Alito rejects calls to recuse over flag furor

What happened

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said Wednesday he won't sit out two cases involving the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, telling Democratic lawmakers demanding his recusal that his wife bore full responsibility for publicly displaying a pair of flags associated with the "Stop the Steal" movement that fueled the insurrection.

Who said what

"My wife is fond of flying flags, I am not," Alito said in a letter to the lawmakers. "I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention. As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused." His wife is a private citizen and "makes her own decisions, and I have always respected her right to do so," he added. 

"Flying the American flag upside down at his home is a signal of defiance, which raises reasonable questions about bias and fairness in cases pending before the court," Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said, adding that Alito's refusal to recuse himself shows the Supreme Court needs ways to enforce the code of ethics it recently adopted. Donald Trump cheered Alito's decision, saying all judges "should have such GRIT."

What next?

Under the Constitution, the Justice Department "can petition the other seven justices to require" Alito to sit out the Jan. 6 cases "not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) argued in The New York Times.

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