Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday warned that the Supreme Court traditionally has "no supervision" and suggested that Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, were associated with "insurrectionist symbology."
Buttigieg was reacting to comments the justice and his wife made during a secret recording taken by liberal filmmaker Lauren Windsor at a recent annual dinner event.
"Supreme Court justices have an unbelievable amount of power," Buttigieg told CNN anchor John Berman on Wednesday. "And by the nature and the structure of the Supreme Court, there is no supervision over that power. They are entrusted with it literally for as long as they live."
SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY BLASTS 'SURREPTITIOUS' RECORDING AS DEMS TARGET JUSTICE ALITO
In the secret recording, Martha-Ann Alito told Windsor she wanted to fly a "Sacred Heart of Jesus flag," a Catholic symbol depicting Jesus Christ and symbolizing compassion, in response to a Pride flag that was in view near one of her properties.
"And he's like, ‘Oh, please don’t put up a flag,'" she said, apparently recounting a conversation with her husband. "I said, ‘I won’t do it, because I'm deferring to you. But when you are free of this nonsense, I'm putting it up and I’m going to send them a message every day, maybe every week I’ll be changing the flags.'"
Buttigieg said that trust in the Supreme Court is in part based on the justices making "enormously consequential decisions that shape our everyday lives with a sense of fairness."
‘LOOSE CANNON’: SENATE DEM ESCALATES ATTACK ON JUSTICE ALITO AFTER SECRET RECORDING
"I also hope that most Americans can understand the difference between a flag that symbolizes love and acceptance and signals to people who have sometimes feared for their safety that they're going to be okay and insurrectionist symbology," he said, in a jab at the Alitos for another flag controversy.
The New York Times reported on flags it connected to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot and flown at the Alitos homes.
An upside American flag was briefly flown outside one house, which Justice Alito said was his wife's doing and unrelated to Jan. 6. At his beach home, there was an "Appeal to Heaven" flag, a historical naval flag.
Fox News' Julia Johnson and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
