Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. HAS a bit of a issue…..
The Flag….
The revelation that an upside-down American flag, a symbol adopted to contest Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, flew outside Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s house in the days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol raised questions about whether that had violated ethics rules.
The justice has said that his wife put up the flag in response to a neighbor’s anti-Trump yard sign. It remains unclear how long the inverted flag was on display outside his residence in Virginia.
It is the most recent disclosure about the Supreme Court to fuel concerns about impartiality and the appearance of bias.
Some of those controversies have involved Justice Alito. In June, he defended his decision to accompany a conservative billionaire on a luxury fishing vacation. That billionaire later had cases before the Supreme Court. In September, Justice Alito rejected demands for recusal in a major tax case after he gave interviews to one of the lawyers involved, David Rivkin, for The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page….
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Earlier this term, the Supreme Court announced an ethics code — a first for the court.
Under those guidelines, justices are encouraged to avoid even the appearance of bias. Legal experts say that displaying an upside-down flag would likely violate such rules.
The Supreme Court has also cautioned its employees against anything that might signal a political display, according to guidelines circulated to the staff and reviewed by The New York Times. Such displays would include signs and bumper stickers.
It remains unclear, however, what would happen even if Justice Alito were directly accused of violating the ethics code. The code has no clear enforcement mechanism, and there is no process, at least that has been disclosed to the public, for investigating a complaint of a violation or any disciplinary measures that may be imposed if a violation were found….
image….Eric Schaff