'There! Is that better?' Martha-Ann Alito reportedly had a meltdown when asked about flag

25 May 2024

New details have come to light about the wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and her alleged role in displaying a flag associated with the "Stop the Steal" movement outside of their Alexandria, Virginia home.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that in January of 2021, just two weeks after the deadly January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the same day as President Joe Biden's inauguration, retired reporter Robert Barnes had a confrontation with Martha-Ann Alito outside of the couple's mansion in northern Virginia. Barnes went to ask the Alitos, who did not attend Biden's inauguration, about a tip he received that the couple displayed an inverted American flag outside of their home.

However, when Barnes arrived at the Alito household, Martha-Ann reportedly emerged and told him to "get off my property." When Barnes told her he was hoping to learn more about the flying of the upside-down flag, she yelled back, "It’s an international signal of distress!"

At that point, Justice Alito came out of the house and ushered his wife into a car in the couple's driveway. The conservative jurist told Barnes that there was no political meaning to be interpreted from the flag, and that his wife chose to display it as part of a dispute with a neighbor. At that point, Martha-Ann Alito reportedly stepped out of the car and yelled, "ask them what they did," in reference to their neighbors.

The George W. Bush-appointed Supreme Court justice told the Post that his wife was upset about neighbors who put up signs with "objectionable and personally insulting language" around the area. In relaying Barnes' account of events, Post reporters Justin Jouvenal and Ann E. Marimow wrote that despite the justice's assurance to Barnes, Martha-Ann was still not done expressing herself to the journalist outside of her home.

"After getting back in the car, she exited again and then brought out from their residence a novelty flag, the type that would typically decorate a garden," they wrote. "She hoisted it up the flagpole. 'There! Is that better?' she yelled."

Retired former federal judge Nancy Gertner told the Post that while the spouses of Supreme Court justices are certainly entitled to have their own political views, putting them on display outside of any home shared with a judge or anywhere near the courtroom should be considered a grave breach of ethics.

"[The] notion that [Justice Alito] let it happen or didn’t pay attention is extraordinary," Gertner told the outlet. "He understood the context. They were having a political battle, and this was a political statement."

Gertner added that, if her husband displayed outwardly political symbols outside of their home while she was on the bench, "one of two things would have happened: A) a divorce and B) surely recusal."

Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), who chair the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, respectively, have called for Alito to recuse himself from all cases currently before the Court pertaining to the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 insurrection.

Click here to read the Post's report in full (subscription required).

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