US Supreme Court’s Samuel Alito rejects calls to recuse himself from Trump cases over flag controversy
- He told lawmakers the flags linked to Capitol rioters were flown by his wife, an ‘independently minded private citizen’
- The judge said he had asked Martha-Ann Alito to take down one of the flags as soon as he saw it but ‘for several days, she refused’
US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told lawmakers he will not recuse himself from cases involving Donald Trump and the January 6 Capitol riot after revelations that flags associated with far-right causes flew over his homes in Virginia and New Jersey.
Responding to Democratic calls that he disqualify himself, Alito said in two letters that his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was responsible for flying the flags.
“My wife is an independently minded private citizen,” he wrote. “She makes her own decisions, and I honour her right to do so.”
The court is set to decide by the end of June whether Trump is immune from criminal charges that he illegally tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In a second case that could have implications for the Trump prosecution, the justices are also weighing an appeal by a man charged with being part of the Capitol assault.
The New York Times reported that an upside-down American flag was displayed at Alito’s Virginia house in the days before US President Joe Biden’s inauguration. More recently, an “Appeal to Heaven” flag flew at Alito’s beach residence in New Jersey, the Times said. Similar flags were carried by January 6 rioters.
“My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not,” Alito wrote to Democratic lawmakers including Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia.