Senate Democrats seek meeting with Chief Justice John Roberts to discuss issue and seek Alito’s recusal on January 6 cases
The wife of US supreme court justice Samuel Alito reportedly justified the display of an upside-down American flag at the couple’s home by saying it was “an international signal of distress”, as senior Democrats have requested a meeting with the chief justice over the growing scandal.
Martha-Ann Alito made the comments to a Washington Post reporter, the outlet reported on Saturday, when the journalist visited the couple’s Virginia home in January 2021, not long after the attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump.
She reportedly told the Washington Post at the time that the flag had been run up their flagpole in that way in response to a neighborhood dispute.
Flying the Stars and Stripes flag upside down is acceptable as a rare distress signal, according to the official US flag code. But these days it is more often associated with activists making an extremist sign of protest, and at the time of the January 6 insurrection it had been adopted by some on the far right amid efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump.
It’s international but every nation would obviously use their own flag. It’s a practice that dates back to the times before the USA was even a nation.
Laterally symmetrical flags would have a hard time playing.