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WASHINGTON – Justice Samuel Alito is rejecting calls to recuse himself from Supreme Court cases involving former President Donald Trump and the Jan. 6 defendants over controversial flags flying over his homes.
In letters to members of Congress on Wednesday, Alito said his wife was accountable for an upside-down flag flying over his house in 2021 and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag flying over his New Jersey beach house last 12 months.
None of the incidents justified his rejection, he wrote.
“I am therefore obliged to deny your motion to dismiss,” he wrote.
The court is considering two necessary cases related to the attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. These include the costs against the rioters and the query of whether Trump enjoys immunity from prosecution on charges of election interference.
Alito has previously rejected calls from Democrats to abstain on other issues.
The New York Times reported that an upside-down American flag was seen outside Alito's home in Alexandria, Virginia, lower than two weeks after the Capitol attack. The newspaper also reported that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown outside the judge's New Jersey beach house last summer. Both flags were carried by rioters who violently stormed the Capitol in January 2021, echoing Trump's false claims of election fraud.
Alito said he didn’t know the upside-down flag was flying over his house until it was dropped at his attention. “As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but she refused for several days,” he wrote in nearly an identical letters to Democrats within the House and Senate.
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