Why Did the Washington Post Sit on the Alito Flag Story for Three Years?

Does "Democracy Die in Darkness" or not, guys?

Hi all, Parker here.

Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that in the days preceding President Biden’s inauguration, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife Martha-Ann had flown an upside-down U.S. flag outside their Alexandria, Virginia, home, a symbol that had become synonymous with the insurrectionist “Stop the Steal” movement.

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After the 2020 presidential election, as some Trump supporters falsely claimed that President Biden had stolen the office, many of them displayed a startling symbol outside their homes, on their cars and in online posts: an upside-down American flag.

One of the homes flying an inverted flag during that time was the residence of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in Alexandria, Va., according to photographs and interviews with neighbors.

The upside-down flag was aloft on Jan. 17, 2021, the images showed. President Donald J. Trump’s supporters, including some brandishing the same symbol, had rioted at the Capitol a little over a week before. Mr. Biden’s inauguration was three days away. Alarmed neighbors snapped photographs, some of which were recently obtained by The New York Times. Word of the flag filtered back to the court, people who worked there said in interviews.

As it turns out, another news outlet had this story, but bizarrely decided that it wasn’t newsworthy enough to report on at the time. In a Saturday story, The Washington Post casually noted that the paper’s longtime Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes was aware of the story at the time, but “the Post decided not to report on the episode at the time because the flag-raising appeared to be the work of Martha-Ann Alito, rather than the justice, and connected to a dispute with her neighbors, a Post spokeswoman said. It was not clear then that the argument was rooted in politics, the spokeswoman said.”

This is just… absolutely wild.