On Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote a truly insane New York Times op-ed where he argued that the Justice Department has the right to force Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves and in the evening, he went on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront to discuss it. Burnett was not interested in challenging his looney theories, instead claiming that “you would hope” the justices would recuse themselves because the public needs to trust institutions that are under attack, not caring to notice it was her guest who was undermining that trust.
Burnett began by reading from a letter Justice Alito wrote back to Raskin about his flags nontroversy, “He wrote to Congress and part of that, quote: ‘My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not. My wife was solely responsible for having flag poles put up at our residence and our vacation home and has flown a wide variety of flags over the years.’”
After introducing Raskin, she snickered, “I don't know if my reaction was apparent to anyone watching, but 'my wife is fond of flying flags' and he asked her for several days to take it down and she didn't. What's your reaction to that? He's written a letter to Congress essentially tripling down on it's all his wife's fault.”
The media doesn’t seem to appreciate the difference between blaming and explaining. Alito is simply explaining that his wife is her own person and that the upside-down and Appeal to Heaven flags were her ideas.
At the end of the interview, Burnett appeared to again take Raskin’s side, “Well, it also seems, at the very least, just the perception of it, right, that you would hope the Supreme Court justices would care so deeply about that and to preserve institutions in this country, especially at a time when they're under such assault, that he may come to a different conclusion.”
The Supreme Court is under attack from Democrats like Raskin because it is possible it will not rule the way they want. Therefore, they've concocted a conspiracy theory that alleges Mrs. Alito’s response to nasty neighborly abuse or flying a flag that was in the title credits of HBO’s John Adams miniseries and a desktop prop in NBC’s Parks and Recreation shows bias in favor of January 6 rioters. Burnett’s great solution to this is for Alito to cave, which would only encourage Raskin and his supporters to come up with even dumber allegations.
Burnett added, “He says actually, Congressman, in his letter, quote, ‘any reasonable person’ he says who is not motivated by politics, or again, I quote, ‘or a desire to affect the outcome of the Supreme Court cases,’ any reasonable person who would conclude he doesn't need to recuse himself.
Alito is correct because Jamie Raskin is not a reasonable person, but he did reply, “Well, it's interesting he uses that language because any reasonable person is basically the standard that's used in terms of recusal. The Supreme Court says, it's not a subjective test. Alito and Thomas, who's involved arguably in an even more complicitous situation in terms of his wife's political activities, but they seem to think that it's up to them. They can decide for themselves.”
Underneath the surface of this story is a media contradiction that says that the January 6 rioters were insurrections out to destroy democracy, but that they should be powerful enough to appropriate a Revolution-era symbol and claim it as their own.
Here is a transcript for the May 29 show:
CNN Erin Burnett OutFront
5/29/2024
7:31 PM ET
ERIN BURNETT: Tonight, defiant Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in a rare letter to Congress saying he won't recuse himself from January 6-related cases. Alito fighting back against critics who say an upside down American flag flying over his home in January of 2021, as well as the second flag on the property, another one of his properties used by insurrectionists on January 6 show bias.
Now, Alito says that his wife flew those flags without his awareness and actually in the case of the inverted American flag, which was sort of a standard bearer for the January 6 crowd, he says his wife actually refused for several days to take it down after he asked her to.
He wrote to Congress and part of that, quote: “My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not. My wife was solely responsible for having flag poles put up at our residence and our vacation home and has flown a wide variety of flags over the years.”
Okay. OutFront now, Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, also a lawyer and a former constitutional law professor, right, and he's written an op-ed arguing that there is a way to force Alito to recuse himself from January 6 cases.
And, Congressman, I so much appreciate your time and obviously, I want to get to your op-ed, that's the heart of this. But, first, I just as I was reading that, I don't know if my reaction was apparent to anyone watching, but “my wife is fond of flying flags” and he asked her for several days to take it down and she didn't. What's your reaction to that?
He's written a letter to Congress essentially tripling down on it's all his wife's fault.
…
BURNETT: Well, it also seems, at the very least, just the perception of it, right, that you would hope the Supreme Court justices would care so deeply about that and to preserve institutions in this country, especially at a time when they're under such assault, that he may come to a different conclusion.
But he got -- he says actually, Congressman, in his letter, quote, “any reasonable person” he says who is not motivated by politics, or again, I quote, “or a desire to affect the outcome of the Supreme Court cases,” any reasonable person who would conclude he doesn't need to recuse himself.
RASKIN: Yeah.
BURNETT: What do you say to that?
RASKIN: Well, it's interesting he uses that language because any reasonable person is basically the standard that's used in terms of recusal. The Supreme Court says, it's not a subjective test. Alito and Thomas, who's involved arguably in an even more complicitous situation in terms of his wife's political activities, but they seem to think that it's up to them. They can decide for themselves.
But what the Supreme Court has said is that this is an objective test, not a question of subjective introspection and will on the part of the particular judge. And any reasonable person would look at this situation and say, these judges at the very least have a deep appearance of bias in these cases, you know?
And if you look at the Pennsylvania case which I discussed, that the Supreme Court decided, there, again, the court said it's not a subjective test. It's an objective test. And then in looking at it, there are a whole series of criteria that are borrowed from the ABA.
And then they also said, finally, that it's not enough to say, well, it's just one justice out of nine because it's not just their vote, which would be unethically, unconstitutionally cast. It's their ability to influence the other justices as well, which is so problematic.
