House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Thursday bashed Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for flying far-right flags associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement outside two of his homes, demanding that Alito recuse himself from any cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“He definitively needs to recuse himself from any matter pending before the United States Supreme Court that has to do with the Jan. 6 violent insurrection,” Jeffries said during a press briefing in the Capitol. “He should have no part of it.”
Jeffries remarks echo those of other top Democrats, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who say Alito has disqualified himself from Jan. 6 cases after The New York Times reported on two instances when conservative flags were flown outside the justice’s homes.
The first occasion, immediately following the 2020 election, featured an upside-down American flag flying outside the justice’s residence in Alexandria, Va., the Times reported. Alito told the paper the flag was displayed by his wife in a feud with neighbors.
The second instance, occurring last summer, found an “Appeal to Heaven” flag flying outside Alito’s New Jersey vacation home, the Times revealed. Alito declined to comment on that case.
Both flags have been used prominently by supporters of former President Trump and his false claims that he won the 2020 election only to have it stolen by a criminal conspiracy of corrupt Democrats and state election officials. And both were carried by “Stop the Steal” protestors who stormed into the Capitol as Congress was formalizing his election defeat on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jeffries said Alito — along with Justice Clarence Thomas, who has a long history of accepting travel benefits from a billionaire conservative activist — have demonstrated a degree of political bias that has undermined the image of the high court as a bastion of nonpartisan objectivity.
“Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are totally out of control,” he said. “These individuals continue to detonate the credibility of the United States Supreme Court.”
Jeffries vowed that if Democrats flip control of the House — and keep control of the Senate — in November’s elections, they will act quickly to adopt tougher oversight of the Supreme Court justices. That process, Jeffries added, could feature the creation of a new code of ethics governing the justices’ activities outside the courtroom.
“If the Supreme Court does not get its act under control, you can be confident that Democrats in the House of Representatives, partnering with Democrats in the United States Senate, will act the first opportunity we have to engage in thorough oversight and the consideration of imposing an ethical code of conduct on Supreme Court justices,” he said.