Democratic senators request meeting with Chief Justice Roberts over flags flown at Alito’s homes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Democratic senators are requesting a meeting with Chief Justice John Roberts after reports that two separate flags carried by rioters at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol had flown outside of houses owned by Justice Samuel Alito.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a member of the Judiciary panel, wrote Roberts on Thursday asking him for a meeting to discuss Supreme Court ethics and to take steps to ensure that Alito recuses himself from any cases before the court concerning the Jan. 6 attack or former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

“We request a meeting with you as soon as possible, in your capacity as Chief Justice and as presiding officer of the Judicial Conference of the United States, to discuss additional steps to address the Supreme Court’s ethics crisis,” Durbin and Whitehouse wrote to Roberts in a letter released Friday by both offices.

The senators’ letter comes as another conservative justice, Clarence Thomas, has ignored calls to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election over his wife, Ginni Thomas’, support for Trump and as public trust in the Supreme Court is at its lowest point in at least 50 years.

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