Liberal documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor pretended to be a religious conservative and secretly recorded a conversation she had with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who revealed that he thinks compromise is unrealistic on polarizing issues. Alito said: “One side or the other is going to win.”
CNN’s Erin Burnett interviewed former GOP New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who recommended Alito in 2006 to the Senate Judiciary Committee and introduced him at his confirmation hearing. Burnett asked Whitman, after listening the recording and Alito’s “defiance” during the recent flag controversy: “Does this make you see him differently or regret your support?”
Erin Burnett asks former GOP Governor Christine Todd Whitman if she regrets backing Justice Samuel Alito during his confirmation hearing; “Absolutely, without question.” pic.twitter.com/IILaDYM2x1
— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) June 11, 2024
Whitman replied: “Absolutely, without question.”
Whitman said when she appointed judges and justices she looked to see how often the judge’s decisions had been overturned, if they wrote clear opinions, and if they were were able to judge cases based on facts presented to them in that case.
Whitman said at that time when she considered Alito for the Supreme Court, she saw a case where Alito had decided in favor of a plaintiff “who was clearly against what his personal convictions were relative to the matter of choice and abortion, so my feeling was okay, he’s shown that he will put aside his personal convictions to judge and decide a case on the facts presented in that case.”
Whitman added: “Unfortunately, since he’s gone to the Supreme Court that seems to have gone by the wayside.”
Note: While governor in 1997, Whitman vetoed “a state ban on a so-called partial birth abortion because it did not include exceptions for protecting the woman’s life.”
In 2022, Whitman joined former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang to form the Forward Party, a centrist third party.