Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) in a Sunday interview blasted Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for blaming his wife for displaying the upside-down flag outside his home in the days following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
In an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday,” Dean invoked Memorial Day and stressed the importance of abiding by a code of ethics when asked to respond to the latest Alito controversy.
“I think I’ll end where I started, which is: How do we honor the war dead in this country? We honor the war dead in this country by upholding our Constitution, by abiding by a code of ethics, which Justice Alito seems like he doesn’t care for,” Dean said.
“He has shown bias, he has shown impropriety, strangely tried to blame it on his wife,” Dean continued. “Aren’t we above that? We honor our war dead by upholding the rule of law and the Constitution.”
The New York Times reported that an upside-down American flag flew outside Alito’s Virginia home in January 2021 — around the time rioters stormed the Capitol when Congress was set to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election win over then-President Trump.
The upside-down flag is also associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement that emerged from false election fraud claims in 2020. Alito said his wife hung the flag during a spat with neighbors.
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito told the Times last week. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”