The Supreme Court finds its image further damaged by the discovery of Trump flags on one of its justices

Message from Washington

Brick house facade. Gray car in front of garage door. Fence. Absolute insignificance of an affluent neighborhood in Alexandria, a Virginia city located near Washington. But the details in the middle of the image overshadow this quiet environment. The United States flag is raised upside down on a pole planted in the grass.

The photo was taken on January 17, 2021, three days before new President Joe Biden was sworn in. The house is the home of Samuel Alito, a conservative justice on the United States Supreme Court. Eleven days earlier, supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, threatening to disrupt the peaceful transition of power. The inverted national flag, once synonymous with a distress call among the military, became one of the movement's treasured symbols. “Stop the steal!” », claiming to denounce the imaginary fraud operations during the November 2020 presidential elections.

This image was recently revealed by The New York Times It sparked, unsurprisingly, a torrent of comments. This support for a cause that is not just partisan, but insurrectionary, from one of the nation's nine highest-ranking justices, within an institution with greatly diminished credibility, has forced each camp to take a stand, for or against Samuel Alito.

The judge himself reacted clumsily, fueling the controversy. Samuel Alito explained, in a statement to the newspaper, that he had nothing to do with the installation of this flag: “It was installed briefly by M^I Alito in response to a neighbor's use of highly unacceptable and personally offensive language on signs. » Martha Ann Alito, who seemed very sensitive, would have acted this way in response to a sign insulting Donald Trump. The weakness of this argument is clear. Samuel Alito could have immediately asked his wife to take down that upside-down American flag. He ignored it, thus confirming its authenticity.

Republicans come to Samuel Alito's aid

A few days after the first article, The New York Times He published a second book, this time dedicated to Alito's home on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Another controversial flag, showing a pine tree, was spotted there between July and September 2023; nickname “Invitation to Heaven” Its origins go back to the American Revolution. But in the contemporary era, specialists confirm that the Christian National Movement has seized it. This flag was also visible near the Capitol building, during the disastrous day of January 6.

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