Martha-Ann Alito: Wife of Supreme Court justice at heart of flag and secret recording controversies

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito‘s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, is in the spotlight after she was secretly recorded complaining about having to look at a Pride flag.

“You know what I want?” the justice’s wife said. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.”

Alito made the remarks during the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner in June to a woman posing as a conservative activist.

The secret recording came as Alito and her husband are embroiled in a controversy over several flags placed outside their homes in both Virginia and New Jersey that are associated with Donald Trump and the far-right.

Justice Alito blamed the incidents on his wife, insisting that he had “nothing to do whatsoever” with either of the flags. Meanwhile, Ms Alito told The Washington Post that the flags were “an international signal of distress.”

Who is Martha-Ann Alito?

Martha-Ann Alito is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Formerly Martha-Ann Bomgardner, she was born in Kentucky and graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1976, earning a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and a master’s in library sciences the following year.

She then became a librarian at a public library in New Jersey, and later at the US Attorney’s office in Newark and the Department of Justice.

She met Justice Alito in the law library when he served as an assistant US attorney and they married five years later in 1985.

The couple have two children, Laura and Philip, who they raised mostly in New Jersey, moving to Washington in 2006 when Samuel Alito was appointed to the Supreme Court by George Bush.

Alito left her profession as a librarian to raise her kids. Since