDF). “The legal community—esp the Supreme Court bar—should be actively outraged & demand action from Congress and the Chief Judge for sake of the Court.”
The Atlantic’s Norman Ornstein, an Emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), succinctly declared, “Liar. Sam Alito is an insurrectionist supporting liar.”
National security attorney Mark S. Zaid said, “Quite a different set of facts than we were first led to believe per Justice Alito,” and warned: “There are good reasons to be concerned about true legal impartiality of this Court.”
Former official in both the Obama and Biden White Houses, Jesse Lee, remarked: “The reason the conservative justices change their principles from case to case based on what serves Republican and corporate interests is that they have no integrity whatsoever. Remember ‘judicial restraint’? They are on a partisan rampage through a century of jurisprudence.”
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