WASHINGTON – Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday declined to vacate two pending cases involving former President Donald Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, following recent news reports of controversial flags displayed on his private property is lifted.
In letters to members of Congress calling for his denial, Alito said the two incidents involving flags at his home in Virginia and a vacation rental in New Jersey, first reported by The New York Times, “do not meet the conditions for refusal” set forth in the recently adopted Supreme Court Code of Ethics.
Alito said that in both cases, “a reasonable person not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to influence the outcome of cases before the Supreme Court” would conclude that no denial was necessary. One letter was sent to Democratic senators, while the other was sent to Democrats in the House of Representatives.
He added that he was not involved in the decision to fly either flag because he said they were raised by his wife, Martha-Ann Alito.
In the first incident, neighbors said an upside-down American flag flew in early 2021, just after Jan. 6 and President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
In the other incident, a flag associated with conservative Christians with the motto “Appeal to Heaven” was raised at the holiday home the following year.
Both flags have been embraced by some Trump supporters protesting the outcome of the 2020 election.
The Supreme Court is currently weighing two cases related to January 6: Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in his election interference case, and an appeal brought by a man facing charges for his role on the day. Judgments will follow at the end of June.
Under the Supreme Court’s ethics rules, individual justices have the final say on whether to set aside cases.
The ethics code was adopted last year after several ethics charges were dropped, most notably against Alito and fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas. It was heavily criticized because the judges were allowed to enforce it themselves.
Alito cited the code in his letters, noting that a judge is presumed to be impartial and need only step aside if an “unbiased and reasonable person” knowledgeable of the facts doubts that the judge “is or can perform its duties honestly’.
In explaining the flying of the inverted flag in more detail, Alito said his wife was “very upset” over a “very nasty neighborhood dispute” in which he was not involved. The New York Times published new details about that dispute on Tuesday.
‘A house on the street had a sign personally attacking her and a man who lived in the house followed her all the way down the street and berated her in my presence with foul language, including what I consider to be the meanest swear word possible are used. addressed to a woman,” Alito wrote.
He added that as soon as he became aware of the flag, he asked his wife to take it away, but “for several days she refused.”
The New York Times story differed slightly, with a neighborhood couple saying that at one point they called the police because they felt Martha-Ann Alito was harassing them. The Times also reported that the confrontation between the Alitos and the neighbors occurred weeks after the inverted flag had already been taken down.
As for the second flag, Alito said he remembered it being flown by his wife but was not aware of its meaning or any connection to the “stop the steal” effort to overturn the 2022 election results to make.
In both cases, Alito emphasized that his wife is a private citizen who has her own rights to free speech.
“My wife loves waving flags,” he added. “I am not.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
