(Washington) It is a flag deliberately raised upside down which aggravates the suspicions of bias of the American Supreme Court: this Trumpist symbol photographed in 2021 at the home of a judge embarrasses the institution at the time when it must rule on the criminal immunity invoked by the ex-president.
Several elected Democrats called on Friday this very conservative magistrate, Samuel Alito, to recuse himself from any case linked to the 2020 election or the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. They asked him in particular not to rule on criminal immunity invoked by Donald Trump in the federal proceedings against him for attempts to illegally reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The nine judges of the Supreme Court appeared in April to be impervious to arguments in favor of absolute criminal immunity for a former president, but the date as well as the wording of their decision could definitively compromise the holding of Donald Trump’s trial before the November election.
THE New York Times revealed Thursday evening that in January 2021, for several days before Democratic President Joe Biden took office, an upside-down American flag was raised in front of Samuel Alito’s house in suburban Washington.
Read the article from New York Times (in English)
This 74-year-old magistrate, considered the most right-wing of the high court, is particularly known for having written the resounding judgment in 2022 which removed federal protection of the right to abortion.
Originally a distress signal in the military, the upside-down American flag became a sign of political protest and at the time expressed support for outgoing Republican President Donald Trump’s claims that the election would have been his fault. “stolen”.
In an email response to the daily, Samuel Alito claims to have “not been in any way involved in the hoisting of the flag” at his home, referring to a “brief” initiative by his wife in reaction to an “insulting display in the garden of ‘a neighbour “.
“Ethical crisis”
Influential Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, head of the Judiciary Committee, said the upside-down flag “creates an appearance of bias.”
“The Court finds itself in an ethical crisis for which it is solely responsible and Justice Alito and his colleagues should do everything in their power to regain public trust,” he said in a statement.
“This type of behavior is sinking the Supreme Court”, with a conservative majority, another Democratic senator, Richard Blumenthal, also worried on the MSNBC channel.
“The credibility of the Court is collapsing,” he lamented, calling on the president of this court, John Roberts, to force Justice Alito and his colleague Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from cases concerning Donald Trump .
Clarence Thomas has so far ignored calls to recuse himself due to his wife’s involvement in the campaign to contest the results of the last presidential election.
PHOTO J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Justice Clarence Thomas
Popularity and confidence in the Supreme Court have sunk to unprecedented levels, notably due to the conservative majority’s overthrow of pillars of liberal American society in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly the federal right to abortion in June 2022. .
A poll released in February by Marquette Law School reported a 40% approval level for the court’s action, compared to 60% disapproval. Since the historic low of 38% in July 2022, favorable opinions have never risen above 47%, although they were in the majority until March 2022, according to this study.
Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were also vilified for the largesse they received from Republican billionaires, including in the form of trips or stays.
At a conference last week in Alabama (South), Clarence Thomas fought back against the “meanness” and “lies” of which his family was, according to him, the victim in the microcosm of Washington.
Under pressure, the Supreme Court adopted a code of conduct in November, failing to silence criticism due to the absence of any sanction or enforcement mechanism.