Justice Alito Caught with Another Flag Linked to Jan. 6 After Defending Upside-Down U.S. Flag
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew a second flag popularized by Jan. 6 perpetrators outside his home, reported the New York Times Wednesday. The Times report comes a week after it was revealed that Alito’s home also flew a “Stop the Steal” flag, an upside American flag, in the weeks following Trump’s bid to retain power and his supporters’ violent effort to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
“This time, it was the ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms,” reported the Times on the second controversial flag.
The Times collected testimonials from “ half-dozen neighbors and passers-by” who saw the flag and confirmed it “aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in New Jersey in July and September of 2023.” The report also noted that “a Google Street View image from late August also shows the flag.”
Alito has been hammered by critics, including Republicans, since the initial Times report over what they see as the justice advertising both his pro-Trump and anti-liberal bias. Alito told Fox News’s Shannon Bream that his wife put out the “Stop the Steal” flag after a neighbor used the word “cunt” in their presence for complaining about anti-Trump signage in their yard.
“Justice Alito says he and his wife were walking in the neighborhood and there were words between Mrs. Alito and a male at the home with the sign,” reported Bream. “Alito says the man engaged in vulgar language, ‘including the c-word.’”
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito later told the Times in a statement. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
The second flag flying outside the Alitos’ home is raising questions about the justice’s denial regarding the first flag. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the whole incident surrounding the flag showed “not good judgment” on Alito’s part. Alito is soon to weigh in on cases regarding the 2020 presidential election and whether or not Trump should have immunity for his actions surrounding the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol.
