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‘No Moral Compass’: Legal Experts Call for Intervention After Alito Refuses to Recuse

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has formally refused to recuse from any and all cases involving indicted ex-president Donald Trump or the January 6, 2021 attack on the seat of the American government and American democracy itself. Legal experts and elected Democrats, including the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight responsibility of the nation’s highest court, have demanded the George W. Bush-appointed jurist’s recusal. Now, some legal experts say either the Chief Justice or the Senate Judiciary Committee must intervene.

Justice Alito is standing by his now thoroughly debunked story about why a flag associated with the insurrection and the “Stop the Steal” conspiracy was flying at his home just three days before Joe Biden was inaugurated president, and a different, Christian nationalist flag also associated with those efforts to overthrow the government and disenfranchise 81 million Americans was flying at another of his homes.

Responding to a letter sent to Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Alito in his own letter wrote he was “required” to reject Democrats’ request and not recuse himself, despite numerous legal experts citing both law and precedent, declaring he at least should, or must, recuse himself.

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who writes about the courts and the law, pushed back on Justice Alito’s claim.

READ MORE: ‘Biggest Felony in American History’: Prosecutor’s Closing Argument Against Trump Praised

“Alito reads the Supreme Court’s totally voluntary, non-binding ethics guidelines to impose a seemingly mandatory ‘obligation’ that he sit on any case he’s not recused from.”

Professor of law Steve Vladeck, a CNN contributor, appeared to take that one strep further: “Justice Alito’s insistence in his letters to Congress that he has an ‘obligation to sit’ in the January 6 cases *because* the Code of Conduct says so is an interesting data point for those who have insisted that the Code doesn’t impose *any* requirements on the justices.”

Journalist, author, and foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed, “Alito, by saying he should not recuse, demonstrates clearly why he should not be on the court in the first place.”

The New York Times’ Michael Barbaro notes, “As with his statement to the NYT, Alito in his response to Congress never disavows the meaning of the upside down flag that flew over his house for days or its link to the Jan 6th riot/Stop The Steal movement that was at its height during this period. Notably, Alito does deny that link with the Appeal To Heaven flag, but not the upside down flag.”

Saying Alito is “really is a piece of work,” attorney and former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa suggested the justice is flipping the script: “Alito does a Reverse Uno, suggesting that people calling for his recusal are trying to influence the outcome of cases before the Court.”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government watchdog, noted: “That Justice Alito responded *at all* to the demand that he recuse from these cases shows the gravity of his misconduct. But this response changes nothing about the ethical issue here. Since he will not recuse on his own, Chief Justice Roberts should intervene.”

READ MORE: Supreme Court ‘Puppetmaster’ Slammed Over Report He’s Flying Alito’s ‘Theocratic’ Flag Again

Constitutional law scholar and professor of law Eric Segall served up a scathing assessment: “To be clear, if we found a love letter written to Donald Trump from Sam Alito saying, ‘Can’t wait till you’re back in office,’ Alito still would not recuse. He has no moral compass at all.”

The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein suggests Democrats will need to take further action: “Alito’s dismissive response, which [Chief Justice John] Roberts is unlikely to challenge in any way, has placed the ball squarely in the court of @SenatorDurbin, @SenSchumer and Senate Democrats.”

CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere, posting a screenshot of Donald Trump’s response to the justice’s decision to not recuse, writes: “Trump thanks Alito for not recusing himself from cases pending about Trump after Alito’s being criticized for a flag flying at his house that has been interpreted as a sign of support for Trump.”

See the social media post above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Wildly Lawless’: Judge Cannon’s Removal Predicted by Top Legal Scholar

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Trump Disavows Prediction Markets — His Family Has Financial Ties to Them: NYT

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April 24, 2026

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President Donald Trump on Thursday told reporters that he was “never much in favor” of prediction markets. “I don’t like it conceptually. It is what it is. I’m not happy with any of that stuff.”

“Well, you know, the whole world unfortunately has become somewhat of a casino,” Trump, a former casino owner, told reporters. “And you look at what’s going on all over the world, in Europe and every place they’re doing these betting things.”

“I’m not happy with any of these sites,” Trump said. “They have predictive markets — it’s a crazy world, it’s a much different world than it was.”

And yet, Trump and some of his family members stand to benefit financially from those very markets, according to The New York Times.

“The president’s publicly traded media company unveiled its own prediction market product last year,” the Times reports. “And the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has ties to two of the industry’s top firms, including Polymarket.”

READ MORE: ‘Now Do Hanging’ Republican Demands After DOJ Announces Firing Squads for Executions

Ethics experts the Times consulted say Trump’s public statements directly contradict his family’s financial interests in the industry.

Despite Trump’s admonition, new regulations are not expected. Last year, the Trump administration “backed away from enforcement efforts against Polymarket, and it is unclear whether regulators will adopt any new oversight measures.”

The Times reports that the White House “has warned staff not to wager on government decisions, but his family’s involvement with these firms undermines the president’s message.”

U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) who is sponsoring legislation to ban government officials from betting on prediction markets using classified information, has raised concerns about national security risks. Chances that the bill would pass through a GOP-majority Congress are uncertain.

“It’s too politically dicey,” she said. “There is not a single important issue of the day where I don’t feel the shadow of Trump and his sons.”

READ MORE: Trump Believes He’s a ‘Savior’ Sent by God and Will Never Cede Power: Stoddard

 

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‘Now Do Hanging’ Republican Demands After DOJ Announces Firing Squads for Executions

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April 24, 2026

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A Republican member of Congress is calling for death row prisoners to be hanged after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it will move to expedite death row executions, including — for the first time in federal civilian history — by adding firing squads. The DOJ also said it will readopt lethal injections.

Declaring that it has a “solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences,” the DOJ said in a statement that it will work to clear the way for the Department to “carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals.”

The Department called the executions critical steps “to deterring the most barbaric crimes, delivering justice for victims, and providing long-overdue closure to surviving loved ones.”

The DOJ said it “has rescinded the Biden-Garland moratorium on federal executions and has authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants.”

Before leaving office, President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life in prison.

READ MORE: Trump Believes He’s a ‘Savior’ Sent by God and Will Never Cede Power: Stoddard

“The prior administration failed in its duty to protect the American people by refusing to pursue and carry out the ultimate punishment against the most dangerous criminals, including terrorists, child murderers, and cop killers,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Justice is once again enforcing the law and standing with victims.”

“Now do hanging,” demanded U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee.

Burchett last year suggested that House Republicans might offer convicted sex trafficker and Epstein partner Ghislaine Maxwell the possibility of a reduced sentence in exchange for her testimony.

In 2023, after the mass shooting deaths of three nine-year-olds and three adults at a Nashville Christian elementary school, Burchett told reporters nothing could be done.

“We’re not gonna fix it. Criminals are going to be criminals,” he told reporters.

READ MORE: Trump Found His New Favorite Reason to Void 2020

 

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Trump Believes He’s a ‘Savior’ Sent by God and Will Never Cede Power: Stoddard

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April 24, 2026

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President Donald Trump has little intention of leaving the White House says veteran political analyst A.B. Stoddard, arguing that he believes he is a “savior” and will either try to find some way to run for another term, cancel the election, or do something else radical.

“I don’t think he has any intention of leaving,” Stoddard told columnist Bill Kristol.

She believes there are “two paths” for Trump.

“He does not want to fall apart in public,” Stoddard said, adding that he will be forced to “make a calculation at some point.”

Asking if Trump can “serve and walk across stages, make speeches, be as visible as he wants to be, which he really needs?” she noted that the president “needs to be on camera as many days a week as he can.”

“I think he will make the calculation that he cannot run again if he’s feeling that he’s aging too quickly” for another term, she said.

READ MORE: ‘What Evil Looks Like’: Columnist Says Trump Presides Over a ‘Circus of Death and Chaos’

“He has no intention, I believe, of having any kind of successor that’s not in his family. So he’s either going to find a way to try to run for [another] term, or cancel the election, or do something very radical,” which is “not beyond him,” she said.

Stoddard says she could see Trump trying to pass his presidency off to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, his son, Donald Trump Jr. or his daughter, Ivanka Trump — but not Eric Trump. And he’s not going to walk away from the money he is making now — the most he’s ever made in his life.

It’s “absolute lunacy” to think that he is going to walk away from “the two things that soothe his demons,” which are “adulation and money.”

“I genuinely believe, Bill, that he believes that he is some kind of, you know, savior,” Stoddard declared.

“I mean, it’s always about how he was brought here by God,” she continued. “I don’t know that he has [the] specifics down, but he certainly believes he is special, and he craves that, that central, you know, all the attention has to be on him.”

She also said that had Trump lost the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton and never been president, he would have “just sat on Fox three days a week, just bashing her.”

She concluded that she cannot see Trump just going off “like an old man into the sunset.”

READ MORE: Pope Leo: Church Should Focus More on Justice and Less on Same-Sex Blessings

 

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