US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has recently expressed his discontent regarding the criticisms he and his wife have faced in recent years, describing them as “nastiness and lies”. These comments were made at a conference of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Point Clear, Alabama.
Justice Thomas has been a subject of controversy, particularly due to allegations from 2023 regarding his acceptance of luxury travel from billionaire businessman Harlan Crow without public disclosure. This controversy also involved Justice Thomas’s sale of his childhood home in Georgia to Crow, a deal which was also undisclosed in his annual financial reports. For their role in uncovering these financial connections, ProPublica was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in May 2023, as reported by Bloomberg Law.
In his recent comments, Justice Thomas also criticized Washington as a place where “people pride themselves in being awful,” describing it as “a hideous place”. This negativity is seemingly a factor behind his self-reported appreciation for RVing, stating that it allows him to encounter “regular people who don’t pride themselves in doing harmful things merely because they have the capacity to do it or because they disagree.”
In November, the Supreme Court adopted a code of conduct for the first time. Whilst it stated that the policy mainly reaffirmed existing principles around judicial ethics, it elected against establishing a system for receiving and investigating public complaints, an option which applies to other federal judges; a measure reported on by Bloomberg Law.
The Q&A style talk featuring Justice Thomas was moderated by Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, who served as a law clerk for Justice Thomas before becoming one of the nation’s youngest federal judges in 2020, thanks to an appointment by then-President Donald Trump. Despite her short experience leading to a ‘not qualified’ rating by the American Bar Association, Mizelle was narrowly confirmed to the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Notably, she received approbation from conservatives for overturning the Biden administration’s pandemic-era mask mandate for airline travel in 2022.
For a more detailed overview and additional reporting, refer to Bloomberg Law’s original article.