Remove Justice Alito Petition Passes 50K Signatures

A petition calling for Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to recuse themselves from major cases related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has amassed 50,000 signatures.

MoveOn launched the petition after The New York Times reported on Thursday that an upside-down flag—a symbol associated with former president Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud—was displayed outside Alito’s home in January 2021.

The Times published a photo of the flag displayed outside the Alito residence in Alexandria, Virginia, on January 17, just days after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in a bid to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. Alito told the paper that the flag was “briefly placed” there by his wife amid a dispute with neighbors.

The report has raised concerns about the conservative justice’s impartiality as the court considers two cases related to the Capitol insurrection: one about charges faced by the rioters and another weighing whether or not Trump is immune from prosecution on election interference charges.

Meanwhile, Thomas, another member of the court’s conservative majority, has ignored calls to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election, even though his wife, Ginni Thomas, reached out to the Trump White House and lawmakers, urging them to overturn election results.

The MoveOn petition says Alito “must be held accountable for this breach of ethics.

“He must recuse himself immediately or be removed by Chief Justice John Roberts, and the Senate Judiciary Committee must swiftly investigate and take actions on conflicts of interest.”

The petition was launched on Friday and surpassed 50,000 signatures on Monday morning.

The petition said the report about “this sign of partisanship and partiality on Alito’s home is the latest in the trend of right-wing Supreme Court justices embracing conflicts of interest with relation to Trump’s election cases.”

The petition said Americans are “losing trust in the institution’s integrity and seeing it as the tool of a partisan right-wing agenda that it is,” noting that public trust in the court has fallen to historic lows.

“The only way to begin to restore any trust in the Supreme Court—and to ensure any semblance of a fair hearing on Trump’s baseless immunity claims—is for Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves, or be removed by Chief Justice Roberts,” MoveOn political action executive director Rahna Epting said in a statement.

“Justice Roberts’ failure to act—and allow these conflicts to go unchecked, has put the Supreme Court at its lowest public approval ever—with the public losing trust in the institution’s integrity and seeing it as the tool of a partisan right-wing agenda that it is. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise anyone that these partisan actors are overturning precedent and taking groundless cases to pursue an agenda that has undermined abortion rights, undone environmental regulations, and enriched and empowered corporations and billionaires.”

Epting said the petition was also calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee “to investigate these outrageous conflicts of interest immediately—and take action to hold corrupt or conflicted Justices accountable—including considering impeachment. Our country and our democracy deserve better.”

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called on Alito to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and the Capitol attack.

“Flying an upside-down American flag—a symbol of the so-called ‘Stop the Steal’ movement—clearly creates the appearance of bias,” Durbin said in a statement.

He also called for the court to adopt a binding code of ethics. “The Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making, and Justice Alito and the rest of the Court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust,” he said.

The court adopted a code of ethics in November last year after months of pressure following a series of reports about undisclosed luxury trips and gifts to some justices, including Thomas and Alito, but it lacks a means of enforcement.