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By Rachel Dobkin
Weekend Reporter
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Republicans have slammed conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito after a photo of an upside-down American flag outside of his house made headlines.
A New York Times report published on Thursday showed the photo of the inverted flag, which was recently obtained by the publication. The photo was taken outside Alito's home in Alexandria, Virginia, on January 17, 2021, three days before Joe Biden was inaugurated as president. After then-President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and claimed, without any evidence, that Biden's victory was a sham, many of Trump's supporters displayed an upside-down American flag as a sign of protest.
The photo was taken in the wake of the Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., to stop Congress from certifying Biden's 2020 election win after Trump claimed that the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud. While the inverted flag was up on Alito's property, the Supreme Court was still deciding whether to hear a case challenging the results of the 2020 election. The Court ended up not hearing the case, which Alito and Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative appointed by Trump, dissented from.
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In a statement to the Times, Alito blamed his wife for the inverted flag.
"I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag," Alito said in an email to the Times. "It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs."
Newsweek reached out to the Supreme Court via online form for comment.
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Republicans who have been critical of Trump voiced their outrage over the revelations of the Times' report.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, former White House director of strategic communications under Trump who testified against him to the January 6 House Select Committee, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: "US flag code states the American flag should not be flown upside down except as a symbol of dire national distress. That a SCOTUS Justice would allow this to be displayed at his home days before a peaceful, lawful transition of power is deeply disturbing."
In a follow-up post, Griffin who is currently a co-host on The View, wrote, "My conservative friends: imagine for a minute if Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor displayed an upside down flag at her residence when Trump won in 2016. There would outrage & calls for her resignation."
An upside-down flag has been used to protest the results of a U.S. election before. On January 20, 2001, a demonstrator was photographed waving an inverted flag in the streets of Washington, D.C., in protest of then-President-elect George W. Bush who was being sworn in that day after a contested election between him and former Vice President Al Gore.
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Meanwhile, Adam Kinzinger, a former GOP congressman from Illinois who was one of two Republicans to serve on the January 6 Committee, said on X that the inverted flag outside Alito's home is "a huge issue."
Olivia Troye, former Homeland Security and Counterterrorism adviser to ex-Vice President Mike Pence, posted: "Republican Supreme Court Justices Alito and [Clarence] Thomas: quick to deflect blame onto their wives for seditionist behavior. Alito having an upside down flag at his house in the aftermath of Jan 6 & the U.S. Capitol being attacked is despicable. One would think this would violate their code of ethics, but accountability seems to be in short supply at the highest court."
Clarence's wife Virginia "Ginni" Thomas also came under fire for her actions surrounding the Capitol Riot. In March 2022, Ginni, a conservative activist and Trump ally, made headlines for text messages between her and Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows. In the text message exchange, which was obtained by the January 6 Committee, Ginni Thomas told Meadows he should encourage Trump not to concede to Biden.
Ginni Thomas told the committee in September 2022 that her husband "was completely unaware" of her text message exchange with Meadows "until this Committee leaked them to the press."
Meanwhile, Jeff Timmer, senior adviser for The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Political Action Committee (PAC), called Alito "skeezy."
Norman Ornstein, a retired professor at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote on X, "Sam Alito is a partisan insurrectionist. He has no business being on the Supreme Court." To which Timmer responded: "Alito sounds kinda skeezy when you look at it this way."
Meanwhile, Dave Aronberg, the Democratic State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, told Newsweek via email on Thursday: "The Supreme Court continues to lose confidence among the American public, and this is another example why. Justice Alito and Justice Thomas can try to distance themselves from their wives for overtly political behavior and extremism, but the stain on them and the Court is not washing away."
Trump Supporter Mike Davis compared Alito to Slate Magazine's Mark Joseph Stern who often covers the Supreme Court, in an effort to shift the blame away from the conservative justice.
"FYI, Mark Joseph Stern is married to someone who up until recently served as a longtime press aide at the Supreme Court. Was Mark's spouse accountable for Mark's leftwing extremism? Does Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito own their spouses? Does Mark?"
Davis' remarks were in response to a post from Stern, in which he wrote: "Hoping this story leads to wider recognition that Martha-Ann Alito is every bit as much a fringe MAGA extremist as Ginni Thomas—but probably has more influence on her husband than Ginni does on Clarence."
Stern told Newsweek via email on Thursday: *"*Mike Davis has long had a disturbing fixation on my family. Whatever garbled comparison he seeks to draw here is merely another attempt to divert legitimate criticism away from corrupt public officials."
The Times report was released as a decision by the Supreme Court on Trump's immunity claim for his actions surrounding the Capitol riot is pending. In April, the Court heard arguments on a claim by Trump that he has immunity from prosecution because he was still in office during the riot.
Trump is facing four federal felony counts for his alleged actions surrounding the riot: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed that the case is politically motivated.
Update 5/17/24, 1:38 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Aronberg.
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