Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the deeply conservative justice who has reliably voted in favor of the GOP’s agenda from the bench, complained on Thursday that his critics were “going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions.”
“I think the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference,” the justice lamented during a lecture at the University of Notre Dame. “So if they think you are anti-abortion or something personally, they think that’s the way you always will come out. They think you’re for this or for that. They think you become like a politician.”
Thomas also seemed to take aim at progressives’ push to expand the Supreme Court in wake of Republicans’ repeated hijacking of the high court in recent years.
National leaders have “lost the capacity” to “not allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don’t get the outcomes that we like,” said Thomas.
Thomas’ remarks came several days after Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett insisted that SCOTUS “is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks” as she spoke at a celebration of the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville.
The justices’ defenses followed their stunning decision to allow Texas to keep in place its six-week abortion ban that dangles $10,000 in front of anyone who successfully sues someone they believe helped provide an abortion.
Thomas himself has made it clear that he would strike down Roe v. Wade if given the opportunity, having called the watershed decision “plainly wrong.” The high court is slated to hear a challenge to Roe when its new term begins in October.
