The Neighbors, Part 2

The New York Times has now interviewed the neighbors that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife Martha-Ann clashed with (gift link).

And the neighbors have texts as records of the interaction.

To better understand the clash, The Times interviewed Ms. Baden, her mother and her husband, as well as other neighbors, and reviewed the texts that Ms. Baden and her husband sent to friends after the episodes. Justice Alito, who did not respond to questions for this article, has in recent weeks given his own explanation of what happened.

There are some differences: For instance, the justice told Fox News that his wife hoisted the flag in response to Ms. Baden’s vulgar insult. A text message and the police call — corroborated by Fairfax County authorities — indicate, however, that the name-calling took place on Feb. 15, weeks after the inverted flag was taken down.

Justice Alito’s version of events was that the flag “was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs,” he said in a statement to The Times.

Anyhow, it doesn’t all add up to the story that Justice Alito told the Times. And he hasn’t said anything about that “Appeal to Heaven” flag flying regularly over his New Jersey beach house.

It would, of course, be a perfectly normal response to fly a US flag upside down in response to a neighborhood spat, but it looks like the events took place in the opposite timing. There’s a lot more of the soap opera in the article.

Anyone want to make a guess as to who leaked the Dobbs opinion?