Justice Alito refuses to recuse himself from cases related to Jan. 6 Capitol riot

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alo rejects calls to recuse himself from cases related to the January 6 Capital attack Alo sending two letters now to lawmakers who had called for his Rec recusal after flying two separate Flags seen as symbols of the so-called stop the steel movement the first one was in Virginia where an upside down fla American flag flew outside his primary residence this story broke a couple of weeks ago then the second flag as you see here which is known as the appeal to the heaven flag flew outside his vacation home in New Jersey well Alo blames both incidents on his wife senior National correspondent and my co-anchor Terry Moran is here with the latest okay you and I were just talking about this letter clearly this gives us quite an interesting insight to his marriage it sure does and you can see why he might not have wanted to get all this out but he did and it's because two Democratic senators asked uh formally for him chief justice Roberts to have him recuse himself from all January 6 related cases so he says no because I I didn't do anything wrong he says that first flag the upside down flag he didn't even know it was up until somebody called it to his attention he says as soon as I saw it in this letter he says as soon as I saw it I asked my wife to take it down but for several days she refused and the reason uh was that as Justice Alo says and as reporters have verified she was greatly distressed at the time due in large part to a very nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement and that was Happ happening and then he goes on and say my wife is a private citizen she possesses the same First Amendment rights as every other American she makes her own decisions and I've always honored her right to do so and then that the other flag the appeal to Heaven flag with the tree in it he says my wife is fond of f Flying Flags I am not then he lists all the flags that she flies at that beach house she put up some uh some which she owns by the way of uh patriotic Flags College flags flag supporting sports teams state and local Flags flags of Nations from which the ancestors of family members came flags of places we visited seasonal Flags religious Flags he says I wasn't aware of any connection between that flag and any movement he had a vague understanding he says that was dated from Revolutionary War times and he says just because a flag is adopted by new groups doesn't mean that it loses its own meaning and then at the end he says my wife is an independently minded private citizen he says again she makes her own decisions and I honor her right to do so and then he underlines a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations uh would con conclude that this event doesn't meet the standard for recusal it doesn't mean I'm I can't be impartial it wasn't me that's what he's saying and he explains it in in pretty great detail there all right so here's my question I'm just playing Devil's Advocate all right we're talking about the stop the steel movement we're talking about an Insurrection we're talking about people that died we're talking about a moment in history like we have never seen before this man is on the highest court of the land he deals with the biggest decisions of decisions and he can't say no to his wife oh well I mean there are a lot of famous men you know who can't say no right powerful Kings and all that all that stuff but more importantly does it is it the appearance that he can't be impartial I mean if you're on the other side of a January 6 case uh the side that didn't fly the flag upside down can you trust that Alo would be impartial just the appearance of it might color your your sense of the case and unfortunately uh that's one of the things Congress is looking at judges justices at the Supreme Court are the judges of their own cases they judge themselves and so this he lays out his evidence this is my wife that did it uh nobody could reasonably conclude that I can't be impartial in this case I declare myself innocent that's what this is I tell you what I would give anything to put AO right here in between us so we could have all have a conversation I'm sure he' love that the marriage about the law about yes okay stay tuned we'll work on that we will

Channel: ABC News

Views: 146,150

Keywords: 6th, Alito, Capitol, Court, Justice, Samuel, Supreme, abc, abcnl, attack, flag, insurrection, jan, news, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-110654805

Id: 9m8ZzxXMejM

Length: 4min 15sec (255 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2024