Lauren Windsor is not apologizing for recording her undercover conversations with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, his wife Martha-Ann Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.
In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, the progressive activist and documentarian discussed how and why she posed as a sympathetic anti-abortion activist to secure candid — and pugnacious — comments from Alito and his wife, including on the controversy surrounding the Alitos’ decision to fly politically-coded flags at their properties.
She said it was “shocking” to hear Martha-Ann Alito say she fantasized about designing a flag featuring the word “vergogna” — the Italian word for “shame” — to fly in response to LGBTQ+ pride flags. “I definitely did not see that coming,” she said.
Alito, meanwhile, raised eyebrows for his response to Windor’s question about the polarized state of American politics. “One side or the other is going to win,” Alito said on the recording. “There are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”
Windsor also dismissed criticism from media ethicists who argue that she should have identified herself as a journalist and shouldn’t have secretly recorded the justices in 2023 and 2024.
“The Supreme Court is shrouded in secrecy, and they’ve really been dodging any accountability to the American public,” Windsor said. “Is it a bigger ethics problem for me to pretend like I’m a fangirl, or is it a bigger ethics problem for them to accept millions of dollars of undisclosed gifts from GOP donors?”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Were you surprised by Justice Alito’s response to your question about our polarized politics?
I was surprised that it was a departure from his response he gave to me in 2023. He was more forthcoming. Particularly at the Supreme Court level, judges exercise a very high degree of discretion, so I suspected that it would be very difficult to be able to get him to say anything newsworthy. I was really just trying to delve into whether he might give a different answer or if his thinking had evolved on it, given the level of media scrutiny he’s been under.
Why do you think he was more candid now? What could account for that change, in your mind?
It could very well be that he had the same belief when I talked to him in 2023 but he was just more guarded about it. That’s one option. It could be that he’s more aggrieved or has a bigger sense of grievance with the media, given everything over the past year. Maybe he felt like there’s a little bit greater trust since he had talked to me that one time before. It’s hard for me to say — I can’t see inside his mind.
Were you planning on going back to him to talk before the flag episode, or did you decide to do it after all the attention on the flags?
I had planned on going back regardless of the flag, but it certainly made it more interesting when the flags incident happened.
What are the logistics of these interviews? How do you get into the events, and then how do you actually get the recordings? Are you wearing a wire or something?
I’m not going to discuss methodology on any of this, but you buy a ticket. I registered, and I was a dues-paying member.
I think many of Alito’s critics have suspected for a while that his political biases are influencing his work on the court. Do you think your conversation with him revealed something about his thinking that his critics didn’t already suspect?
I think [some] people dismiss the story as, “Well, we already thought that this was happening — we already thought that his religious or political beliefs were influencing his decision, and this just confirmed that.”
It is something new, though, because it is a verbal confirmation of his lack of impartiality when deciding these cases. If you say there’s fundamental things that can’t be compromised, what are those things?
What did you make of that comment, as well as his comment that “one side is going to win”? It’s a little bit ambiguous what he’s saying, so I wonder how you understood it.
The reason that I chose to ask about polarization is that judges are very discreet, and if I had approached him asking about Democrats and Republicans, he probably would have shut down pretty quickly, right? But talking about polarization is really shorthand for political polarization, and that’s really bound up in the political conversation about religion. I feel like it’s kind of hard to separate out the religious from the political when talking about achieving “godliness” or “godly ends.”
He said at one point, “There are differences on fundamental things that can’t be compromised.” Do you agree with him that there are genuinely irreconciled views in the country, or do you think there is a path toward pluralism and peaceful coexistence at this point?
I believe in secular democracy. I don’t think that we should be legislating morality, and in order for that to happen, there has to be a separation of church and state. I think that is a fundamental value that we should not compromise. That’s a value that is bedrock to the founding of our nation.
Do you think that the type of reporting you do strengthens that barrier? Is it putting us on a path toward some sort of reconciliation, or is it just highlighting the contradictions that are already inherent in our political system?
I fear here that we are at a crossroads in this country of whether or not we want to remain a secular democracy or whether or not we want to become a Christian theocracy. And my reporting and my role is to expose public servants who will lead us down that path so that Americans are armed with the information they need to know to make decisions to hold those folks accountable.
Your conversation with Martha-Ann Alito was the most unusual of all your conversations. At one point in the conversation, Alito repeatedly meows at a woman named “Cat.” Were you expecting what you got from her?
In the audio, you can hear that I bring up my conversation with her husband, and I was definitely trying to get further evidence of bias in [his] decision making. Was this really her flag?
Let’s be honest here: He clearly knows that she has this affinity for these flags, and he let it go and let her do it anyway, even though it’s important to have an appearance of impartiality. I’m not going to let him off the hook as, “Oh, well, those are my wife’s flags. I had nothing to do with it.” He was clearly enabling that.
I didn’t expect a lot of the other color at all. I didn’t expect the story about Robin Givhan at the Washington Post [in which Alito tangled with the Pulitzer-winning fashion critic]. I didn’t expect her to meow several times.
The thing that was most shocking was probably the thing about the “vergogna” flag and how she said that fantasizing about making flags satisfies her. I definitely did not see that coming.
What did you make of that? What do you think she is trying to signal by saying she fantasizes about flying a flag that says “shame”?
I don’t understand what is so abhorrent to her — I mean, I do understand what’s abhorrent to her about the pride flag, but it’s other people expressing who they are, and it’s their First Amendment right. But it clearly deeply affects her, because she spends a lot of time thinking about it.
Justice Roberts pushed back against some of your provocations. Were you heartened by his response?
I was heartened by his response because I was like, “OK, you know, this is great — this is someone who is an old-school, rational jurist.” But as the chief justice and someone who’s widely regarded as an institutionalist, he’s going to have much more discretion. So given that he says these things but then he allows Justices Alito and [Clarence] Thomas to act in a more brazen manner without really enforcing the appearances of propriety on the court — he’s enabling that behavior, so I have to question his sincerity.
You also brought up the leak of the Dobbs decision with Justice Alito. Why did you want to ask him about that in particular?
It’s widely suspected that he’s the person who leaked the opinion, so I was trying to gauge his reaction. And he seemed uncomfortable. That could be for any variety of reasons, but I’m not sure exactly what he was going to tell me. It was more of trying to gauge his reaction.
He looked uncomfortable? What gave you that sense?
You can tell when someone’s not comfortable talking about a subject. You know — a little fidgety and kind of looking the other way. That was over a year ago, so it’s not crystal clear, but my impression was that he wasn’t comfortable with it. But that may have also been an aggressive line of questioning. I don’t want to impute things on him that I don’t have evidence for, but it was my impression was that he was not comfortable.
In the recordings, you kept swearing and dropping F-bombs and then apologizing profusely for them. Was that a tactic?
I was only doing that with Martha-Ann. Obviously it would have been very inappropriate with the justices, and it was borderline inappropriate with her, but it was a way to show that I really care about this and am very passionate about it and I’m just so angry about what they’re doing to [her]. I felt it was a way to commiserate with her that would be a little bit more believable.
I mean, it seemed to work.
You did get some meowing out of her.
You’ve got to realize, too, that it’s at the end of a dinner, and we’ve had a couple glasses of wine.
That gets the conversation flowing.
You know…
You’ve gotten some pushback for conducting these interviews undercover, without identifying yourself as a journalist. Why do you think it’s justified to take that approach?
The Supreme Court is shrouded in secrecy, and they’ve really been dodging any accountability to the American public. They’re not going to go out and talk about what they’re doing or why, so we can’t get the answers to anything.
Is it a bigger ethics problem for me to pretend like I’m a fangirl, or is it a bigger ethics problem for them to accept millions of dollars of undisclosed gifts from GOP donors? Obviously this is what I believe, but maybe the media and others — instead of pearl-clutching — should be trying to get more answers from the court and more accountability.
Is it sort of an eye-for-an-eye equivalency in your mind? Like if they’re lying to us, it’s OK for us to deceive them?
I am not a fan of an eye-for-an-eye on things. I am a fan of accountability. I think that people who are in positions of power — if they’re going to refuse to be held accountable, then it warrants taking measures that you might not otherwise take.
Do you worry that the justices will become even more reclusive and more unwilling to answer any sort of questions now that something like this has happened? Or do you think we’re past the point where those considerations matter?
I don’t know what the marginal difference there is. They’re already not answering anything.
Was it all worth it in your mind?
Yeah. I think we have got to force a conversation about what’s at stake on the Supreme Court. We have a court that is now made up of five religious extremists and jurists, and I don’t think the average American is quite aware of the impact that’s having on the court’s decisions and how that trickles down into their everyday lives. But they’re becoming more and more aware of it as rights are being stripped away and as women are losing reproductive rights. And it’s not just abortion. Is birth control on the table?
There are many, many ways in which the Supreme Court’s decisions impact Americans’ lives, and I think the more that journalists can expose the decision-making process that goes into that, the better.
What kind of political response would you like to see?
The appropriate political response is holding congressional investigations. Let’s get the evidence, and let’s hear what they have to say about these various breaches, and then take appropriate remedies as need be. I’m not going to say that so-and-so will be impeached, but there have to be consequences. I don’t think the founders ever intended for us to just have a rogue court that’s not accountable to the American public.
Do you think your reporting will persuade anyone who’s on the fence about the court’s impartiality? Or have people just made up their minds, and this just confirms one side’s view and entrenches the other?
The country is polarized, but people can change their mind with new information. I feel like I do my part when I give people more information. That’s really all I can do, is make sure that the information gets out in the world and then people can do what they want with it. But beyond that, I can only do what I can do.
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