[Order David Horowitz’s new book, America Betrayed, HERE.]

The New York Times published two articles recently claiming to have proof that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito supported the “Stop the Steal” believers’ contention that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election. The New York Times reported that two flag symbols used at the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot were also displayed at various times at Justice Alito’s homes. The upshot of the articles was that the conservative justice is too biased to take part in cases before the Supreme Court this term that involve the January 6^th riot and Donald Trump.

The articles consist of innuendos based on pure speculation. Nevertheless, the newspaper, whose laughable motto is “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” achieved its purpose. The articles sparked outrage on the Left and demands that Justice Alito recuse himself from any January 6^th and Trump-related cases. Left-wing progressives at the New York Times and elsewhere are still furious at Justice Alito for authoring the Supreme Court decision two years ago that overturned Roe v. Wade’s establishment of a constitutional right to abortion.

The first New York Times article that threw the Left into fits of rage reported that an upside-down American flag was displayed outside Justice Alito’s Virginia house shortly after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. As if that were not enough, the New York Times followed up with a second article revealing that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag was displayed outside the Alito beach home in New Jersey during the summer of 2023.

Some January 6^th rioters who believed Mr. Trump’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen carried upside-down American flags and “Appeal to Heaven” flags at the Capitol on January 6th. The New York Times’ vacuous reporters concluded that these same flag symbols displayed at Justice Alito’s homes can only mean one thing. Justice Alito must share the same “Stop the Steal” sentiment as the rioters and therefore cannot be trusted to be impartial in cases involving the January 6^th riot and Mr. Trump.

But such a fallacious premise inevitably leads to a fallacious conclusion. The “Stop the Steal” protesters do not have a monopoly on the public use of an upside-down American flag or the “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Justice Alito’s detractors have no way of knowing for sure what was behind the flag displays at either of the justice’s homes. Nor should it matter.

The upside-down display of the American flag was originally used as a distress signal calling for help. It has been used since as a symbol of protest for many causes, including to oppose slavery in the 1850’s and the Vietnam War in the 1960s and ’70s. Pro-abortion demonstrators marched with American flags upside down in protest of the Supreme Court opinion written by none other than Justice Alito, which returned decisions about abortion to the states. When the upside-down American flag was used during the protests following the death of George Floyd, it was described then as “the universal signal of distress.”

Justice Alito explained that his wife decided herself to briefly fly the American flag upside down “in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.” The New York Times and Justice Alito’s other detractors have produced no evidence to refute Justice Alito’s explanation.

The “Appeal to Heaven” flag that flew outside of the Alito vacation home in New Jersey has a long history going back to the Revolutionary War era. The words “appeal to heaven” came from a quote by John Locke: “And where the Body of the People, or any single Man, is deprived of their Right, or is under the Exercise of a power without right, and have no Appeal on Earth, there they have a liberty to appeal to Heaven, whenever they judge the Cause of sufficient moment.”

Designed by George Washington’s personal secretary, Colonel Joseph Reed, the flag was conceived as a symbol of the colonialists’ resistance against oppressive British rule that they were fighting to achieve their independence. In its nearly 250-year history since that time, the flag has come to symbolize more generally a resilient faith in justice in the pursuit of liberty.

It is true, as the New York Times reported, that the flag has been used in recent years by Christian nationalists and “Stop the Steal” protesters. But that does not transform a flag with such a rich history into a single-use symbol owned exclusively by one particular group of activists. The flag retains its broader meaning, which calls upon those who seek the vindication of rights to “appeal to Heaven” for ultimate justice.

The simple fact that the “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown outside Justice Alito’s vacation home last year does not prove Justice Alito’s kinship with the “Stop the Steal” crowd. It simply proves Justice Alito’s deeply held belief that, in his words, “A person’s faith shapes what kind of person [he or she] is” and “also should affect the way you treat [people] when you’re serving as a judge.”

In any event, the calls for Justice Alito to recuse himself are hypocritical to say the least. There were no such calls coming from the Left back in 2016 when, during the presidential campaign that year, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg publicly denounced then-candidate Donald Trump as a “faker.” She also said, “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president.” Justice Ginsburg also criticized Mr. Trump for not disclosing his tax returns.

Such blatant ad hominem remarks against a candidate during a campaign violated the principle of neutrality that judges are expected to follow by not publicly endorsing or opposing a candidate for public office.

While Justice Ginsburg later said she regretted making those remarks, it was too little too late. The liberal justice had proven herself to be hopelessly biased when she publicly expressed her loathing of Mr. Trump. But she did not promise to recuse herself from even a single case that the Supreme Court might hear involving Mr. Trump. She did not even recuse herself from a case that dealt with a congressional subpoena for Mr. Trump’s tax returns.

At the time, Democrat Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois mildly criticized Justice Ginsburg’s remarks. Senator Durbin, who was then the Senate Minority Whip, said, “She may have got out over her skis a little bit and more forthright and political than she should have been.” Senator Durbin did not demand that she recuse herself from taking part in any cases involving Mr. Trump’s candidacy or his personal matters.

However, four years later, Senator Durbin, who is now the Senate Majority Whip and Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is taking a far more strident stance against Justice Alito. He and Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wrote a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts denouncing Justice Alito’s display of the upside-down American flag and ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag outside his homes.

The letter charged that Justice Alito had “actively engaged in political activity, failed to avoid the appearance of impropriety, and failed to act in a manner that promotes public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.” The letter declared that Justice Alito had thereby “created reasonable doubt about his impartiality and his ability to fairly discharge his duties in cases related to the 2020 presidential election and January 6th attack on the Capitol.”  The letter added that Justice Alito’s “recusal in these matters is both necessary and required” and urged Chief Justice Roberts to ensure that such recusal will happen.

Senator Durbin and other Democrats not surprisingly have displayed a double standard in their divergent treatment of Justice Alito and Justice Ginsburg respectively. They shamelessly demand a conservative justice’s recusal while not having done the same when a liberal justice engaged in a far worse personal attack against a Republican presidential candidate during an election year.

Hypocrisy is in the Left’s DNA. They will stop at nothing in their relentless campaign to delegitimize and intimidate the Supreme Court’s conservative justices on the way to their packing the Court with left-wing justices.