After the 2020 presidential election, as some Trump supporters falsely claimed President Joe Biden had stolen the office, many of them displayed a surprising symbol outside their homes, on their cars and in online posts: an upside-down American flag.
One of the houses that flew an inverted flag at that time was the residence of the Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alitoin Alexandria, Virginia, according to photos and interviews with neighbors.
The inverted flag flew on January 17, 2021, the images showed. President Donald TrumpThe administration’s supporters, including some brandishing the same symbol, had rioted at the Capitol just over a week earlier. Biden’s inauguration was scheduled to take place in three days. Alarmed neighbors took photos, some of which were recently obtained by The New York Times. Word of the flag filtered back to the court, people who worked there said in interviews.
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While the flag was down, the court was still grappling with whether to hear a 2020 election case, with Alito on the losing side of that decision. In the coming weeks, the justices will rule on two climactic cases related to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, including whether Trump has immunity for his actions. Their decisions will determine how accountable he can be for his efforts to overturn the last presidential election and his chances for re-election in the upcoming elections.
“I was in no way involved in the flag raising,” Alito said in an emailed statement to the Times. “It was briefly posted by Ms. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of offensive and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
Judicial experts said in interviews that the flag was a clear violation of ethics rules, which seek to avoid even the appearance of bias, and could cast doubt on Alito’s impartiality in matters related to the election and the Capitol riot.
The mere impression of a political opinion can be a problem, the ethics experts said. “It could be his wife or someone else who lives in his house, but he shouldn’t have it in his yard as his message to the world,” said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia.
This is “the equivalent of putting a ‘Stop the Steal’ sign in your yard, which is a problem when you’re deciding election matters,” she said.
Interviews reveal that the judge’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, had argued with another nearby family over an anti-Trump sign on their lawn, but given the timing and starkness of the symbol, neighbors interpreted the opposite flag as a political statement by the couple.
The long-standing code of ethics for the lower courts, as well as the recent one adopted by the Supreme Court, emphasizes the need for judges to remain independent and avoid political statements or opinions on cases that might come before them.
“You always want to be proactive when it comes to the appearance of impartiality,” Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge and director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, said in an interview. “The best thing would be to make sure something like that isn’t in front of your house.”
The court has also repeatedly warned its own employees against public expressions of partisan views, according to guidelines distributed to staff and reviewed by the Times. Displaying signs or bumper stickers is not allowed, according to the court’s internal rules and a 2022 memo reiterating the ban on political activities.
When asked whether these rules also apply to judges, the court declined to respond.
It is unclear exactly how long the flag flew outside Alito’s home. In a Jan. 18, 2021, email reviewed by the Times, a neighbor wrote to a family member that the flag had been hanging upside down for several days at that time.
In recent years, the quiet sanctuary of his street, with residents who are Republicans and Democrats, has been tense with conflict, neighbors said. Around the 2020 election, a family in the neighborhood displayed an anti-Trump sign with an expletive. It apparently offended Martha-Ann Alito and led to an escalating clash between her and the family, according to interviews.
Some residents have also reined in the noise and intrusion of protesters, who showed up in front of the Alito residence in 2022 after the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to abortion. Other neighbors have joined the protesters, whose intention was “to bring the protest into their personal lives because the decisions affect our personal lives,” said Heather-Ann Irons, who took to the streets to protest.
The six neighbors who saw or knew about the flag requested anonymity because they said they did not want to add to the controversy in the street and feared reprisals. Last Saturday, May 11, protesters returned to the streets, waving their own flags (“Don’t Tread on My Uterus”) and using a bullhorn to blast expletives at Alito, who was giving a farewell speech in Ohio. Martha-Ann Alito appeared in a window and complained to Supreme Court security outside.
Turning the American flag upside down is a symbol of distress and distress, first used as a military SOS signal, historians said in interviews. In recent decades, it has been increasingly used as a political symbol of protest – a controversial symbol because the flag code and military tradition require that the most important symbol of the United States be treated with respect.
Over the years, inverted flags have been displayed by both the right and left in protest against a range of issues, including the Vietnam War, gun violence, the Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional right to abortion and, in particular, election results. In 2012, Tea Party supporters turned over flags at their homes to express their disgust at President Barack Obama’s re-election. Four years later, some liberals recommended doing the same after Trump was elected.
During Trump’s quest to win and then undermine the 2020 election, the gesture took off like never before and “really became established as a symbol of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign,” according to Alex Newhouse, a researcher at New York University. ColoradoBoulder.
A flood of social media posts urged Trump supporters to turn their flags over or buy new ones to display upside down.
“When January 6th arrives and Biden is confirmed by the Electoral College, our nation is in dire straits!!” one poster wrote on Patriots.win, a forum for Trump supporters, and received more than 1,000 “up” votes. “If you can’t go to the DC rally, do your duty and show your support for our president by flying the flag upside down!!!!”
Local newspapers from Lexington, Kentucky, to Sun City, Arizona, to North Jersey wrote about the flags popping up nearby. A few days before the inauguration, a Senate candidate in Minnesota flew an upside-down flag on his campaign vehicle.
Hanging an upside-down flag outside a home was “an explicit indication that you are part of this community that believes America has been taken and should be taken back,” Newhouse said.
This spring, the judges are already living under the suspicion of many Americans that whatever decisions they make on the January 6 cases will be party political. Judge Clarence Thomas has refused to recuse himself despite the direct involvement of his wife, Virginia Thomas, in efforts to overturn the election.
With decisions in the Jan. 6 cases expected within a few weeks, a similar debate over Alito could unfold, the ethics experts said. “It’s really a matter of appearances and the potential impact on public confidence in the court,” Fogel said. “I think it would be better for the court if he were not involved in matters arising from the 2020 election. But I’m pretty sure he will see it differently.”
If Alito were to play on a different court, Fogel said, the flag could also trigger some kind of review to determine whether there was misconduct. But because the Supreme Court serves as the arbiter of its own conduct, “you really don’t have any leverage,” he said.
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