The former neighbor of Samuel Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, told CNN in her first television interview Wednesday that the Supreme Court justice’s account of a dispute between her and his wife didn’t add up—and that he was “at best mistaken, but at worst he’s just outright lying.”
On OutFront, Emily Baden said that a verbal exchange with Martha-Ann—which Alito claimed was the reason for his wife flying the upside-down American flag—occurred in mid-February. A photograph of the flag was taken Jan. 17.
Baden’s interview comes after The Washington Post, which spoke with her, reported in a story published Wednesday that a Fairfax County, Virginia, government spokesman confirmed that a call to police was made on Feb. 15—undercutting Alito’s version of events.
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CNN anchor Erin Burnett noted this point before asking Baden to respond to Alito’s questionable excuse.
“She didn‘t put the flag up for that reason. Absolutely, 100 percent,” said Baden, whose initial anti-Trump sign and subsequent sign drew the ire of Alito’s wife. “And that‘s what I want to really drive home to people, is that this happened on February 15, and we know that because they had been harassing us so long that we were like, ‘We need a paper trail of this, like we‘d better call the cops right now.’”
The confrontation occurred when Baden was living with her mother after the 2020 election and decided to erect a yard sign which, she explained, “was an anti-Trump sign” that said, ‘F-Trump’ in “glitter, cursive letters.”
“It was just a message to the world that I see Trump as a danger to our democracy… so I just used my small influence in my small corner of the world to broadcast my views like that,” Baden said.
Baden explained that there were a “handful of times” when she “somewhat interacted” with Martha-Ann, describing how one time she stopped and gave Baden a “long glare.” Baden knew the Alitos lived in the neighborhood, she said, and “it didn’t take me long though to put two and two together,” to figure out exactly where.
During the alleged fiery mid-February exchange, Baden said it was odd that Martha-Ann used the full names of her and her then-boyfriend.
“She approached us, started screaming at us, used all of our full names—which to me felt like a threat,” Baden said, while admitting that she directed profanity at Martha-Ann.
“Like I said, these are federally protected people. They have security detail, they represent the judicial system, they are the law. And I am just a regular person,” she added, reiterating her belief that Alito’s security detail was used to intimate her and her family after the conflict.
Meanwhile, some neighbors of the Alitos’ New Jersey residence, where another Jan. 6-linked flag was seen flying, reacted with disapproval when interviewed last month by The Daily Beast.
