Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts secretly recorded at historical society dinner

Secret recordings released Monday showed the thoughts of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito on the court’s politics, with Alito predicting there is no easy solution to the country’s political polarization.

“One side or the other is going to win,” he said in a private conversation at the headquarters of the Supreme Court Historical Society. annual dinner June 3rd.

The comments were recorded by progressive filmmaker Lauren Windsor, who attended the event as a member of the society under her real name, although she posed as a conservative to elicit responses from the judges. The recordings were published by Rolling Stone and Windsor-based activist website The Undercurrent.

Alito appeared to embrace his role as a partisan, something liberals have long accused him of despite the nominally nonpartisan nature of the court.

Again posing as a conservative, Windsor told Alito that she did not see herself getting along with liberals “in the way that needs to happen for polarization to end,” adding that the court should try to “win.”

“I think you’re probably right,” he said. “One side or the other – one side or the other will win. I don’t know. I mean, there may be a way to work – a way to live together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences in fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you’re going to split the difference.”

He later agreed with her sentiment that people must fight to “return our country to a place of godliness.”

Roberts, however, rejected the same sentiment when Windsor asked him. The chief justice denied that the current court is especially politically polarized and rejected her idea that the US is inherently Christian.

“Would you like me to be responsible for putting the nation on a more moral path?” Roberts asked Windsor after being pressed for his thoughts. “This is for people we elect. This is not for lawyers.”

He added that “it is not our place” to consider faith in the court’s rulings, or any guiding framework of the country’s ideology, pointing to the perspective of his “Jewish and Muslim friends.”

“It’s our job to decide cases in the best way possible,” he said.

The chief justice is considered the most moderate of the court’s five right-wing justices, while Alito is one of the most outspoken conservatives. Both were nominated by then-president George W. Bush.

Windsor said she felt “justified” to surreptitiously record the judges because the court is “shrouded in secrecy and they refuse to submit to any accountability in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious ethical violations.”

Justices Clarence Thomas and Alito faced accusations of impropriety related to their acceptance of lavish gifts from a conservative donor who had business before the court. Data released last week found that Thomas has accepted more than $4 million in gifts since 2004 and Alito has received more than $140,000, the third-highest number of all current and former justices.

Alito also found himself in controversy when it was discovered that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag and an inverted American flag were flew into their homes. The symbols have been associated with far-right politics, Christian nationalism and those who participated in the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.

Alito said the flags were not political statements but merely responses to his wife’s personal attacks on neighbors, although the neighbor had publicly doubted the judge’s story. The controversy has sparked widespread criticism from Democrats in Congress, including several high-profile members demanding he refused from cases related to January 6th.

The Hill has reached out to Windsor for comment.