Samuel Alito's former neighbor said she was unnerved by the wife of the U.S. Supreme Court justice invoking her full name during a dispute years ago, and highlighted the “power imbalance.”
“The power imbalance between these people and myself is huge,” Emily Baden said in an interview with NPR on Thursday. “They’re choosing to harass and intimidate us when we are nothing to them.”
The Alitos have been in the news over the past month for flying an upside-down flag — a symbol associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement — outside their Virginia home 11 days following the January 6th insurrection. After the New York Times reported about the incident, Alito said his wife, Martha-Ann, flew the flag in response to a “very nasty neighborhood dispute.” The spat began over Baden placing an anti-Trump sign on her property. According to Alito, the dispute his wife had with Baden escalated until she called Martha-Ann a lewd word, which prompted Martha-Ann to fly the upside-down flag “briefly.”
But New York Times reporting contradicted Alito's timeline: A text message and a phone call to police indicate that the name-calling fight happened February 15, weeks after the flag was taken down from the Alitos’ home.
In interviews over the past day discussing the argument with Martha-Ann that resulted in Baden insulting her, Baden said she and her then-boyfriend were freaked out because Martha-Ann used their full names even though they never met.
“[Martha-Ann] approached us, started screaming at us, used all of our full names — which, to me, felt like a threat because you're a stranger, we don't know you, you don't know us, how do you know our full names?” Baden said in an interview with CNN anchor Erin Burnett on Wednesday night.
