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Blaming Wife for Insurrection Flags, Alito Refuses to Recuse From Trump Cases
"It's hard to read this comically bad letter as anything other than a challenge to Congress to either assert its constitutional authority or admit fecklessness," said one group.
May 29, 2024
Despite his family's display of two flags associated with the "Stop the Steal" movement that baselessly claims the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Wednesday that he will not recuse himself from two cases that pertain to the election and Trump supporters' effort to stop the results from being certified.
The justice wrote to the House of Representatives and the Senate to tell lawmakers that his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was solely responsible for flying the two flags on the family's properties in Virginia in 2021 and New Jersey last year.
Justice advocates and Democrats in Congress have called on Alito to recuse from a case regarding Trump's claim that he has immunity from federal election interference charges and one in which the court is deliberating whether defendants who participated in the January 6, 2021 attempted insurrection should be charged with obstructing an official proceeding.
The demands for recusal—not the first to target Alito—came in recent weeks after The New York Times reported that an upside down flag had flown at his family home in Virginia just after January 6, and that a flag reading, "Appeal to Heaven" had been displayed last year at his New Jersey beach house, right around the time that one of the cases arrived at the Supreme Court.
Both flags were carried by some rioters on January 6 and have been embraced by the Stop the Steal movement.
The display of the flags, said Alito, "do not meet the conditions for recusal set out" by the court's ethics code, which was introduced last year and does not include an enforcement mechanism.
In his letters, Alito suggested that the push for accountability for the flag displays represents a violation of his wife's rights, noting that "she has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit."
"She makes her own decisions, and I have always respected her right to do so," wrote Alito, leading one progressive strategist to point out that the justice wrote the majority opinion in the Supreme Court ruling that revoked the constitutional right to obtain abortion care.
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs for Stand Up America, called on the Senate to take "immediate action" to stop Alito's "bald-faced display of judicial misconduct."
"Justice Alito's refusal to recuse himself from cases related to January 6th is unacceptable," said Edkins. "By dismissing concerns about potential bias and conflicts of interest and placing the blame on his wife, he is making a mockery of the fundamental principles of impartiality and fairness upon which the Supreme Court was founded."
Edkins called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to "schedule a floor vote on a binding code of conduct for justices" and urged Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to "fulfill his duty as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee by launching a thorough investigation into Justice Alito's actions and corruption on the court."
Durbin sent a letter last week to Chief Justice John Roberts asking him to support the call for Alito's recusal and requesting a meeting with him, but progressives have said the senator should go further to ensure accountability for Alito's actions.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said last week that the Senate Judiciary Committee should subpoena Alito and open a formal investigation into his family's display of the flags.
Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of Take Back the Court Action Fund, said Wednesday that it was tempting to "make fun of Alito for scribbling off the judicial equivalent of a 'my wife ate my homework' note."
"But the joke will be on all of us if Congress lets this be the last word on his recusal from election-related cases," said Lipton-Lubet. "It's hard to read this comically bad letter as anything other than a challenge to Congress to either assert its constitutional authority or admit fecklessness."
The court is expected to rule on the two Trump-related cases in late June.
Advocates have previously called on Alito to recuse from certain cases after it was revealed that he benefited from luxury travel paid for by a billionaire who had had business before the court.
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Watchdogs' Database Details Right-Wing Efforts to Sway US Supreme Court
"Supreme corruption demands supreme transparency," said one campaigner behind the new effort.
Apr 18, 2024
A trio of progressive watchdog groups on Thursday unveiled a new database detailing the "troubling connections" between the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices, the conservative organizations that have intervened in cases before the court, and the wealthy donors funding them.
Take Back the Court, Revolving Door Project, and True North Research published the database at SupremeTransparency.org, which "shines a spotlight on the complex web connecting justices to powerbrokers and the organizations that those powerbrokers fund, lead, and are otherwise linked to."
The watchdogs found that nearly 1 in 7 amicus briefs filed during the 2023-24 Supreme Court term were lodged by at least one powerbroker-affiliated organization. This affects 32 different cases before the court.
"The current U.S. Supreme Court has gone rogue."
For example, in Moore v. United States—in which the Supreme Court could preemptively ban or limit wealth taxes—half of all amicus briefs were filed by groups affiliated with right-wing powerbrokers.
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, groups funded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch want to scupper the Chevron deference, a 40-year precedent under which judges defer to the legal interpretations of federal agencies if Congress has not passed any laws on an issue. Powerbroker-affiliated organizations have filed more than one-third of the amicus briefs seeking to overturn the Chevron doctrine.
"Far too often people with insidiously close ties to justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, such as Harlan Crow and Paul Singer, signal their interest in the outcome of cases by funding, leading, or influencing organizations that file amicus briefs," Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser said in a statement.
"There is just as much of a conflict of interest when a justice hears a case involving a benefactor as a named party and one in which the person who illicitly enabled their luxurious lifestyle is 'merely' similarly situated to one of the parties," Hauser added.
According to SupremeTransparency.org:
The current U.S. Supreme Court has gone rogue. The right-wing justices that make up the court's supermajority frequently toy with precedent and the rule of law to issue opinions that not only defy the will of a majority of Americans, but also rewrite constitutional principles, overturn widely respected legal precedents, and gut longstanding rules that protect the public interest.
In just the 2021 and 2022 Supreme Court terms alone, the court overturned Roe v. Wadeafter 49 years; gutted both the decades-old Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act; overturned a 100+ year old gun safety law; eroded the National Labor Relations Act (adopted as part of New Deal reforms to protect workers); broke with their own procedures regarding standing to sue in order to block student debt relief; and reversed decades of precedent to end the decadeslong practice of race-conscious college admissions policies that promoted diversity and redressed discrimination. But this radically reactionary court and its radically reactionary justices aren't acting alone.
"Supreme corruption demands supreme transparency," said Take Back the Court president Sarah Lipton-Lubet. "It's no secret that the many of the rich benefactors cozying up to the conservative justices are the same people who fund right-wing organizations with business before the court."
"But too often, stories about the Supreme Court don't connect these dots—and as a result, they leave us with an incomplete picture," she continued. "The truth is right-wing powerbrokers are seemingly paying to play; they're funding groups that are weighing in on court cases even as they buy access to the justices who will rule on those cases."
"It's just one of the ways our Supreme Court is deeply, fundamentally broken," Lipton-Lubet added. "And it's a reminder of how urgent and necessary it is that we reform this corrupt court."
Last year, the Supreme Court adopted a Code of Conduct that contained few new rules, no enforcement mechanism, and was widely panned as a toothless public relations stunt. Bolder proposals for reforming the high court include term limits and increasing the number of justices.
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As Supreme Court Takes Trump Immunity Case, Clarence Thomas Urged to Recuse
Critics also suggested that by hearing the case, the justices are trying to "buy him time to retake the White House."
Feb 28, 2024
Immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to take former President Donald Trump's immunity case, Justice Clarence Thomas faced pressure to not participate due to his wife's involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
"Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from this case," asserted Stand Up America, echoing the progressive advocacy group's demand for another Trump case argued before the court earlier this month. Although the justice's wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, was part of the push to stop the certification of the 2020 results, he has not recused himself from relevant cases.
The immunity case that the high court now plans to hear in late April stems from Trump's 2020 election interference, which culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Following a probe led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, Trump was indicted in August. The likely Republican presidential nominee faces 91 charges across four criminal cases, two related to the election.
In a statement welcoming the Supreme Court's move Wednesday, Trump doubled down on his presidential immunity argument. He had asked the justices to weigh in after an appellate panel ruled that he could not claim immunity in the federal election case, echoing a December decision by Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
After Chutkan rejected Trump's immunity claim, Smith asked the Supreme Court to skip the appeals process, but the justices declined. Them taking the case now means that Chutkan must wait to begin the trial, just months from the November election.
"The Supreme Court's decision to hear Trump's appeal and delay arguments until April is a deliberate attempt to postpone accountability for Trump's role in the January 6th attack on our country," declared Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey. "It also gives Trump a free pass on the campaign trail in the meantime. At a time when trust in the Supreme Court is at record lows, decisions like these only reinforce Americans' belief that Supreme Court justices are politicians in robes."
"Further raising concerns is Justice Thomas' continued refusal to recuse himself from this case and others related to the efforts to overthrow the 2020 election—efforts his wife participated in and pressured state officials to support," she said. "The American people deserve swift and transparent justice, not a protracted legal process that allows Trump to evade responsibility for his actions."
Take Back the Court Action Fund president Sarah Lipton-Lubet pointed out that "when it comes to helping corporations or restricting reproductive freedom, the Republican Supreme Court justices have shown they can work at breakneck speed."
"So why the holdup on this case?" she continued. "The obvious answer is that they know Trump's claims are dangerous and laughable, but they want to buy him time to retake the White House anyway."
While Trump didn't appoint Thomas, he did send three other right-wingers to the court: Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh.
This post has been updated with comment from former President Donald Trump and Mark Joseph Stern.
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