Supreme Court Justice Alito talks polarization, his wife talks revenge in secret recordings
WASHINGTON – Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife were captured in secret recordings that featured the justice discussing the country’s left-right divide, while Martha-Ann Alito implied she would take revenge on media outlets that reported on controversial flags flown at Alito family homes.
“Look at me, look at me,” Martha-Ann Alito said. “I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m going to give it back to you.”
The recordings were made at a June 3 gala for the Supreme Court Historical Society by liberal activist Lauren Windsor and released Monday night.
“One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Alito said in one recording after Windsor, posing as a Catholic conservative, asked him leading questions about political polarization in America. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”
More: Chief Justice Roberts says he'll stay clear of Alito's Trump recusal refusal
Windsor also recorded Chief Justice John Roberts, who declined to take her bait.
“Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path?” Roberts asked her at the $500-a-head gala. “That’s for people we elect. That’s not for lawyers.”
When Windsor replied that she believed “we live in a Christian nation and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path,” Roberts quickly shot her down, saying, “I don’t know if that’s true.”
“I don’t know that we live in a Christian nation,” the chief justice said. “I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not, and it’s not our job to do that.”
Windsor defended secretly taping the justices.
"You know, the Supreme Court has been shrouded in secrecy, and they've dodged any accountability for what are − any reasonable person would consider − serious ethics violations or serious ethics problems, and I think that the American people deserve to have more information about that,” she told USA TODAY.
“Justice Alito is very ideological and that influences his opinions, right?" Windsor said. "But it takes on a different − you have a different understanding of things when you hear it from someone's own mouth that there's fundamental things that they can't compromise."
Windsor released the recordings at a fraught moment for the high court, after Alito and his wife were criticized for flying flags from their homes in Virginia and New Jersey that experts say are closely linked to the Stop the Steal election denial movement and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Critics including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called on Alito to recuse himself from Supreme Court cases involving former President Donald Trump’s broad claims of immunity in his federal election interference indictment and separate case over a law used to charge Trump and scores of Jan. 6 defendants.
Alito refused and said in a letter to the committee that his wife had raised the flags without his knowledge.
More: Mike Pence was a Jan. 6 target. He says criticizing Alito's flag is 'absurd'
Approaching Martha-Ann Alito at the June 3 benefit, Windsor expressed sympathy for the criticism she and her husband had been experiencing. Martha-Ann Alito broke in: “It’s OK! It’s OK!”
“It’s OK because if they come back to me, I’ll get them ... The media.”
Last month it was reported that an upside-down American flag had flown outside the Alitos' Virginia home after Trump's defeat in the 2020 election. The inverted flag has become a symbol for some Trump supporters who, like the former president, continue to claim the election was stolen.
Last summer, an "Appeal to Heaven" flag was raised outside the couple's New Jersey beach house. The Revolutionary War-era flag has become a potent symbol for "Stop the Steal" activists and Christian identity movement.
“You know what I want?” Martha-Ann Alito told Windsor. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.”
A spokesperson for the court didn't immediately return a call for comment.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alito, wife caught talking about political compromise on secret audio
