Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recently said that an upside-down flag was briefly flown at his home.
Several Democratic officials suggested that there was a conflict of interest at play after Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito confirmed that an upside-down flag was briefly flown at his home.
During an interview with MSNBC, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that there is a “very clear conflict of interest” after Justice Alito told another news outlet that his wife flew the upside-down flag in response to a conflict with a neighbor.
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Justice Alito told The New York Times, which published the alleged photo of the flag that was flown outside his Virginia home on Jan. 17, 2021. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
In response, Mr. Raskin said that he thinks the justice knows that the upside down flag is a “political symbol” signaling “political distress.”
“What we need is to have, at the very least an ethics panel of Federal Circuit judges from around the country who we can bring complaints of bias in the event, in very likely event that Justice Alito does not decide to heed the calls to recuse himself from this case,” Mr. Raskin said during the MSNBC interview on Saturday.
“But it’s a very clear conflict of interest,” he insisted, without elaborating on why.
The U.S. Code states that the American flag “should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” The law does not contain any penalties for displaying a flag upside down.
Justice Alito, in comments to media outlets last week, did not say that the flag was flown upside down to signal any political distress.
Also Saturday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) claimed that after Justice Alito’s comment, “we need to enforce a code of ethics, and we need term limits on the Supreme Court.”
By Jack Phillips
