Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) on Friday called on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from 2020 election-related cases.
The demand from the second-ranking Senate Democrat came in response to a report that an upside-down flag was flown outside the Alitos home following the 2021 Capitol riot, a symbol synonymous with the “Stop the Steal” campaign claiming former President Donald Trump was the true 2020 election victor.
Durbin said the action brandished outside the conservative justice’s home, shown in photographs published by the New York Times that was done at the behest of Alito’s wife, “clearly creates the appearance of bias.”
“Justice Alito should recuse himself immediately from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection, including the question of the former President’s immunity in U.S. v. Donald Trump, which the Supreme Court is currently considering,” Durbin said in a statement.
In the coming weeks, the nation’s high court is expected to hand down rulings on cases tied to the Capitol riot, including whether Trump, the 2024 presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has immunity related to criminal charges of trying to overturn the election.
“The Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making, and Justice Alito and the rest of the Court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust,” Durbin said. “Supreme Court justices should be held to the highest ethical standards, not the lowest.”
Alito denied having any involvement in the flag’s display and said it was his wife’s doing as part of a dispute with a neighbor.
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito told the New York 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.”
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Alito told Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream that tensions escalated with a neighbor in the days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including a sign that blamed the Alitos for the attack and vulgar words from the neighbor directed at the justice and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito. She displayed the upside-down flag “for a short time” following the altercation, Alito told Bream.
Durbin said the flag incident was “further proof” that Congress should pass his ethics bill that would “create an enforceable code of conduct for the Supreme Court.”