One of the most conservative justices on the US Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, announced Wednesday that he would not recuse himself from cases involving former President Donald Trump, despite controversy over the display of flags at his home and at his second home.
In a letter dated May 23, two influential Democratic senators, Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse, urged the chief justice of the conservative majority, John Roberts, to get Justice Alito to recuse himself from these cases.
The display of symbols associated with Trumpism by this magistrate “creates an appearance of inappropriate behavior” as well as a “reasonable doubt as to his impartiality in certain cases” before the Court, they wrote.
In a letter published Wednesday, Judge Alito responded to them that the “two incidents” mentioned did not “meet the conditions required for a challenge”, and that he was therefore “obligated” to reject their request.
He once again assures that his wife was “solely responsible” for raising the controversial flags and calls for respect for her freedom of expression. The magistrate claims to have asked her to remove the flag from their home “but she refused for several days”.
On his Truth social network, Donald Trump praised the “intelligence, courage and guts” demonstrated by this decision by Justice Alito.
THE New York Times revealed on May 16 that in January 2021, for several days before the inauguration of Democratic President Joe Biden, an upside-down American flag was raised in front of Samuel Alito’s house in the suburbs of Washington.
Originally a distress signal in the military, flying an upside-down flag has become a sign of political protest. This symbol was taken up in 2021 by Trumpists to express support for the outgoing Republican president’s assertions that the last election was “stolen” from him.
Then on May 22, the newspaper reported on an “Appeal to Heaven” flag flying outside the couple’s vacation home in New Jersey. This standard dating from the War of Independence has recently become a symbol of support for Donald Trump as well as a symbol of Christian nationalism in the United States.
Justice Alito says neither he nor his wife knew of any connection between this flag and the contested results of the 2020 election.
“My wife likes to raise flags, unlike me,” he explains.
This controversy erupted at a time when a divided country awaits the Supreme Court’s decision on the criminal immunity invoked by the ex-president in order to obtain the annulment of the federal proceedings against him for attempts to illegally reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.