Alito neighbor gives detailed account of 'nasty' dispute that became national news

A liberal former neighbor of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is publicly offering her account of a series of tense interactions she had with Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, around the time of the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The saga began as a dispute over anti-Trump lawn signs and culminated in a profanity-filled confrontation on the street, which Justice Alito witnessed.

“This was one of the craziest things I've ever experienced in my life,” said the neighbor, Emily Baden, in an interview with NPR. “The power imbalance between these people and myself is huge. Like it literally couldn't get any bigger.”

Justice Alito has cited that neighborhood dispute as the context for the upside-down American flag that flew in front of his home in Northern Virginia in the days after the Capitol riot.

Sailors have historically used the upside-down flag as a symbol of distress. More recently, the upside-down American flag also became associated with the pro-Trump “stop the steal” movement and efforts to keep the former president in power. Some Trump supporters carried upside-down flags at the Jan. 6 riot. Because of that association, Democrats have called for Alito to recuse himself from cases related to Trump and the insurrection.

Alito has rejected those arguments and said his wife alone — over Justice Alito’s objections — raised the upside-down flag after the argument with Baden.

“My wife’s reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes,” Alito wrote to Democratic members of Congress, “but I note that she was greatly distressed at the time due, in large part, to a very nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement.”

He said that his wife was also