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      The Alito flag scandal and the supreme court’s ethics problem – podcast

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      Reports surfaced a few weeks ago that the supreme court justice Samuel Alito had flown an upside-down US flag outside his home days after insurrectionists flew similar flags when they stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. Alito has blamed his wife, saying he wanted her to take down the flag down after a dispute with neighbours.
      Democrats want Alito to recuse himself from any supreme court case involving 6 January, but he has refused to do so. Jonathan Freedland speaks to Amanda Marcotte of Salon about whether this latest scandal is proof that the supreme court is incapable of being unbiased

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      Steve Bannon vows to appeal jail sentence and says order about ‘shutting down the Maga movement’ – as it happened

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      Speaking outside the courthouse, Steve Bannon vowed to appeal his jail sentence to the supreme court, and accused the justice department of pursuing him as a way to retaliate against Donald Trump.“They’re not going to shut up Trump, they’re not going to shut up Navarro, they’re not going to shut up Bannon, and they’re certainly not going to shut up Maga,” said Bannon. He was referring to Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House trade adviser, who is serving a similar prison sentence on contempt of Congress charges.Bannon went on to predict an overwhelming victory in the November presidential election:
      All of this is about one thing. This is about shutting down the Maga movement, shutting down grassroots conservatives, shutting down President Trump. Not only are we winning, we are going to prevail, and every number and every poll shows that. There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up … There’s not a prison built, or a jail built that will ever shut me up.
      All victory to Maga. We’re going to win this, we’re going to win at the supreme court, and more importantly, we’re going to win on November 5 an amazing landslide, with the Senate, the House and also Donald J Trump back as president United States.
      Almost two years after he was first found guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6 committee, a federal judge today ordered Steve Bannon, an influential figure in Donald Trump’s Maga movement, to begin serving his four-month sentence by 1 July. In a defiant speech outside the courthouse, he accused the justice department of using his case to retaliate against Trump, and predicted a big win for Republicans in the November presidential election. Speaking of Trump, the former president gave an interview to Fox News last night, where he argued he “would have every right to go after” political adversaries like Joe Biden, if he is returned to the White House. In response, the Biden campaign said Trump was “visibly rattled” by his conviction last week on felony business fraud charges.Here’s what else happened today:
      The supreme court released a new batch of opinions, which did not include much-awaited decisions on Trump’s petition for immunity from federal prosecution over his 2020 election meddling, and two cases dealing with abortion access.
      The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Milwaukee over restrictions on protesters ahead of the Republican National Convention.
      Trump called for the supreme court to overturn his conviction on felony charges connected to falsifying documents related to hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election.
      Hunter Biden’s federal gun charges trial continues in Delaware, with testimony from the widow of his late brother, Beau Biden.
      The NAACP civil rights group asked Biden to halt all shipments of weapons to Israel.
      Joe Biden does not do too many sitdown interviews with reporters, but took questions from ABC News during his visit to France for the D-day anniversary.He was asked about his recent decision to allow Ukraine to use US-supplied weaponry to strike inside Russia. Here’s what he had to say:Here’s more on the president’s decision, which comes as Russia steps up attacks aimed at the city of Kharkiv:The American Civil Liberties Union said this morning it has filed a lawsuit against the city of Milwaukee over restrictions on protesters at the Republican National Convention that it says violate the first amendment.The convention, beginning on 15 July, will see thousands of delegates converge on the city’s Fiserv Forum and culminate in Donald Trump formally accepting the party’s nomination. Various groups have already announced plans to protest the event, and the ACLU claims the city’s restrictions on where they can do that are not in line with the constitution.Here’s more:You’re not hearing too much about Joe Biden on this blog today, because the US president is in France to mark the anniversary of D-day, and call for support for Ukraine. The Guardian’s Leonie Chao-Fong has the scoop:Joe Biden has marked the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings in Normandy with an impassioned call to western allies to continue supporting Ukraine in the face of the “unending struggle between dictatorship and freedom”.Speaking on Thursday at a ceremony at the Normandy American cemetery attended by his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and dozens of surviving veterans from the second world war, Biden drew parallels between the Allied troops who fought to free Europe and the alliance of nations that came together to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression.The president warned that democracy was under great threat than at any time since the end of second world war. Describing Vladimir Putin as a “tyrant bent on domination”, Biden said the Russian leader and “the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked.“To surrender to bullies, to bow to dictators, is simply unthinkable,” Biden said. “If we do, Ukraine will be subjugated and it will not end there, Ukraine’s neighbours will be threatened, all of Europe will be threatened.”Joe Biden criticized the international criminal court last month, after its chief prosecutor, Karim Kham, requested arrest warrants for two of Israel’s top leaders over their actions during the war in Gaza.That did not sit well with actor George Clooney, whose wife, Amal Clooney, worked on the case. He called up the White House to make his displeasure known, the Washington Post reports:
      Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, to express concern about Biden’s denunciation of arrest warrants sought by ICC prosecutors for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, especially his use of the word “outrageous.” The prosecutors also sought warrants for top Hamas leaders.
      The actor was also upset about the administration’s initial openness to imposing sanctions on the ICC because his wife might be subject to the penalties, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.
      Clooney’s call came just weeks before he is set to appear at a fundraiser for Biden’s reelection campaign next Saturday in Los Angeles. His concerns spread throughout Biden’s orbit, leaving some officials to worry that the high-profile actor would withdraw from participating in the marquee fundraiser, which will also feature former president Barack Obama, late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel and actress Julia Roberts.
      Biden has supported Israel’s response to the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, despite a wave of protests from activists upset by the civilian toll caused the invasion of Gaza. Here’s more about why the president objected to the ICC chief prosecutor’s arrest warrant application:Johnson’s statement comes after a recent report from the Washington Post which revealed that Israeli fighter jets used US munitions to strike a UN school located in Gaza on Thursday.Two weapons experts verified the weapons’ type to the Post, using footage of debris from the attack.Here’s more from the Post’s Louisa Loveluck, Niha Masih, Hajar Harb, Kyle Melnick and Miriam Berger:
      Israeli fighter jets appear to have used US-made munitions in a strike that killed dozens of people inside a UN school in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to two weapons experts who examined verified footage from the debris.
      The nose cones of two GBU-39 small diameter bombs were visible in footage taken by an eyewitness, Emad Abu Shawish, in the aftermath of the strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp. His images were verified by Storyful and independently geolocated by the Washington Post.
      An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the strikes targeted a gathering of militants at the school. But the facility was also packed with thousands of civilians displaced by the war, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which aids Palestinian refugees.
      The Gaza Health Ministry said 40 people were killed, including 14 children and nine women, and 74 others were wounded. Khalil al-Degran, spokesman for the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, said that the bodies of children killed in the strike were brought to his facility.
      Read the full article here (paywall).Johnson’s demand for Biden came after Israel launched airstrikes against a refugee camp in Rafah during the Memorial Day weekend, an attack that killed dozens of people and was widely condemned by the international community.Here are Johnson’s full remarks, available here:
      The NAACP has, and continues to express our profound sympathy to civilians whose lives have been unjustly impacted in the crossfire of conflict. What happened on October 7 was a tragedy, and it is our hope that those with loved ones still in captivity are reunited as expeditiously as possible.
      As the nation’s leading civil rights organization, it is our responsibility to speak out in the face of injustice and work to hold our elected officials accountable for the promises they’ve made. Over the past months, we have been forced to bear witness to unspeakable violence, affecting innocent civilians, which is unacceptable. The most recent statement from the Biden administration is useful but does not go far enough. It is one thing to call for a ceasefire, it is another to take the measures necessary to work towards liberation for all. Decades of conflict reflect that factions inside Israel and Hamas actively work against resolution of the conflict. The latest proposal must clarify the consequences of continued violence. The United States and the international community must be willing to pull the levers of power when appropriate to advance liberation for all.
      The Middle East conflict will only be resolved when the US government and international community take action, including limiting access to weapons used against civilians. The NAACP calls on President Biden to draw the red line and indefinitely end the shipment of weapons and artillery to the state of Israel and other states that supply weapons to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. It is imperative that the violence that has claimed so many civilian lives, immediately stop. Hamas must return the hostages and stop all terrorist activity. Israel must commit to an offensive strategy that is aligned with international and humanitarian laws. Peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians can only align when the humanity and common needs of people within the region are respected. Centuries of conflict reflect that violence results in more violence. The spillover effect in the United States is more racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia.
      The president of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) has asked Joe Biden to end the shipment of all weapons and artillery to Israel, in a new post to X.Derrick Johnson, who has led the civil rights organization since 2017, made the demand as more than 35,000 Palestinian people have been killed by Israel’s attacks against the territory.Johnson said:
      We’re calling on [Biden] to draw the red line and end the shipment of all weapons and artillery to Israel. It is imperative that the violence that has claimed so many civilian lives comes to an end immediately.
      Almost two years after he was first found guilty of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the January 6 committee, a federal judge today ordered Steve Bannon, an influential figure in Donald Trump’s Maga movement, to begin serving his four-month sentence by 1 July. In a defiant speech outside the courthouse, he accused the justice department of using his case to retaliate against Trump, and predicted a big win for Republicans in the November presidential election. Speaking of Trump, the former president gave an interview to Fox News last night, where he argued he “would have every right to go after” political adversaries like Joe Biden, if he is returned to the White House. In response, the Biden campaign said Trump was “visibly rattled” by his conviction last week on felony business fraud charges.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      The supreme court released a new batch of opinions, which did not include much-awaited decisions on Trump’s petition for immunity from federal prosecution over his 2020 election meddling, and two cases dealing with abortion access.
      Trump called for the supreme court to overturn his conviction on felony charges connected to falsifying documents related to hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election.
      Hunter Biden’s federal gun charges trial continues in Delaware, with testimony from the widow of his late brother, Beau Biden.
      Speaking outside the courthouse, Steve Bannon vowed to appeal his jail sentence to the supreme court, and accused the justice department of pursuing him as a way to retaliate against Donald Trump.“They’re not going to shut up Trump, they’re not going to shut up Navarro, they’re not going to shut up Bannon, and they’re certainly not going to shut up Maga,” said Bannon. He was referring to Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House trade adviser, who is serving a similar prison sentence on contempt of Congress charges.Bannon went on to predict an overwhelming victory in the November presidential election:
      All of this is about one thing. This is about shutting down the Maga movement, shutting down grassroots conservatives, shutting down President Trump. Not only are we winning, we are going to prevail, and every number and every poll shows that. There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up … There’s not a prison built, or a jail built that will ever shut me up.
      All victory to Maga. We’re going to win this, we’re going to win at the supreme court, and more importantly, we’re going to win on November 5 an amazing landslide, with the Senate, the House and also Donald J Trump back as president United States.
      After a federal judge revoked Steve Bannon’s bail and ordered him to begin serving his prison term by 1 July, he held a brief press conference outside Washington DC’s federal courthouse.Before he began speaking, a protester holding up a sign reading “lock him up” shouted “Get out of my way” at Bannon’s security guards, who were keeping him away from the former Donald Trump White House adviser.A federal judge has ordered Steve Bannon, a far-right strategist and Donald Trump ally, to report to prison by 1 July to begin serving his sentence for contempt of Congress, Reuters reports.Bannon was convicted in 2022 for ignoring a summons from the bipartisan House committee that investigated the January 6 insurrection, and his four-month sentence was upheld by an appeals court last month. Here’s more on the long-running legal saga:This post has been corrected to note that Bannon must begin serving his sentence by 1 July, not on 1 July.Meanwhile, in Congress, Donald Trump has orchestrated the appointment of two allies to the House intelligence committee, which deals with some of the most sensitive information the US government possesses. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait:Two far-right Republicans have been appointed to the highly sensitive House of Representatives intelligence committee at the direction of Donald Trump, a move likely to antagonise the security establishment.Representatives Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Ronny Jackson of Texas, known for their fierce loyalty to Trump and vocal support of his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, were installed by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, ahead of other qualified GOP members and apparently without consulting the body’s chair, Mike Turner.Turner has sought to restore the committee’s bipartisan character following years of bitter party infighting between Republicans and Democrats.The appointments of Perry and Jackson to a committee that helps to shape US foreign policy and oversees intelligence agencies such as the FBI and the CIA has caused consternation on Capitol Hill. It also signals Trump’s hostility to organisations that he has vowed to purge if he is re-elected.Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman who served on the House select committee that investigated the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, called the move “insane” on a social media post.The pair were appointed to slots opened up by the resignations from Congress of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Chris Stewart of Utah.Joe Biden is also dealing with some unwelcome legal attention. His son, Hunter Biden, is on trial in Delaware on federal gun charges, and the Associated Press reports that the widow of the president’s late son Beau Biden took the stand today:Testifying in Hunter Biden’s federal gun trial, Hallie Biden – the widow of Joe Biden’s oldest son, Beau – described panicking after finding a gun in his truck.“I panicked and I wanted to get rid of them,” she testified about finding a gun and ammunition in the console of Hunter Biden’s truck in October 2018.Prosecutor Leo Wise asked why she panicked, and Hallie responded: “Because I didn’t want him to hurt himself, and I didn’t want my kids to find it and hurt themselves.”Hallie said she considered hiding the gun but thought her kids might find it. She then decided to throw it away.“I was afraid to touch it. I didn’t know if it was loaded,” Hallie said.She put the gun in a leather pouch, stuffed it in a shopping bag, and tossed it in a trash can outside an upscale grocery market near her house.The prosecution played surveillance footage showing Hallie dumping the gun in the trash.While Donald Trump’s felony business fraud trial in New York concluded last week with a guilty verdict, other prosecutions of the former president have stalled. Yesterday, an appeals court in Georgia put his trial on election fraud charges on hold, likely until after the 2024 election, the Guardian’s George Chidi reports:The Georgia court of appeals has put a hold on the trial of Donald Trump and other defendants while it considers whether to disqualify the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, the lead prosecutor in the case.Trump had appealed an order by the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee that declined to disqualify Willis after bombshell revelations about a romantic relationship with her chosen special prosecutor. As part of their effort to dismiss the case, Trump and his co-defendants alleged Willis’s relationship meant she should be recused from the case.On Monday, the appeals court selected a three-judge panel to hear the appeal and docketed the case to be heard in October. Then on Wednesday, the court paused the case while this argument plays out.Both Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow and a spokesperson for Willis’s office declined to comment on the court’s order.The order staying the case in Fulton county essentially ensures that the former president will not be tried on charges of election interference and racketeering in Georgia before the November election.“The history books will look back on what the country lost by not having a televised trial before November 2024 and historians will wonder what Fani Wills was thinking. And they’ll just scratch their heads,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor in Georgia and a close observer of the case. “I don’t know how much Judge McAfee could have done between now and the appeal’s pendency anyway. But the real loss is McAfee’s ability to deal with the question of presidential immunity and the supremacy clause over the summer.” More

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      Trump calls on supreme court to annul his guilty verdict in hush-money case

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      Donald Trump has called on the US supreme court to step in and annul his guilty verdict in a hush-money trial that left him with the unwanted distinction of being the first former US president to be a convicted felon.The 2024 presumptive Republican nominee made his plea in a typically florid post on his Truth Social site, highlighting that a sentencing hearing scheduled for 11 July falls just four days before the GOP’s national convention in Milwaukee, when his nomination is expected to become official.“The ‘Sentencing’ for not having done anything wrong will be, conveniently for the Fascists, 4 days before the Republican National Convention,” Trump wrote. “A Radical Left Soros backed D.A., who ran on a platform of ‘I will get Trump,’ reporting to an ‘Acting’ Local Judge, appointed by the Democrats, who is HIGHLY CONFLICTED, will make a decision which will determine the future of our Nation?”A jury in Manhattan found the ex-president guilty last Thursday on all 34 counts of falsifying documents to conceal a sexual liaison with an adult film actor, Stormy Daniels, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won over Hillary Clinton.The verdict, which Trump has pledged to appeal, raised the atmosphere in this year’s presidential campaign to fever pitch more than five months before polling day, with Republicans circling the wagons while Democrats sought ways to exploit it.In a worrying sign for Trump, a new ABC/Ipsos poll showed 50% of voters thought the verdict was correct, nearly double the proportion, 27%, who believed it was wrong. Nearly half of those polled, 49%, thought he should end his campaign – a step he is highly unlikely to take.The figures were even starker among “double haters” – voters who equally dislike Trump and President Joe Biden – 65% of whom supported the verdict, with two-thirds saying the former president should end his campaign. Pollsters predict the cohort could be a critical component of the swing voter constituency they believe will determine the outcome in November.By appealing to the supreme court to intervene in a case he insists is nakedly political, Trump is reprising the legal strategy deployed in his defense against special counsel Jack Smith’s charges relating to the 6 January, 2021 mob attack on the US Capitol in a bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in his favor.The case is currently on hold while the nine justices consider claims by Trump’s lawyers that he had complete immunity from prosecution for decisions taken while he was president.But his invocation of the court – which has a six-to-three conservative majority after Trump’s judicial appointments while he was in the White House – also comes as questions over its political impartiality are at a peak following revelations that a US flag was flown upside down at the home of Justice Samuel Alito at the time of the January 6 riot. The gesture is identical to that used by many participants in the attack as a symbol of protest against Biden’s victory.In an interview with Fox, Trump affected to be unfazed by the possibility that he could be sentenced to jail by Judge Juan Merchan at his 11 July hearing, saying: “it could happen” and that he would be “OK” with a custodial sentence or home confinement.Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted Trump’s case, has reportedly yet to decide whether to request a prison term or leave the decision to Merchan’s discretion.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLegal analysts have pointed out that his conviction is for a low-level felony and that Trump has no prior convictions, making probation a more likely sentence.But the ex-president may have sullied his prospects of remaining free with his relentless verbal assaults on both men.Previous attacks on Bragg, a Democrat, have included posting a picture of himself holding a baseball bat next to a photo of the prosecutor’s head.The first Republican attack ad aiming to exploit the verdict has been posted by the GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy in his campaign against a Democratic incumbent, Jon Tester, in which he links his opponent for a Montana seat to a prosecution that the ad calls “a state-sponsored political persecution led by JOE BIDEN and the radical left”.“They want to throw Trump in jail, trying to rob Americans of their choice in the election,” the 30-second broadcast says.It also accuses Tester of advocating political violence against Trump, displaying footage of the senator saying: “I think you need to go back and punch him in the face.” More

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      The Republican party has transformed into the Trump Maga party | Sidney Blumenthal

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      The Republican leaders were of one mind: if the Republican president committed a crime, he could no longer hold office. They had defended him to a point, but they understood that with proof of criminality they would withdraw their support. Even before the evidence was conclusive, their ultimate judgment about their constitutional duty and of the president’s was certain. “If it can be proved that he lied, resignation would have to be considered. It would be quick. Everything would be over, ended. It wouldn’t drag out like impeachment.” So stated senator Barry Goldwater, a previous Republican presidential nominee, still the icon of the conservative movement, in May 1973.It did not matter that Richard Nixon was popular, that he had won the presidency twice, the last time just a year earlier, in a landslide, carrying 49 states. Goldwater did not know that after he made his statement, the “smoking gun” tape would be revealed on 5 August 1974. He and the other Republican leaders, however, did know then that a president who had authorized payment of hush money to the Watergate burglars in order win an election and had engaged in a coverup to thwart both the investigation and accountability in the courts would have to quit or face impeachment and removal.On 6 August, at the Senate Republican Conference lunch, Goldwater exclaimed: “There are only so many lies you can take, and now there has been one too many. Nixon should get his ass out of the White House – today!” The next day, Goldwater, the House Republican leader John Rhodes and the Senate Republican leader Hugh Scott traveled down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House to deliver the message to Nixon that he was doomed. In his memoir, Goldwater wrote that Nixon “knew beyond any doubt that one way or another his presidency was finished. None of us doubted the outcome. He would resign.” On 9 August, Nixon wrote a letter of one sentence: “I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States.”Within minutes of the jury delivering its verdict in the trial of The People of the State of New York versus Donald J Trump, convicting him of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to coverup hush-money payments in order to suppress information about his illicit adulterous affairs to win the election, the Republican leaders released their prepared statements of support. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who played a leading role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, went on Fox News to assure its viewers that the supreme court would soon overturn the conviction: “I think that the justices on the court – I know many of them personally – I think they are deeply concerned about that, as we are. So I think they’ll set this straight.”Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the charges “never should have been brought in the first place”, and predicted the conviction would “be overturned on appeal”. One after another, Republicans lined up to denounce the verdict, the judicial system and New York – “the Manhattan kangaroo court”, according to Congressman Jim Jordan. They hate New York.“I am a political prisoner,” Trump protested in a fundraising email. But, “the good news”, he said in his press conference the day after the verdict, was that he had raised millions. He said he had wanted to testify in the trial, as he promised he would, but that was a lie. If he had testified, he and his lawyers knew, he would have lied, like he lied in his press conference. His cowardice saved himself from a perjury rap.Trump’s self-image as a martyr was embraced by more than his Republican acolytes. Now, three months after the murder of Alexei Navalny, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov stated: “The fact that a de facto elimination of political rivals by all possible legal and illegal means is going on there is obvious.” Trump supporter, the representative Nancy Mace, echoed Peskov’s remark, tweeting: “There’s no difference: Putin silences Navalny, Biden’s DOJ targets Trump. The left’s outrage over Navalny is hypocritical as they cheer on Biden’s tyranny.”The Republican party of Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes and Hugh Scott is not even a flickering shadow of a memory. Both Nixon and Trump succeeded during their campaigns in covering up their sordid transactions through bribery. When Nixon’s perfidy was finally exposed the Republican leaders accepted the truth. His party support crumbled. He had no alternative to leaving. But when Trump’s conviction on all counts was announced, the Republican leaders rallied ‘round his upside-down flag. None of them remembered the events of 50 years ago, or cared if they did. The party still carries the name of “Republican”, but it is a party transformed. It is the Trump Maga party.Trump hails the imprisoned January 6 insurrectionists as “hostages” and promises to pardon them. In the shadow of the Capitol, at the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 is an authoritarian blueprint for a second Trump term, the upside-down flag signaling insurrectionist sympathy was hoisted within moments of the jury’s verdict of Trump’s guilt.The Republican party today is the fruit of the poisoned tree. Trump has thoroughly tainted all of its branches. The party’s central organizing principles are impunity from justice and contempt for the rule of law, which have always and everywhere been the hallmarks of despotism.The zombie party it is prepared to nominate a felon in a convention beginning four days after his sentencing. Before Trump emerges on stage through clouds of dry ice smoke, he will be preceded by speakers seeking to exceed each other in tirades against the evil of the judicial system.There are very few Republicans left to terminate for treason to Trump. Isolated heretics, like Liz Cheney, have been long purged from the ranks. Larry Hogan, an outlying old-style moderate, the former governor of Maryland, currently running for the Senate, perhaps the decisive figure for its capture by Republicans, urged the public to “respect the verdict and the legal process”. In an instant, Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita replied: “You just ended your campaign.” If Hogan ever stood a chance, it is now evaporated. Respect for the law is disloyalty to Trump. In front of Trump Tower the day after the verdict waved a huge flag: “Trump Or Death”. Every Republican candidate for every office must now pledge fealty to a felon, declare an oath to his victimhood and show contempt for the justice system. Then they can feign campaigns as law-and-order candidates.For all of his rage against the judicial system, Trump’s protectors on the courts have spared him from the worst of the charges he rightfully should bear. Before his conviction in the Manhattan courtroom, he should have already been tried in federal courts for his crimes in the January 6 insurrection, his theft of national security documents and obstruction of justice.The conservative majority on the supreme court has shielded him through unwarranted delays in the presidential immunity case, which it will almost certainly further delay by referring it back to the appeals court to engage needlessly in defining distinctions between official and personal business. Intervening as a political actor, the court has granted Trump de facto immunity for the course of the campaign.By contrast, in United States v Nixon, the supreme court in July 1974 unanimously decided within two weeks on Nixon’s executive privilege in controlling his White House tapes. The court rejected his “absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances”. One justice, William Rehnquist, recused himself from the case because he had been the assistant attorney general who had fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Nixon’s order in the Saturday Night Massacre. He did not want even an appearance of a conflict of interest. No matter the result, he felt the necessity of ethical obligation.On the Roberts Court, by contrast, two justices with apparent conflicts of interest, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, adamantly refuse to recuse themselves. Thomas’s wife Ginni was a political operative in organizing the false electors scheme in Arizona and in helping to coordinate the events leading to the insurrection. Alito’s wife, it seems, at least according to Alito, was responsible for flying flags that were emblems of the insurrection at their Virginia residence and New Jersey beach house. Alito disclaims any ability or will of his own to lower those flags. “My wife loves to fly flags,” he said. Happy wife, happy life.But his chronology of events does not match that of his neighbor, whom he blamed for provoking poor beset Martha-Ann Alito to raise the banners in the first place by exhibiting nasty anti-Trump signs. The neighbor, for her part, said Martha-Ann spat at her family. Trump praised Alito for being “strong”, and Chief Justice John Roberts rebuffed inquiries about the ethical quandaries of Thomas and Alito from the Senate judiciary committee. The history and tradition of stonewalling is the predicate for the Trump immunity ruling. Trump has infected the supreme court down to the wives.In the national security papers case in Florida, a federal judge appointed by Trump, Aileen Cannon, has used every contrivance to thwart the special prosecutor Jack Smith and to prevent the case from moving to trial. She stands in the sharpest contrast to Judge John J Sirica, of the US district court in Washington, who relentlessly and expeditiously pressed to expose the underpinnings of the Watergate scandal and to push the Nixon tapes to the supreme court for a speedy resolution. If someone like Sirica were presiding over the Florida case, the trial would have been held by now and Trump almost certainly convicted, which would have figured as a prior conviction to toughen the sentencing in the Manhattan case.Outside the courthouse, Trump mixed in criminals with congressmen to join his cheerleading section. There was a Hells Angels biker, Chuck Zito, close to the Gambino crime family who served six years in prison. There were also two rappers, Michael Williams, AKA Sheff G, and Tegan Chambers, AKA Sleepy Hallow, currently indicted with other alleged gang members on 140 felony counts for attempted murder conspiracy.The unanswered question about these criminals’ association with Trump remains: what’s in it for them? They are not known to be motivated by political ideas. If Trump paid them, arranged to pay them, or for them to receive anything of value, it would have been a bizarre refraction of the charges for which he was convicted.Just as Trump surrounded himself with criminals, he suffused his party from top to bottom with criminality. Then the jury decided that he is a criminal. “That the defendant, Donald J Trump, is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, to conceal a scheme to corrupt the 2016 election,” stated Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg.Trump will appeal his conviction, but the history cannot be appealed. Historians operate on different methods than judges and juries. Yet the verdict contributes to settling the history. Pundits may continue to quibble about this or that about the trial and its aftermath. Historians cannot doubt that Trump won the presidency in 2016 at least in part through criminal means.
      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Neighbors say Alitos used security detail car to intimidate them after sign dispute

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      Neighbors of Samuel Alito and his wife described how a disagreement over political lawn signs put up in the wake of the 2020 presidential election quickly devolved into “unhinged behavior towards a complete stranger” by the supreme court justice’s wife.Emily Baden says she never intended to get into a fight with Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, her powerful neighbors who live on the same suburban cul-de-sac as her mother outside Washington DC.Then a large black car, part of the Alitos’ security detail, started parking in front of her mother’s house instead of theirs, and Baden understood the perils of being an ordinary citizen going up against one of the most powerful men in the country.The two sides do not agree on much, but Baden, a staunch liberal, and Martha-Ann Alito, a staunch conservative, concur that they began exchanging words in late 2020, almost two months after Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump. Soon after, according to Baden, the Alitos’ security detail began parking a car directly in front of her mother’s house – several houses down from its usual spots either directly in front of the Alitos or across the street from them.“This happened a handful of times,” Baden now recalls. “I took that as directly threatening.”Baden and her husband both say that the security detail’s car showed up in front of her mother’s house again two weeks ago, after the New York Times broke the story about an upside-down American flag hanging on the Alitos’ flagpole in the days before Biden’s inauguration – a symbol associated with the January 6 insurrection that sought to prevent Biden from taking office at all.Baden was no longer living with her mother by that point – she is now a mother herself and living on the west coast. Neither she nor her mother were mentioned by name in the initial Times story. Still, she found the message that this sent disturbing.“I couldn’t say who was in the car because of the tinted glass, and nobody ever said anything. I took it as a general threat,” she said. “The message was, we could do terrible things to you, and nobody would be able to do anything about it. When it comes to justices at the supreme court, they make the laws, but the laws don’t apply to them.”Baden’s husband, who did not want to be identified by name, said he, too, remembered a large black security SUV parking in front of their house, most memorably after Martha-Ann Alito confronted the couple in February 2021 and Baden let an expletive fly at the justice’s wife.“Right after, a security vehicle moved in front of our house and stayed for the remainder of the night,” he recalled.The Alitos did not immediately respond to a request from the Guardian for comment.Baden is an unusual witness to the Alito flag controversy and furore it has unleashed, because she never saw the upside-down flag flying outside the Alitos’ house and did not hear about it until the story hit the headlines two weeks ago.When the Times first contacted her, she said she didn’t want to be in any story because she had nothing to add. That changed when Alito put out a statement saying that his wife had briefly hung the flag in response to a neighbor’s use of “objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs”.Baden realised this was a reference to her. It both incensed and frightened her.“He’s lying about many, many things in that statement,” she claims. Contrary to Alito’s assertions, she alleged, it was not true that she had initiated any confrontation. She said it was also untrue that her lawn signs were directed personally at the justice or his wife.In Baden’s version of events, Martha-Ann Alito first approached her to complain about a home-made cardboard sign that said “Bye Don” on one side and “Fuck Trump” on the other – sentiments found on many similar signs around their neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia, and in the rest of the country.Alito took further umbrage after January 6 when Baden erected signs that read “Trump Is a Fascist” and “You Are Complicit” – the latter intended, Baden says, as a condemnation of all Trump supporters, not as a message to the Alitos, who had no direct view of it from their house.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe next day, according to Baden, Martha-Ann Alito pulled up in front of their house in her car and glared at her and her partner (now her husband). The security detail started parking outside the house around the same time, and the dispute continued for more than a month, culminating in the swearing incident in mid-February and a police report that the Badens filed right after.“This was unhinged behavior towards a complete stranger, who had done nothing except put up a yard sign,” Baden charged. “I became truly afraid of what they might do.”That fear also made her hesitate about agreeing to be named publicly. She knows how quickly people can be vilified when stepping into a high-profile political controversy, and she has thought of Anita Hill, who tried in vain to stop Clarence Thomas being named to the supreme court in the early 1990s, and of Christine Blasey Ford, who testified against Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018, also to no avail.“I was scared for myself, for my mother, for my family, for anyone who shares my last name,” Baden said.Then news broke of a second flag affiliated with the “Stop the Steal” movement being flown at a second Alito home, and she felt she had no choice but to speak out.“That other flag sealed the deal for me,” she said. “I thought, if I don’t use my name, I will not be true to myself and my lifelong convictions. I believe in resistance to fascism. My grandpa fought in world war two … he was a person who quite literally fought against fascism.”Her view of Alito was further coloured by the fact that he wrote the majority opinion in the 2022 Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization – the decision that overturned Roe v Wade and ended a constitutional right to an abortion. She happened to be in Virginia when the news broke, and participated in street protests outside the Alitos’ home, at which point her signs (and almost everyone else’s) were indeed personally directed at the justice.Now, she feels compelled to add her voice to the growing calls for Alito to recuse himself from Trump-related cases before the supreme court and is willing to testify before Congress, as Hill and Blasey Ford did before her.“This story is not about me. I didn’t do anything except put a sign in my front yard,” she said. “The story is that one of the most powerful men in the country showed allegiance to an insurrection … I’m horrified by this behaviour, and want to see at least a modicum of accountability.“If I’m coming forward, it is to encourage other people to resist. I want to galvanise people and let them know they have the power. It truly gives me chills to think how close we came to a coup, and Christian fascists taking over our country. [But] this is still a democracy.” More

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      Supreme court chief justice declines to meet US senators about Alito upside-down flag furor – as it happened

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      In a statement, the Biden campaign’s Black media director, Jasmine Harris, accused Donald Trump of racism after a former producer on The Apprentice accused him of using a racial slur on set:
      No one is surprised that Donald Trump, who entered public life by falsely accusing Black men of murder and entered political life spreading lies about the first Black president, reportedly used the N-word to casually denigrate a successful Black man. Anyone notice a pattern? Donald Trump is exactly who Black voters know him to be: a textbook racist who disrespects and attacks the Black community every chance he gets, and the most ignorant man to ever run for president. It’s why Black voters kicked him out of the White House in 2020, and it’s why they’ll make him a loser a second time this November.
      The Biden campaign launched a new attack against Donald Trump, accusing him of racism after a former producer on The Apprentice said he used an anti-Black slur on the set. Meanwhile, jury deliberations are ongoing in Trump’s business fraud trial in New York City, and a verdict could be delivered at anytime. Earlier in the day, the supreme court released a batch of new opinions, covering topics from banking regulation to free speech rights. But the conservative-dominated court did not yet weigh in on Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution over the 2020 election, or two abortion-related cases, all of which remain pending before the justices. Another batch of opinions is expected next Thursday.Here’s what else happened today:
      Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman and Trump antagonist, proposed a way to force conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from January 6 cases.
      John Roberts, the supreme court’s chief justice, declined a request for a meeting from two Democratic senators concerned over Alito’s flag flap.
      Do swing state voters care if Trump is convicted in his New York business fraud trial? Our reporters searched for the answer.
      Most evidence in the New York case seems to point to Trump’s guilt, but the jury could reach a variety of conclusions.
      Trump can sue his niece Mary Trump for potentially violating the terms of a settlement over his father’s estate, a New York state appeals court ruled.
      Should Donald Trump win the November election, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports that his ally, speaker of the House Mike Johnson, is prepared to move quickly to pass his agenda through Congress. Here’s what Johnson told Semafor he is looking at:Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, is planning a sweeping ideological legislative drive that aims to make Donald Trump “the most consequential president of the modern era” if the Republicans win power in November.A far-reaching bill containing a range of policy priorities at once – including tax cuts worth trillions, border security and rolling back Obamacare – is being prepared to avoid the mistakes the GOP believed happened early in Trump’s first term, when Johnson says the party wasted time because its victory over Hillary Clinton took it by surprise.In an interview with Semafor, Johnson said he had already spoken to Trump about introducing an omnibus package immediately after he retakes office.“I told him that I believe he can be the most consequential president of the modern era, if we are focused on a policy and agenda-driven administration and Congress – and that’s our intention,” Johnson said.“We don’t want to make the mistake that we made in the past. Back in the 2017 timeframe and in previous years, we Republicans kind of took a single-subject approach. We did one round of healthcare reform, one round of tax reform. But for [fiscal year 2025], we want to have a much larger scope, multiple issues to address in addition to the expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.”For the second time in as many days, Donald Trump has defended supreme court justice Samuel Alito amid criticism from Democrats over his display of flags associated with rightwing causes.Alito, an appointee of Republican president George W Bush, is a reliably conservative vote on the court, and Trump has loudly denounced the Democratic lawmakers who have called for him to recuse himself from cases dealing with January. Here’s what the ex-president wrote, on Truth Social:
      ‘Playing the Ref’ with Justice Alito doesn’t work. It works with many others, but not with him!
      Here’s more from the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington about the firestorm around conservative supreme court justice Samuel Alito, and the rightwing flags found flying at his residences:Justice Samuel Alito is rejecting calls to step aside from supreme court cases involving the former president Donald Trump and January 6 defendants because of the controversy over flags that flew over his homes.In letters to members of Congress on Wednesday, Alito says his wife was responsible for flying an upside-down US flag over his home in 2021 and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his New Jersey beach house last year.Neither incident merits his recusal, he wrote.“I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request,” he wrote.The court is considering two major cases related to the 6 January 2021 attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the Capitol, including charges faced by the rioters and whether the former president has immunity from prosecution on election-interference charges.Alito has rejected calls from Democrats in the past to recuse on other issues.In his letter to the Democratic leaders of the Senate judiciary committee, supreme court chief justice John Roberts argued it would be inappropriate to meet with them.“I must respectfully decline your request for a meeting,” wrote Roberts, who was appointed by Republican president George W Bush, and is considered among the more moderate of the court’s conservative justices.He continued in the letter addressed to the committee’s chair Dick Durbin and senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who chairs the subcommittee on federal courts:
      As noted in my letter to Chairman Durbin last April, apart from ceremonial events, only on rare occasions in our Nation’s history has a sitting Chief Justice met with legislators, even in a public setting (such as a Committee hearing) with members of both major political parties present. Separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence counsel against such appearances. Moreover, the format proposed – a meeting with leaders of only one party who have expressed an interest in matters currently pending before the Court – simply underscores that participating in such a meeting would be inadvisable.
      Last week, the two Democrats had requested a meeting with Roberts, after reports emerged that conservative justice Samuel Alito had flown flags associated with rightwing causes at two of his properties.“We therefore call for Justice Alito to recuse himself from certain proceedings as outlined above, renew our call for the Supreme Court to adopt an enforceable code of conduct for Supreme Court justices, and request a meeting with you as soon as possible. Until the Court and the Judicial Conference take meaningful action to address this ongoing ethical crisis, we will continue our efforts to enact legislation to resolve this crisis,” Durbin and Whitehouse wrote to Roberts.John Roberts, the chief justice of the US supreme court, has rebuffed a request from senior Democratic US senators to meet as the lawmakers push for supreme court justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases before the court that relate to Donald Trump and will ripple into the 2024 presidential election.Roberts declined an invitation to talk about supreme court ethics and the controversy over flags that flew outside homes owned by Alito, the Associated Press further reports.Roberts’ response came in a letter to Democratic senators Dick Durbin a day after Alito separately wrote to them and House of Representatives members to reject their demands that he recuse himself from major cases involving Trump and the January 6 rioters because of the flags, which are like those carried by some rioters at the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.Senate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin of Illinois and senator and committee member Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island had written Roberts a week ago to ask for the meeting and ask that Roberts take steps to ensure that Alito recuses himself from any cases before the court concerning the January 6 attack or former president Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.Trump, the Guardian adds, is being prosecuted in a federal criminal case on charges relating to election interference and obstructing an official proceeding. The supreme court will rule next month on two cases before it that have grave implications in that case, and for the election.A recap that a year ago a judge in New York threw out Donald Trump’s 2021 lawsuit accusing New York Times reporters of an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records.Trump was ordered to pay all attorneys’ fees and legal expenses that the Times and its reporters had incurred. The lawsuit alleged that the newspaper sought out Trump’s niece Mary Trump and persuaded her “to smuggle the records out of her attorney’s office”.At the time, Trump’s claim against his niece had not been ruled on. Today, we learned that Donald is permitted to proceed with suing Mary.The Times’s 2018 Pulitzer-winning stories relied on information from Mary Trump to cast doubt on the ex-president’s claims that he was a self-made millionaire, showing that he had inherited hundreds of millions through “dubious tax schemes”. The series also revealed a history of tax avoidance.Robert Reed, the New York supreme court justice, said at the time of his ruling, in May 2023, that Trump’s claims “fail as a matter of constitutional law”, which allows for reporters to engage in legal, ordinary news-gathering. “These actions are at the very core of protected first amendment activity,” Reed wrote.Alina Habba, a lawyer for Donald Trump, said the former president looked forward to holding his niece, Mary Trump, “fully accountable for her blatant and egregious breach of contract” in her exchanges with New York Times journalists for a story about her uncle’s finances and evasive tax habits.Thursday’s decision upheld a June 2023 ruling by Justice Robert Reed of the New York state supreme court.Also, Reed had dismissed Donald Trump’s claims against the New York Times and three reporters, and in January ordered him to pay $392,639 of their legal fees, Reuters reports.In November 2022, Reed dismissed Mary Trump’s separate lawsuit accusing her uncle and two of his siblings of defrauding her out of a multimillion-dollar inheritance.The New York Times’ reporting challenged Donald Trump’s claim that he was a self-made billionaire. It said he received the equivalent of $413m from his father, largely the result of “dubious” tax schemes in the 1990s, including undervaluing his family’s real estate holdings. Donald Trump has denied wrongdoing.Mary Trump previously identified herself as a Times source in her 2020 tell-all bestseller Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.Here’s more on the news that a court has said Donald Trump can sue his niece Mary Trump.The court in New York ruled that the former president can sue Mary Trump, 59, a psychologist and writer, for supplying information to the New York Times as part of its coverage into the then president’s finances and his alleged effort to avoid taxes. The coverage won the Pulitzer prize.The appellate division in Manhattan found a “substantial” legal basis for Donald Trump to claim that his niece violated confidentiality provisions of a 2001 settlement over the estate of his father, Fred Trump Sr, Reuters reports.A five-judge panel said it was unclear whether Mary Trump’s disclosures were subject to confidentiality, or how long both sides intended the provisions to remain in effect. It also signaled that Donald Trump might deserve only minimal damages, not the $100m he sought.The court said:
      At a minimum, nominal damages may still be available on the breach of contract claim even in the absence of actual damages.
      Lawyers for Mary Trump said the lawsuit violated a state law barring frivolous cases designed to silence critics and “chill and retaliate against” their free speech. These cases are called strategic lawsuits against public participation, or Slapps.Anne Champion, Mary Trump’s lawyer, said in a statement:
      Mary has made valuable contributions to the public’s knowledge of the former president with her unique perspective as a family member. We are confident she will be vindicated as the case proceeds.
      Champion also said Donald Trump “can claim no injury for the publication of truthful information.”A New York state appeals court said Donald Trump can sue his niece Mary Trump for giving the New York Times information for its Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 probe into his finances and his alleged effort to avoid taxes.The appellate division in Manhattan found a “substantial” legal basis for Donald Trump to claim that his niece violated confidentiality provisions of a 2001 settlement over the estate of his father, Fred Trump Sr, Reuters reports.More to come on this. Adding from the Guardian, Trump originally sued his estranged niece and the New York Times in 2021 over a 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices that was partly based on confidential documents she provided to the newspaper’s reporters, and there has been a whole legal odyssey ever since.The Biden campaign has launched a new attack against Donald Trump, accusing him of racism after a former producer on The Apprentice said he used an anti-Black racial slur on the set. Meanwhile, jury deliberations are ongoing in Trump’s business fraud trial in New York City, and a verdict could be delivered at anytime. Earlier in the day, the supreme court released a batch of new opinions, covering topics from banking regulation to free speech rights. But the conservative-dominated court did not yet weigh in on Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution over the 2020 election, or two abortion-related cases, all of which remain pending before the justices. Another batch of opinions is expected next Thursday.Here’s what else has happened today:
      Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman and Trump antagonist, proposed a way to force conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from January 6 cases.
      Do swing state voters care if Trump is convicted in his New York business fraud trial? Our reporters searched for the answer.
      Most evidence in the New York case seems to point to Trump’s guilt, but the jury could rule in any direction.
      In a statement, the Biden campaign’s Black media director, Jasmine Harris, accused Donald Trump of racism after a former producer on The Apprentice accused him of using a racial slur on set:
      No one is surprised that Donald Trump, who entered public life by falsely accusing Black men of murder and entered political life spreading lies about the first Black president, reportedly used the N-word to casually denigrate a successful Black man. Anyone notice a pattern? Donald Trump is exactly who Black voters know him to be: a textbook racist who disrespects and attacks the Black community every chance he gets, and the most ignorant man to ever run for president. It’s why Black voters kicked him out of the White House in 2020, and it’s why they’ll make him a loser a second time this November.
      In addition to handing the National Rifle Association a lifeline in its lawsuit against New York state, the supreme court also denied resentencing to an Arizona man on death row, the Guardian’s Joanna Walters reports:The US supreme court issued opinions on Thursday relating to free speech and the death penalty, in one case clearing the way for a National Rifle Association (NRA) lawsuit against a former New York state official.The court gave a boost to the influential gun rights group that has accused the official of coercing banks and insurers to avoid doing business with it and, in the process, violating the NRA’s free speech rights.The justices, in a unanimous decision from the nine-member bench, threw out a lower court’s ruling that dismissed the NRA’s 2018 lawsuit against Maria Vullo, a former superintendent of New York’s department of financial services.The NRA, in the case NRA v Vullo, claimed that Vullo unlawfully retaliated against it following a mass shooting in which 17 people were killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida.The NRA was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Biden administration argued some of its claims should go forward, an unusual alliance between often opposing parties considering the NRA is a strongly Republican-aligned organization.Meanwhile, the supreme court, in a 6-3 decision, struck down an appeals court ruling giving Danny Lee Jones a new sentencing hearing in a death penalty case in Arizona. The conservative supermajority decided that errors in Jones’s legal defense, in the case Thornell v Jones, did not justify him having a chance at resentencing.The supreme court just scheduled its next opinion release day.The court is expected to issue more decisions on Thursday, 6 June. Among the pending cases is Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution over trying to overturn the 2020 election, and two lawsuits related to abortion access. More

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      Alito refuses to step aside from Trump supreme court cases amid flag scandal

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      Justice Samuel Alito is rejecting calls to step aside from supreme court cases involving the former president Donald Trump and January 6 defendants because of the controversy over flags that flew over his homes.In letters to members of Congress on Wednesday, Alito says his wife was responsible for flying an upside-down US flag over his home in 2021 and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at his New Jersey beach house last year.Neither incident merits his recusal, he wrote.“I am therefore duty-bound to reject your recusal request,” he wrote.The court is considering two major cases related to the 6 January 2021 attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the Capitol, including charges faced by the rioters and whether the former president has immunity from prosecution on election interference charges.Alito has rejected calls from Democrats in the past to recuse on other issues.The New York Times reported that an inverted American flag was seen at Alito’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, less than two weeks after the attack on the Capitol.The paper also reported that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown outside the justice’s beach home in New Jersey last summer. Both flags were carried by rioters who violently stormed the Capitol in January 2021 echoing Trump’s false claims of election fraud.Alito said he was unaware that the upside-down flag was flying above his house until it was called to his attention. “As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused,” he wrote in nearly identical letters to Democrats in the House and Senate.Trump praised Alito’s rebuff of demands for his recusal, posting on his Truth Social account that the rightwing justice had showed “INTELLIGENCE, COURAGE, and ‘GUTS’”. Writing as he waited for the jury to return its verdict at his criminal hush-money trial in New York, Trump added: “All US Judges, Justices and Leaders should have such GRIT”.Alito’s flat-out refusal to address doubts about his impartiality in the wake of the flags scandal underlines the weakness of the supreme court’s current ethical guidelines. Following a public outcry over undeclared luxury trips and other gifts that had been received by Alito and his fellow hard-right justice Clarence Thomas, the court was forced to adopt its first ethics code last November.To the dismay of advocates of judicial reform, however, the code contained no enforcement provision. Individual justices are left to their own devices to decide whether or not they should recuse from cases in which there might be an appearance or reality of conflict of interest or impartiality.Thomas has also been accused of conflict of interest after he became the only vote on the court to oppose the release of digital communications to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. It later transpired that the stash of documents included emails between Thomas’s wife, the conservative activist Ginni Thomas, and Trump’s then top White House aide Mark Meadows over how to block Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.The lack of response from either Thomas or Alito to the welter of criticism over their ethical positions is starting to attract the attention of Congress.In an opinion article in the New York Times, Jamie Raskin, the Democratic Congress member from Maryland who led the second impeachment trial of Trump, said that it was “unfathomable that the two justices could get away with deciding for themselves whether they can be impartial in ruling on cases affecting Donald Trump’s liability for crimes he is accused of committing on January 6”.Raskin proposed a solution to the conundrum: the US justice department could petition the other seven justices on the nine-member supreme court under the federal recusal statute to require Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves in the January 6 cases. “The supreme court cannot disregard this law just because it directly affects one or two of its justices,” Raskin wrote.Democratic leaders in the US Senate are also pressuring the court to take more robust action. The Senate judiciary chairman, Dick Durbin, and fellow committee member Sheldon Whitehouse have written to the chief justice, John Roberts, asking for a meeting to discuss what he was proposing to do about Alito’s refusal to recuse himself.The Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Samuel Alito’s wife claimed upside-down flag was ‘international sign of distress’

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      The wife of US supreme court justice Samuel Alito reportedly justified the display of an upside-down American flag at the couple’s home by saying it was “an international signal of distress”, as senior Democrats have requested a meeting with the chief justice over the growing scandal.Martha-Ann Alito made the comments to a Washington Post reporter, the outlet reported on Saturday, when the journalist visited the couple’s Virginia home in January 2021, not long after the attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump.She reportedly told the Washington Post at the time that the flag had been run up their flagpole in that way in response to a neighborhood dispute.Flying the Stars and Stripes flag upside down is acceptable as a rare distress signal, according to the official US flag code. But these days it is more often associated with activists making an extremist sign of protest, and at the time of the January 6 insurrection it had been adopted by some on the far right amid efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump.The Washington Post report said on Saturday, quoting the outlet’s own spokesperson, that “the Post decided not to report on the episode at the time because the flag-raising appeared to be the work of Martha-Ann Alito, rather than the justice, and connected to a dispute with her neighbors … It was not clear then that the argument was rooted in politics.”In another twist, it was the New York Times that first reported earlier this week the display of the American flag in that fashion at the Alitos’ residence in early 2021, during a political row with neighbors.That was swiftly followed by a second report from the Times that another flag, one originally associated with the American revolution but now associated with the far right and known as the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, was flying last year above a holiday home of the Alitos in New Jersey.View image in fullscreenTwo leading Democratic senators are requesting a meeting with the supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, in the wake of these reports. This comes on top of calls demanding that Justice Alito recuse himself from election-related cases before the court and face investigation by the US Senate, the congressional chamber that confirms federal and supreme court judges.The Senate judiciary committee chair, Dick Durbin, and the senator and judiciary committee member Sheldon Whitehouse wrote a letter to Roberts earlier this week asking him for a meeting to discuss court ethics and to take steps to ensure that Alito recuses himself from any cases before the court concerning the January 6 attack or Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.The court did not respond to a request for comment regarding the letter.The court is considering two major cases related to the Capitol attack, including one related to charges faced by the rioters and another on whether Trump has immunity from prosecution on election interference charges. Alito is participating in both cases and has rejected calls from Democrats in the past to recuse himself on other issues.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlito earlier said he had no part in the flying of the inverted American flag. He and the court declined to respond to requests for comment on how the “Appeal to Heaven” banner came to be flying and what it was intended to express.Durbin and Whitehouse said they will continue to pressure the court. The plea for a meeting is a new approach after Roberts declined to testify at a hearing on supreme court ethics last year, amid a scandal over accusations of political influence and corruption aimed at Alito and Clarence Thomas, the two most conservative justices on the supreme court bench.“Until the court and the judicial conference take meaningful action to address this ongoing ethical crisis, we will continue our efforts to enact legislation to resolve this crisis,” Durbin and Whitehouse wrote.The American Legion US flag code states of the Stars and Stripes that “the flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property”.The Associated Press contributed reporting More