'Striking claim': Justice Samuel Alito's flag explanation poked full of holes by columnist

The tale Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told to explain why an American flag flew upside-down over a spat with a neighbor — doesn't entirely square with Washington Post's columnist Phillip Bump.

For one, the Alexandria, Virginia, home that they dwell in lies on a dead-end street.

So if Martha-Ann Alito, the justice’s wife, supposedly hoped to provoke revenge with the distressed flag tied to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot — it would have taken some effort for the target, being the neighbors, to see it.

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Bump observed that "the street on which both houses sit is a cul-de-sac" with the neighboring home "sitting closer to the entrance."

That means both Emily Baden's family and the Alitos would have to pass by "several houses" in order to even catch a glimpse of the flag or the homemade lawn signs reading “Trump Is a Fascist” and “You Are Complicit” that Badens allegedly put out. (Emily Baden said they were not aimed at the justice or his wife, but at "Republicans in general.")

The Washington Post over the weekend repurposed a 2021 report where two reporters ran down a tip that Alito had hung the flag and encountered the couple coming out of the house.

"Martha-Ann Alito was visibly upset by his presence, demanding that he 'get off my property."'

At that time, she yelled about the symbolism of the flag: '"It’s an international signal of distress!'"

But Bump asks: "If the flag was intended to serve as a rejoinder to the Badens, it would not be an effective one since there would be no reason for the Badens to drive further down their dead-end street."

Alito wrote in his formal statement explaining that his wife's reasons for flying the flag are "not relevant for present purposes, but I note that she was greatly distressed at the time due, in large part, to a very nasty neighborhood dispute in which I had no involvement... therefore has the legal right to use the property as she sees fit, and there were no additional steps that I could have taken to have the flag taken down more promptly.”

Bump added, "This is a striking claim: that he apparently believed the flag should be taken down but that his efforts to effect that happening were stymied by Martha-Ann Alito’s property rights."

"You will also note that his letter doesn’t suggest that the flag was a response to the Badens but, instead, that it coincidentally flew at a time when his wife was 'greatly distressed' by her neighbor."