Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's explanation for an upside-down U.S. flag flying at his Fairfax County, Virginia, home in January 2021 is the same now as it was then.
After The New York Times earlier this month inquired about the flag seen at his home more than three years earlier, Alito answered the newspaper via email.
"I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag," Alito told the Times. "It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs."
The Times' May 16 story about the flag resulted in some Democrats immediately calling for Alito to recuse himself from cases involving people who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Liberal U.S. House members accused the justice of attempting "to pass responsibility to your wife" for the flag flying upside down.
However, The Washington Post during the weekend reported one of its reporters confronted Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, in front of their home Jan. 20, 2021, the day of President Joe Biden's inauguration.
On that day, Justice Alito told the reporter the flag was "an international signal of distress" and indicated his wife had raised it in response to a neighborhood dispute.
"The Post decided not to report on the episode at the time because the flag-raising appeared to be the work of Martha-Ann Alito, rather than the justice, and connected to a dispute with her neighbors, a Post spokeswoman said," the Post reported Saturday. "It was not clear then that the argument was rooted in politics, the spokeswoman said."
The Times last week reported a second flag of a type carried by Capitol attackers Jan. 6 – an "Appeal to Heaven" flag – was displayed outside a beach vacation house owned by Alito.
The "Appeal to Heaven" flag dates back to the Revolutionary War.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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