'Get off my property': Justice Alito's wife melted down when asked about flag in 2021
On Saturday morning the Washington Post reported that a story on an upside-down American flag seen flying in front of Justice Samuel Alito's home was shelved by the paper in 2021 because it was not believed the justice had anything to do with it.
Saturday's report does shed new light on Alito's wife, Martha-Ann, flipping out on the Post's Robert Barnes who has since retired but did recall the encounter with her as fairly unpleasant with her snapping at him to "get off my property" as he approached the couple coming out of their house.
According to the report from the Post's Justin Jouvenal and Ann E. Marimow, on Jan. 20, 2021, "Barnes went to their home to follow up on the tip about the flag. He encountered the couple coming out of the house. Martha-Ann Alito was visibly upset by his presence, demanding that he 'get off my property." As he described the information he was seeking, she yelled, "It’s an international signal of distress!'"
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Barnes recalled that Justice Alito interceded by accompanying his wife to their car before returning and denying that the upside-down flag was part of a political protest.
The Post is now reporting, "Martha-Ann Alito then got out of the car and shouted in apparent reference to the neighbors: 'Ask them what they did!' She said yard signs about the couple had been placed in the neighborhood. After getting back in the car, she exited again and then brought out from their residence a novelty flag, the type that would typically decorate a garden. She hoisted it up the flagpole. 'There! Is that better?' she yelled."
Later that week Justice Alito issued a statement similar to one given recently, where he claimed, "I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was placed by Mrs. Alito solely in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
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