Alito, one of the Court’s conservative-leaning justices, was the subject of a letter last week as Democratic senators Dick Durbin (pictured below) (Illinois) and Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) sought to have him removed from upcoming cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021 demonstration at the U.S. Capitol.
The senators took issue with an inverted American flag flown outside the Alexandria, Virginia home of Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner Alito. They also claimed to be bothered by an “Appeal to Heaven” flag flown in the backyard of the couple’s New Jersey beach home in the summer of 2023.
According to the U.S. Flag Code, it is acceptable to fly the an inverted flag when one perceives a dangerous threat to life or property.
In more recent years, an inverted flag has been used as a symbol of political protest or dissent.
The historic “Appeal to Heaven” flag dates back to the Revolutionary War.
Reacting to the supposed controversy, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told the "Washington Watch" program the Far Left despises the American flag and probably hates a flag from the Revolutionary War, too.
"You’re not dealing with folks who think they’re going to be held to any standard," he said of Democrats. "It’s what they can get away with, and they have a media that helps, cultural institutions and political institutions that provide them cover."
‘Lord, help us against the Brits’
According to the North American Vexillological Association, the flag shows a green pine tree on a white background. It was intended to symbolize the strength and unity of the New England colonies with a prayer that God would assist them in their struggle against tyrannical British rule.
Six ships under Gen. George Washington’s forces flew the flag in 1775 as they confronted British ships.
Alito responded to Durbin and Whitehouse with his own letter. He refused to recuse himself, a decision that is his to make according to the Supreme Court’s code of conduct.
The code states a justice should recuse himself or herself when impartiality might be “reasonably” questioned.
Alito wrote he is sure that the senators’ concerns are unreasonable.
So is Fitton.
“It’s absurd," he complained. "They’re now literally trying to change the composition of the Supreme Court in key cases because a justice’s family flew a flag that some Leftist nut job doesn’t like? So good for Justice Alito for pushing back and defending not only his rights but his poor wife’s rights because they’re smearing his family as well."
U.S. flag flown over dispute with neighbors
Citing the letter Alito wrote, Fitton noted that the Justice wrote the inverted U.S. flag was flown at a time in which Martha-Ann Bomgardner Alito was “greatly distressed” over what Alito calls a “very nasty neighborhood dispute," a claim backed by a New York Times story about the dispute.
A homeowner on the same street had displayed a sign attacking Alito's wife personally, and the man living in the home at the time had confronted Mrs. Alito with a string of profanity, Samuel Alito wrote.
Alito asked his wife to take down the inverted flag, and she eventually did, though not promptly, Alito wrote.
Alito said he was not aware how long the “Appeal to Heaven” flag flew at the beach home. His wife is the sole owner of the beach home, Alito wrote.
“A reasonable person, who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations, or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases, would conclude that this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal. I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request,” Alito wrote.
After the Left suddenly decided the "Appeal to Heaven" flag was a bad symbol, the City of San Francisco removed the “Appeal to Heaven” flag over the weekend, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Democrats give themselves a pass
The Left stretches the definition of unreasonable and then uses it to suit its purposes, Fitton said of a political tactic.
There has been no uproar from Democrat senators over the fact that Judge Juan Merchan, presiding now in the New York trial against Donald Trump, is a known contributor to Democrat causes, Fitton pointed out.
“Judge Merchan, obviously, jails their political opponents so he gets a pass. Justice Alito, he’s going to rule the wrong way, Justice Thomas is going to rule the wrong way as far as the Left is concerned, so they’re going to be smeared, and they’re going to try to rig the Supreme Court by knocking them off cases or undermine the Supreme Court generally by false allegations of misconduct against conservative justices,” Fitton said.
Fitton said the Department of Health and Human Services recently flew a pro-transgender flag outside its offices, which are near the offices of Judicial Watch.
