Justice Alito’s Upside-down Flag Was An ‘Inexcusable Outrage’: Analyst

If Justice Samuel Alito knew that there was an upside-down flag hanging outside his home then that is an “inexcusable outrage,” an analyst has said.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Harry Litman, an attorney and law professor at University of California, Los Angeles, said the flag outside the Supreme Court Justice’s home endorsed “an Orwellian fiction” and criticized its presence.

A New York Times report published on Thursday showed the photo of the inverted flag, which was taken outside Alito’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, on January 17, 2021, three days before Joe Biden was inaugurated as president and after the Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s 2020 election win.

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.

In a statement to the Times, Alito, who was nominated by Republican president, George W. Bush, 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.”

Litmam wrote: “People are offended at the upside down flag at the Alito household b/c it takes sides in a burning social issue, as no judge ever should. In fact, it’s a lot worse. The flag signified “stop the steal.” But there never was a steal, period full stop. It’s an endorsement of an Orwellian fiction. It’s not like e.g. a pro-life banner.

“Now, if Justice Alito had no knowledge whatsoever that it was displayed at his home for apparently several days, that’s 1 thing, though odd. If he knew, however, (whether or not he did it), it’s an inexcusable outrage.”

Newsweek reached out to the Supreme Court via online form for comment last week.

Meanwhile, Justice Alito was also criticized by other attorneys and commentators.

Writing in her Civil Discourse blog, Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor, said Friday that under ethics rules, judges were not permitted to display political signs.

“Justice Alito seems to have forgotten, or perhaps he’s just flagrantly ignoring, the fundamental truth of this Republic, which is that judges are not meant to be above the law,” she wrote.

Some commentators have also called on Alito to recuse himself from Trump’s criminal immunity case, which is currently being considered by the Supreme Court. The case will decide whether Trump will have to face criminal trial for allegedly trying to interfere with the result of the 2020 presidential election.