When news broke earlier this month that an upside-down American flag had flown outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito shortly after Donald Trump’s supporters had stormed the Capitol in early 2021, Alito blamed his wife. The justice told The New York Times she flew the inverted flag “in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.” Fox News also reported after an interview with Alito that his wife hung the flag upside-down after an argument with a neighbor in which they’d used vulgar language “‘including the C-word.’” Now the neighbors involved in the conflict have told the Times that it was Martha-Ann Alito herself who started the conflict, with the newspaper reporting that a text message and a call to police indicate that the name-calling incident happened on Feb. 15, several weeks after the upside-flag down had been removed. One also said a sign in their yard after the Capitol riot saying “You Are Complicit” had been directed at Republicans generally rather than the Alitos specifically.
