Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts sidelined one of the most conservative members of the high court on a pending case just days after his wife seemingly shared support for the “Stop the Steal” movement, according to a new report.
Roberts had initially asked Justice Samuel Alito to write the majority opinion in Fischer v. United States, a case that alleged the government went too far when it charged Jan. 6 rioters with obstruction of a federal proceeding, according to The New York Times.
Then came the Times’ May 16 report on his wife Martha-Ann Alito’s aggrieved decision to fly an upside-down U.S. flag—an emblem of the “Stop the Steal” movement, and propagated by some Jan. 6 rioters—outside their home in Virginia back in 2021, less than two weeks after the Capitol attack.
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Four days later, on May 20, Roberts informed the court that he would write the majority opinion after all, according to the Times.
To switch authors on an opinion without a shift in the decision was unusual, experts told the newspaper. So was Roberts’ decision to take on yet another case for himself; he had written seven cases during the court’s most recent term, five of them among its most consequential rulings.
That 6-3 majority, split mostly along ideological lines, ruled the government must prove a defendant impaired specific elements of an official proceeding and it cannot apply the statute so broadly.
It is unclear if the episodes were linked, and the justices did not respond to the Times’ questions.
Alito remained on the case and was part of that majority, even as the Times uncovered that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag (symbolism also co-opted by Jan. 6 rioters) had also been on display at the Alitos beach home in Long Beach Island, New Jersey.
Alito told the Times that the upside-down flag was raised as part of a neighborly dispute between his wife and a neighbor over the latter’s anti-Trump sign.
In response to congressional leaders calling for his recusal in late May, Alito said he asked his wife to take the flag down but “for several days, she refused,” and he claimed he was unaware of its significance.
“The two incidents you cite do not meet the conditions for recusal,” he told Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse. “As I have stated publicly, I had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of that flag. I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention.”
