'I can't stop him': Republican pulls an Alito when challenged about upside-down flag

A local official in Ohio offered the same excuse as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito about an upside-down flag displayed outside their home: My spouse did it.

The inverted American flag has been displayed outside the home of Etna Township trustee Rozland McKee since early June, three residents told the board at their meeting Tuesday. But the trustee blamed her husband for the banner that was adopted as a symbol of "Stop the Steal" movement, reported the Columbus Dispatch.

"I can't stop him from hanging a flag the way he feels like he wants to hang his flag," McKee said.

The flag at McKee's house was spotted, along with a Donald Trump campaign sign, after reports surfaced in mid-May of the same flag flying outside the home of Alito, who claims his wife displayed it in the days after the Jan. 6 insurrection in response to a dispute with a neighbor, although the timeline of the saga offered by the justice conflicts with neighbor accounts.

McKee will serve as one of Ohio's delegates next month at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and while she claims no involvement in the matter she justified the inverted flag as a sign of distress that had been adopted by Vietnam War protesters and other protest movements.

"Our country is under stress right now," McKee told the newspaper. "There is a lot going on, but it has nothing to do with me."

All three residents who raised concerns about the flag are military veterans who are upset that McKee, as a public official, would "disrespect the flag that we fought for and served under," said Navy veteran Larry Carley.

McKee and Carley had an altercation involving the flag on June 4, according to a police report, when Carley drove past and then returned to confront McKee, who said the veteran cursed at her, and she told the man she was "a supporter of the Second Amendment" and insisted that he leave.

Carley informed her that he, too, was a supporter of the Second Amendment and said he would be back.

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Sheriff's deputies went to Carley's home a short time later, after McKee reported the incident, and he told them that he intended to return to continue their conversation, but he agreed not to after investigators asked him.

Air Force veteran Preston Cunningham, who also lives in the township, said he emailed McKee seeking an explanation after Tuesday's meeting because he wasn't satisfied with her blaming her husband, but he never got a response.

"If you're going to present a flag in that manner — upside down — then you ought to be willing to tell us why," Cunningham said.