An investigation by New York Times showed how US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito twice displayed flags symbolizing the Trumpian right and the far right outside two different homes. The two flags were also used by hundreds of supporters of former President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021 to interrupt the ratification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential elections.
Alito is one of six of nine total Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican presidents. The investigation of New York Times has raised new concerns about the impartiality and independence of the Court, which in the coming days will have to rule on some cases relating to the attack on Congress.
More generally, the investigation adds new elements to the legitimacy crisis that the Court has been experiencing for some time. The Court is the most important court in the United States, which is responsible for evaluating the constitutionality of laws and regulations enacted in the country, but in recent years it has increasingly moved to right-wing positions and has made various controversial decisions, starting from the annulment of the federal right to abortion, which have reduced its credibility in the eyes of part of the population.
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The investigation of New York Times It is based on four photographs taken at different times and on interviews with a number of Alito’s neighbors and people who frequent the area, who asked not to be identified in the article. The investigation showed how between July and September 2023, outside Alito’s summer home on Long Beach Island, an island in New Jersey, the “An appeal to heaven” flag was hoisted, one of those waved by Trump supporters in the 2021 assault on Congress.
One of the four photographs is taken from Google Street View and would have been taken at the end of August 2023. The investigation does not clarify whether the flag remained displayed continuously over the entire two months or whether it was hoisted intermittently.
The flag in question portrays a pine tree on a white background with the motto “An appeal to heaven” underneath: it dates back to the times of the War of Independence and had not been used for a long time, until in recent years it became one of the main symbols of movements of the Christian right and many Trump supporters. The flag was made popular again especially by Dutch Sheets, an exponent of the New Apostolic Reformation movement, against the secular state and the separation between church and political institutions.
It is the second time that symbols attributable to the attack of January 6, 2021 are displayed outside Judge Alito’s house: in another investigation a few days ago, the New York Times showed how on January 17, 2021, a few days after the assault, the US flag was displayed upside down outside Alito’s home in Virginia, another symbol associated with Trump supporters and in particular his false statements according to which the 2020 won by Biden were the result of fraud.
The investigations of New York Times have been commented with concern by numerous jurists, Democratic politicians and even some Republicans. Just around the time that the “An Appeal to the Heavens” flag was seen flying outside Alito’s home, the Supreme Court had received documentation relating to an important assault on Congress case, which, depending on how it goes, could bring down a good portion of the accusations against Trump for attempting to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, just months before the November presidential election
The case on which the Supreme Court must decide is apparently very technical: it concerns the opportunity to use a federal law that punishes the destruction of corporate documents to prosecute people accused of attacking Congress. However, the case has great political value, because if the Court were to rule negatively, and therefore in favor of those who attacked Congress, Trump could use this precedent to argue that he is not punishable in this regard either.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Alito has been a Supreme Court justice since 2005, when he was nominated by President George W. Bush. In recent years he has ended up at the center of other investigations, including one of ProPublicawhich won the Pulitzer Prize this year, according to which a group of politically very influential American billionaires gave luxury gifts to some judges of the Court, including Alito.
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