Mrs. Alito Isn’t the Problem
Justice Alito lied to the media and to the public. His judicial integrity cannot be trusted. And he doesn’t care that you know it.
1. Lies
It is not ideal that a justice of the Supreme Court, who has a lifetime appointment, is married to someone who seems to have sympathies for Donald Trump’s insurrection.1
But that’s not the problem with Samuel Alito.
Yesterday Jodi Kantor published a well-reported piece about the Alito family’s flags. A few hours later, Justice Alito sent a letter to Congress in which he announced his refusal to recuse himself from cases involving Donald Trump’s insurrection:
With respect, the problem with Justice Alito is not that his wife is fond of flying flags and may have insurrectionist sympathies.
The problem is that Justice Alito lied to the public.
And Justice Alito’s public lies make it impossible to trust his judicial integrity.
To understand the problem, we’re going to have to look at three different timelines.
The first timeline is the development of the story itself.
May 16, 2024: The New York Times breaks the upside-down flag story.
May 17, 2024: Justice Alito gives an interview to Fox News with his timeline of events.
May 28, 2024: The Times follows up with a conflicting timeline of events.
May 29, 2024: Justice Alito sends a letter to Congress announcing his refusal to recuse himself from cases related to January 6th.
What you see here is a pattern in which a report is published and Alito then responds—almost immediately—in the most partisan manner possible.
When you think about it, it’s stunning that with his integrity being questioned, Justice Alito would run to Fox News to give his version of events.
Not that anyone needs reminding, but one year ago Fox News paid $787 million to settle the Dominion defamation case. The network is currently facing another defamation suit from the voting technology company Smartmatic for $2.7 billion.
Oh, and in 2020 Fox successfully defended itself in yet another defamation case by arguing that no reasonable viewer could assume that the content of its highest-rated show was factually correct. No, really. That was Fox’s defense and the judge in the case agreed with them. This is the key line from the judge’s decision:
This “general tenor” of the show should then inform a viewer that he is not “stating actual facts” about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in “exaggeration” and “non-literal commentary.”
So here’s the first question: Would an honest judge who is genuinely looking to reassure the public about his fairness and impartiality go to Fox News to tell his side of the story?
Obviously not.
The second timeline is Alito’s version of events, which Fox accepted and published with no corroborating evidence.
Roughly, Alito’s claims go like this:
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