The wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said she wanted to get revenge on controversial people after she and the justice were criticized last month for flying a politically charged flag in their home.
“If you come after me, I’m going to give it back to you,” Martha Ann Alito said in a recording of a private conversation for the Supreme Court Historical Association. Annual Dinner June 3rd.
“There will be a way. It doesn’t have to be right now, but there will be a way for them to know,” she added. “Don’t worry.”
The remarks were recorded by Lauren Windsor, a progressive filmmaker who attended the event as a member of the association under her real name but posed as a conservative to elicit responses from Alito and other senators.
The recording Published by MSNBC And the Windsor activist site Undercurrent released its second set on Monday, following earlier recordings of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Alito published in Rolling Stone magazine.
Alito’s flag controversy began last month when it was discovered that the couple had an “Appeal to Heaven” flag and an upside-down American flag hanging in their home – symbols associated with far-right politics, Christian nationalism and those who took part in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.
Justice Alito said the flag was not a political statement, but merely a response to a personal attack his wife made on a neighbor, who had openly doubted the judge’s story. The controversy drew widespread criticism from Democrats in Congress, with several prominent lawmakers calling on the judge to recuse himself from cases related to the January 6 attack.
In the recording, Martha Ann Alito also promised to fly a “Sacred Heart of Jesus” flag at her home this month in protest of LGBTQ pride flags flying in her neighborhood. The Sacred Heart of Jesus flag is a symbol of the Christian right that is used specifically to protest pride.
She said her husband, a judge, had asked her not to plant the flag on their property.
“I’m not going to do that because I’m going to do what you say,” Alito reportedly told her husband. “But if you stop doing this nonsense, I’m going to put up the flag and I’m going to send them a message every day, maybe every week. I’m going to change the flag.”
Alito added that he has designed his own flag in his head that he would like to have produced and fly, featuring the word “vergogna,” Italian for “shame.”
“Shame, shame, shame, you know?” Alito said, apparently referring to flying the Pride flag.
The conversation between Justices Windsor and Alito included him agreeing with Windsor that the United States should strive to be a Christian nation and acknowledging that much of the court’s work boils down to political ideology. Justice Roberts, in a recording of their conversation, disagreed with Windsor’s views.
Judge Windsor told The Hill that he felt “justified” in secretly recording attendees at the meeting because the courts have been “shrouded in secrecy and have refused any accountability despite overwhelming evidence of serious ethical violations.”
