Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house causes a stir: a US flag hanging upside down raises suspicions and questions.
A US flag was photographed upside down on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s property in Virginia, Reuters reports, citing the New York Times. The unusual display of the flag was recorded in January 2021, a few weeks after the January 6 protests.
However, it is unclear whether the flag hanging upside down was intended as a sign of support for former US President Donald Trump. Alito himself told the newspaper that his wife hung the flag in response to provocative signs in neighbors’ front yards.
“I had no involvement whatsoever in hanging the flag,” Alito said in an email to the newspaper. “It was briefly hung by my wife in response to the use of offensive and personally offensive language on our neighbors’ yard signs.”
According to the New York Times report, the flag was photographed on Alito’s property in Alexandria, Virginia on January 17, 2021. Neighbors who were disturbed by the symbolic display took the pictures. The newspaper reported that it recently received the images and published one of them in its report.
According to U.S. Flag Law, the flag should never be displayed upside down except as a signal of acute emergency in situations of extreme danger to life or property.
However, as the Times reports, after the 2020 presidential election, some Trump supporters turned the American flag upside down to signal their support for the ousted president.