Pennsylvania Rep. Madeleine Dean blasts Samuel Alito for blaming flag controversy on his wife

Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pennsylvania) in an interview Sunday blasted Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for blaming his wife for flying an upside-down flag outside their home in the days following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

In an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday,” Dean brought up Memorial Day when asked to comment on the latest Alito controversy, stressing the importance of following the ethics code.

“I want to end with what I said at the beginning, which is how do we commemorate our fallen soldiers in this country? How do we commemorate our fallen soldiers in this country? We need to abide by the Constitution and adhere to the ethical rules, and Justice Alito doesn’t seem to care about the ethical rules,” Dean said.

“He showed bigotry, he was inappropriate and he bizarrely tried to blame his wife,” Dean continued. “Don’t we do that? We honor our fallen soldiers by upholding the rule of law and the Constitution.”

The New York Times reported that an upside-down American flag was flying outside Alito’s Virginia home around the time that rioters stormed the Capitol in January 2021 as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over then-President Trump.

The upside-down flag also has ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement, which grew out of false claims of election fraud in 2020. Alito said his wife put up the flag during an argument with a neighbor.

“I had nothing to do with raising the flag,” Alito told The Times last week about the flag. “It was simply raised for a short period by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor using offensive and personally offensive language on a yard sign.”