In secretly recorded comments from a closed-door event earlier this month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said the political rift between the left and right will be extremely difficult to repair and that one side “is going to win.”
Lauren Windsor, a self-described documentarian and journalist, shared recordings of two meetings with Justice Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts at the Supreme Court Historical Association’s annual event on June 3. She said she debated both men while posing as a religious conservative.
At one point, Windsor told Alito that he doesn’t believe conservatives “can negotiate with the left in the way that’s necessary to end polarization.”
“I think you’re probably right,” Alito responded in the recorded conversation. “One of us will win. I don’t know. I mean, there may be ways to live peacefully together, ways to work together, but it’s difficult, because we disagree on fundamental points that we can’t compromise on. We can’t compromise.”
“People who believe in God must continue to fight to restore this nation to sanctity,” Windsor added.
“I agree,” Alito said. “I agree.”
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press
The recording’s release comes as the Supreme Court faces new ethical questions raised by reports that two flags linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot had flown outside Justice Alito’s home in recent years. The justice has rejected calls to recuse himself from Supreme Court cases related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump and the former president’s assertion of absolute immunity from prosecution for actions taken while in office.
Ms Windsor and Mr Roberts’ conversation was far more confrontational, with Ms Windsor trying to tell the chief justice that the country needed to take a more “moral path” but Mr Roberts resisting.
“Do you want me to be responsible for putting the country on a more moral path?” he asked. “That’s the job of the people we elect. Not the job of lawyers.”
When Windsor tried again to say America was a “Christian nation,” Roberts became indignant.
“I don’t know if we live in a Christian country,” he said. “I have a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who say maybe we don’t, but it’s not our job to say so.”
The chief justice also noted the divided political climate after the Vietnam War and said the Supreme Court’s role in difficult times is “nothing new.”
Windsor, who belongs to the association, bought tickets to the event under her real name but did not identify herself as a journalist or tell the judges that she was recording them. She told The New York Times that she believed keeping the recordings secret was the only way to force the judges to speak up and give evidence. “Otherwise, it’s just my word versus their word,” she said.
“Our courts have refused any accountability and are shrouded in secrecy,” she told The Times on Monday. “I don’t see how we’re going to get answers to these questions short of an undercover investigation.”
The nonprofit is billed as a nonpartisan organization focused on preserving and collecting Supreme Court history and raising public awareness of its work.
But the organization, of which Justice Roberts serves as honorary chairman and whose trustees include Harlan Crow, a controversial benefactor of Justice Clarence Thomas, has been mired in controversy in recent years.
The New York Times reported in 2022 that the committee had become a conduit for profiteering by “corporations, special interest groups or the lawyers and law firms who litigate in the courts,” and that they had accounted for 60% of the committee’s donations since 2003.
