On Feb. 15, a couple living across from Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito's home called Fairfax County police to complain that his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, had been harassing them. According to The New York Times, the Alitos were in an escalating feud over the other couple's decision to display a yard sign that used profane language to denounce former President Donald Trump.
Initially, Justice Alito claimed that the decision to fly an upside-down flag outside his Virginia home was a response to the couple lobbing a vulgar insult at Mrs. Alito following the Jan. 6 insurrection, an encounter in which both sides accused the other of aggression.
"I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag," the justice claimed earlier this month. "It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs."
However, Fairfax County authorities confirmed that the incident with the neighbors actually happened on February 15, per the Times, long after the inverted flag — a sign of distress and a symbol the pro-Trump movement to overturn the 2020 election — was first raised outside the Alitos' home.
Emily Baden, one of the neighbors, told the Times that she and her then-boyfriend were taking out the trash that February day when Mrs. Alito herself used an expletive and called them "fascists" as her husband, the Supreme Court justice, looked on in silence. Baden said she in turn yelled at Mrs. Alito, using an expletive and reminding her that she was "representing the highest court in the land." Another time, Baden alleged, Mrs. Alito appeared to spit towards her vehicle as she drove past the Alitos' home.
Neither of the Alitos have commented on another provocative flag that was displayed at their New Jersey beach home. The "Appeal to Heaven" flag, spotted there in the summer of 2023, is widely used by supporters of the January 6 attacks and members of Christian nationalist movements.
The incidents have raised serious concerns about Justice Alito's impartiality and appears to have violated the Supreme Court's ethics code against making nakedly political statements. Several legal experts have called on Alito to recuse himself from the presidential immunity case brought by Trump.
"This is after the insurrection, so it's really him weighing in, getting involved publicly in a dispute over the insurrection," Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush who worked with Justice Alito on his 2006 Senate confirmation, previously told Salon. "When the house is used this way, I'd be shocked that she would do that without talking about it with him first."
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