Senate Judiciary chair seems 'almost allergic' to basic SCOTUS oversight: ex-GOP staffer

06 June 2024

Even a former Republican staffer is wondering why Senate Democrats aren't using the power of their majority to investigate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

On Wednesday night, Emily Baden — who lived down the street from Alito's Alexandria, Virginia home with her then-boyfriend (now husband) in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election — told CNN that she was confident the conservative jurist lied to Congress. Baden said that the timeline surrounding an insurrectionist flag on display outside of the Alito's home didn't jibe with the version of events he told members of Congress.

According to Alito, the inverted American flag (which insurrectionists were seen carrying on January 6) was displayed by his wife as part of a dispute with Baden and her boyfriend, who put up signs criticizing former President Donald Trump outside of their home in the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. But Baden said the spat she and her partner had with Alito's wife, Martha-Ann, happened weeks after the inverted American flag was on display just days before President Joe Biden's inauguration.

“That’s what I really want to drive home to people is that this happened on February 15th, and we know that because they had been harassing us so long that we were like ‘we need a paper trail of this, we need to call the cops right now,'” Baden said. “Like I said, these are federally protected people, they have security detail, they represent the judicial system, they are the law, and I am just a regular person.”

“Yeah, we called the cops that day, it was February 15th, and I think the photo of the flag was January 17th,” she added.

Following that news, Amanda Carpenter, who was a communications staffer and speechwriter for Sens. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) expressed her frustration with Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) for not conducting hearings and compelling Alito to testify before his committee. She told MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace that while the hearings may not bring about Democrats' desired outcome, it would showcase the need for major accountability reforms for Supreme Court justices that don't currently exist.

"Justice Alito, if he did lie to Congress, should not be able to get away with that so easily. There certainly should be some pushback," Carpenter said. "Like, I do not understand this. Senator Durbin seems to be almost allergic to the idea of conducting oversight over the Supreme Court. I don't know why."

"They have a right to ask questions. They have a right to ask for more information. When there is a clear timeline of events where Justice Alito was a witness to something that resulted in a police report, he has an obligation to give a real and true version of events in which he was involved," she continued. "I don't think that is a hard case to make."

Both Sens. Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) called on Alito to recuse himself from cases relating to January 6 and the 2020 election over the flag issue, and asked Chief Justice John Roberts to meet with them to discuss reining in both Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, who has also drawn criticism for arguably corrupt behavior. Not only did Alito rebuff calls for recusal, but Roberts declined to meet with the two senators. Carpenter said the next move should be to subpoena Alito, and call his bluff if he still doesn't want to come before Congress.

"If [Alito] doesn't want to answer questions, great! All the more reason to make momentum for real Supreme Court reform with teeth on it later," Carpenter said. "But you have to lay that groundwork to show there's a need for it, to show how resistant they are to the norms they profess to uphold."

Watch the video of Carpenter's comments below, or by clicking this link.

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