U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito just explained why it is that an upside-down American flag was seen flying at his home back in January 2021.

The conservative justice did so with a statement that he provided to Fox News.

It appears that the upside-down flag had something to do not with Alito, but with his wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner.

Before we get to that, though, we'll fill you in on what has been going on, in case you missed it.

The upside-down flag

Last week, the New York Times published a report indicating that on Jan. 17, 2021, an upside-down flag was photographed flying at the Alexandria, Virginia, home of Virginia. This, it has to be remembered, was not longer after the Capitol protest of Jan. 6, 2021.

At this point, you may be asking what the big deal is - why it is that the left-leaning Times felt the need to publish this story several years after it happened? As you have probably guessed, this has become the Democrats' latest attempt to have a conservative Supreme Court justice removed, or at least recused from cases relating to former President Donald Trump.

This is because, as Fox News reports, the upside-down flag - at the time - was "a symbol adopted by some Trump supporters disputing the results of the 2020 presidential election."

So, the claim is that Alito hung the flag because he is a Trump supporter, and, for this very reason, he is a biased Supreme Court justice and, thus, ought to be removed from cases where this bias could play a role.

Usually, Supreme Court justices just ignore this sort of gotch-ya journalism, but Alito felt the need to speak out on this one.

Alito explains

According to the Supreme Court justice, the upside-down flag was his wife's doing, and she did it in response to a spat that she got into with one of their anti-Trump neighbors.

"Alito said the saga in his neighborhood began in the days around Jan. 6, 2021, when a neighbor living down the street put up a sign that read 'F--- Trump' about 50 feet away from a children’s bus stop. He said his wife, Martha-Ann, then spoke with those neighbors about the sign, and the conversation was not well received," Fox reports.

The situation only continued to escalate. Fox continues, "Alito told Fox News those neighbors then put up a sign directly attacking his wife and personally blaming her for the events that transpired on Jan. 6 at the nation’s capital. He says during a walk in the neighborhood with his wife, one person who lived at the property with the signage then got into an argument with her – at one point calling her derogatory language 'including the C-word.'"

It was after this that Alito's wife decided to hang the American flag upside-down. Alito said that it was only for a brief period and that he had nothing to do with any of it.

Democrats, nonetheless, are still trying to have him removed.