US Supreme Court’s Samuel Alito under fire over inverted American flag – a symbol linked to Donald Trump
- The justice faced calls to recuse himself from cases involving the ex-US president after a photo surfaced of the upside-down flag being flown outside his home
- Alito says it was his wife, not him, who had put up the flag, a symbol displayed by Trump supporters after the January 6 insurrection
A US Supreme Court justice faced calls on Friday to recuse himself from cases involving Donald Trump after an inverted American flag – a symbol of the former US president’s false election fraud claims – was flown outside his home.
A January 2021 photograph of the upside-down flag outside the Alexandria, Virginia house of arch-conservative Justice Samuel Alito was published by The New York Times on Thursday.
The report has intensified scrutiny of the conservative-dominated nation’s highest court as it prepares to rule on the scope of the former president’s immunity from prosecution.
In a statement to the newspaper, the 74-year-old Alito said he “had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag”, which was displayed in the weeks following the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
Alito, who was appointed by former Republican US president George W. Bush, said the flag was “briefly” flown by his wife “in response to a neighbour’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs”.
Another staunch conservative justice, Clarence Thomas, has also been the target of recusal demands because of his wife’s involvement with efforts to block Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
