On Monday, recordings secretly taken at a private dinner showed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito discussing several topics, including the nation’s political polarization.
The recordings were taken at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner on June 3 by progressive filmmaker Lauren Windsor, who was an attendee of the event under her real name. The tapes were then published Monday by several sources, including Rolling Stone and Windsor’s The Undercurrent.
During the discussion caught on tape, Alito could be heard predicting that there would be no easy solution to the current political climate gripping the nation, saying, “One side or the other is going to win.”
While justices are supposed to be nonpartisan, Alito appeared to show his own bias when Windsor, who was posing as a conservative, told him she didn’t think she could ever get along with liberals “in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end.”
“I think you’re probably right,” he said. “On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully. But it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”
Later in the tapes, he can be heard agreeing with the sentiment that people must fight to “return our country to a place of godliness.”
As for the Chief, Roberts pushed back when Windsor asked him his thoughts on the same sentiment, disagreeing that the US is inherently Christian. Roberts also denied that the current court is struggling with its own political polarization.
“Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path?” Roberts asked Windsor after being pressed for his thoughts. “That’s for people we elect. That’s not for lawyers.”
He continued, saying it was the court’s job to consider faith when making a decision, acknowledging that there are other faiths present in the country, citing his “Jewish and Muslim friends.”
“It’s our job to decide the cases the best we can,” he said.
The recordings come during a hot time for the court, as Alito has been accused of flying two right-wing flags at his properties, something many have said should force him to be recused from the upcoming decision on former President Donald Trump’s immunity claims, and all other Jan. 6 related decisions.
Alito has maintained that it was his wife who flew the flags and that he will not recuse himself over the controversy.
As for Windsor, she says that the recordings seemed “justified” to her because the court is “shrouded in secrecy, and they’re refusing to submit to any accountability in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious ethics breaches.”
SCOTUS has not yet commented on the tape’s release.