US Supreme Court’s Roberts rebuffs senators’ call for Alito meeting

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday rejected a request by two Democratic senators for a meeting to urge him to take steps to ensure that fellow Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recuses himself from pending cases related to the 2020 election.

Alito has been under scrutiny following reports that flags associated with former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss flew outside two of the justice’s homes.

Senators Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse had asked that Alito not take part in two cases – one involving Trump’s bid for immunity from prosecution and another involving an obstruction charge against a Trump supporter who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Whitehouse, a committee member, sent a May 23 letter to Roberts after New York Times reports that an inverted U.S. flag flew outside Alito’s Virginia home and a flag bearing the slogan “Appeal to Heaven” flew at Alito’s New Jersey vacation home.

Alito created “reasonable doubt as to his impartiality,” requiring recusal, by permitting the display of these flags, the senators wrote. Some Trump supporters carried such flags during the Capitol attack. The flags have become associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement based on Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

Roberts, in a letter to the senators, said that sitting chief justices meet with lawmakers only on “rare occasions.”

“Separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence counsel against such appearances,” Roberts wrote.

Roberts added, “Moreover, the format proposed — a meeting with leaders of only one party who have expressed an interest in matters currently pending before the court — simply underscores that participating in such a meeting would be inadvisable.”

A spokesperson for Durbin said Roberts was wrong to invoke judicial independence as a reason to reject a meeting.

“To the contrary, Chair Durbin’s only interest — as it has been since he first raised this issue with the chief justice 12 years ago — is restoring the credibility of the court in the eyes of the American people,” the spokesperson added.

Alito on Wednesday, in separate letters to Democratic lawmakers including Durbin and Whitehouse, rejected calls to step aside in the cases. Alito wrote that the flag incidents did not meet the conditions for recusal adopted by the justices last year, and that he therefore had an “obligation to sit.”

Alito told the lawmakers that the flags at issue were flown by his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, and that he had no involvement.