Justice Clarence Thomas calls Washington ‘horrible’ and rejects critics’ ‘evil’

CNN
–

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas repeatedly dismissed his critics during remarks Friday at a judicial conference in Alabama, deploring what he described as the “evil” and “lies” directed at him and calling Washington a “place horrible”.

Asked whether his jurisprudence required a certain degree of courage, Thomas said he did not consider himself courageous – especially when compared to military personnel, firefighters and people who defuse bombs. Thomas said he was simply doing his job.

“Being in Washington, you especially have to get used to people who are reckless,” said Thomas, a conservative and the court’s most senior associate justice. “They don’t necessarily bomb you, but they bomb your reputation, your good name or your honor. And that’s not a crime, but they can do a lot of damage that way.”

Speaking at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals conference in Point Clear, Alabama, Thomas argued that it would be a disservice to soldiers and first responders “not to sit at my table and make decisions with a lifelong commitment that we know is right.” decisions.”

Thomas, although he did not speak directly about a series of ethics reports that have plagued him for months, repeatedly returned to his critics without the prompting of U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, who moderated the discussion.

“My wife and I, for the last two or three years, it’s been — just the evil and the lies — it’s just incredible,” Thomas said.

Thomas and his wife, Ginni, have been the target of a lot of criticism in recent years. Several of Thomas’ critics, including Democratic members of Congress, have called on him to recuse himself from Supreme Court cases involving the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol because of his wife’s efforts to overturn Thomas’s presidential election. 2020 in Former President Donald Trump’s Favor.

Ginni Thomas acknowledged attending Trump’s rally before the attack on the Capitol. Judge Thomas this year declined to dismiss cases involving the Jan. 6 attack, including a blockbuster appeal concerning Trump’s claims of absolute immunity from criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the election results.

Thomas also faced criticism for accepting private jet trips and lavish vacations from Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow, first reported by ProPublica. In response to the backlash, Thomas updated his financial disclosure forms and the Supreme Court adopted a code of conduct for the first time last year.

At one point on Friday, Thomas told a story about a hike he took with a friend before breaking into an aside.

“That was before they started attacking my friends,” Thomas said. “I hope I still have some.”

As he has done in the past, Thomas also spared little criticism of Washington, DC.

“I think what you will find, especially in Washington, [is] people take pride in being horrible,” Thomas said at one point.

The remark provoked laughter in the room, until Thomas continued.

“It’s a horrible place as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said, noting that he enjoyed visiting other places where people “aren’t proud of doing harmful things just because they have the ability to do so.”

Thomas, 75, also appeared to lament the loss of trust within the Supreme Court, telling the conference that the stunning leak of a draft opinion on abortion in 2022 would not have happened when he joined the court in 1991. It was not the first time Although Thomas made these points — he once likened the leak to “infidelity” — but his comments on Friday suggested that the fallout from leaking the ruling that overturned Roe v.

“We may have been a dysfunctional family, but we were a family,” Thomas said of the court when he joined in 1991. “It would be inconceivable that anyone would leak an opinion from the court or do anything to intentionally harm each other. .”

Thomas also became the latest justice in recent weeks to raise concerns about the Supreme Court’s motions docket, the process the court uses to handle emergency requests. This process has been the target of harsh criticism in recent years, in part because the court often decides requests on short notice, often without oral argument and often with orders that do not indicate how the justices voted.

“I think there is some concern about this among my colleagues — certainly among me — because it short-circuits our process,” Thomas said. “I think the way we’re doing it now is not a complete way of dealing with very, very difficult issues.”

Turning to his critics, Thomas suggested that the lesson he took from the last year of controversy was that he would not react with “evil for the sake of it.”

“You have some choices. You can’t stop people from doing or saying horrible things,” Thomas said.

But, he said, he has come to accept “the fact that they can’t change you unless you let them.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.