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      Republicans turn Ketanji Brown Jackson hearing into a political circus

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      Republicans turn Ketanji Brown Jackson hearing into a political circus Solemn proceedings of confirmation hearing took a nosedive into farce with bizarre moments in Jackson’s epic inquisitionAt 2.54pm on the second day of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings that will determine whether she takes a seat on the US supreme court, the solemn proceedings took a nosedive into farce.Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, turned theatrically to an outsized blow-up of a children’s book, Antiracist Baby by Ibram X Kendi. Pointing to a cartoon from its pages of an infant in diapers taking their first walk, he asked Jackson: “Do you agree with this book… that babies are racist?”“Senator,” Jackson began with a sigh. And then she paused for seven full seconds, which in the august setting of the Senate judiciary committee hearing felt like a year.For the one and only time in the 13 hours of questioning that Jackson endured that day, the nominee appeared flummoxed. Or was it flabbergasted?Here she was, aged 51, with almost a decade’s experience as a federal judge behind her and, if confirmed, the history-making distinction of becoming the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court ahead of her. And she was being asked whether babies were racist?“I don’t believe that any child should be made to feel as though they are racist or not valued, or less than, that they are victims, oppressors,” she said eventually. When Cruz refused to drop the subject she gave a more direct answer.“I have not reviewed any of those books,” she said. “They don’t come up in my work as a judge, which I’m respectfully here to address.”That Cruz chose to focus on critical race theory (CRT), the years-old academic theory that has become the latest conservative hot-button issue, in his questioning spoke volumes about the brutal social issue politics of today’s Republican party. That he did so to a Black woman lent the exchange the astringency of a racial dog-whistle.Cruz’s attack was not unique. Four hours before he began his interrogation, the official Twitter account of the Republican National Committee posted a gif of the nominee bearing her initials “KBJ” which are then scratched out and replaced with the letters: “CRT”. Critical race theory is an academic discipline that examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society.There was another twist to Cruz’s questioning. The private elementary school at which he claimed CRT was being taught – Antiracist Baby and all – is Georgetown Day School on whose board Jackson sits as a trustee. When GDS was founded in 1945 it too made history as the first integrated school, serving both Black and white children, in the nation’s capital.Lest any of the attendants of the hearings inside the Hart Senate office building or following along on television had doubts about Cruz’s motivations, he grilled Jackson on several other racially-charged subjects. He began by vaunting his own anti-racist credentials by expressing the admiration he shared with Jackson for Martin Luther King.Within seconds of that warm embrace, however, the senator segued to a speech that Jackson made in 2020 – on MLK day – in which she referred to the 1619 Project.The project, initiated by the New York Times, seeks to reframe American history by placing the consequences of slavery and the role of African American women front and centre of the national narrative. Cruz asked Jackson if she agreed with some of its more contested conclusions, which he claimed were “deeply inaccurate and misleading”, to which she replied that she had only mentioned it because it was “well known to the students I was talking to”.Again, she stressed, this was a subject that had absolutely nothing to do with her work – or by implication, the job of a supreme court justice.Outside observers were incensed by Cruz’s tactics. “What we saw today was an attempt to assail the character of Ketanji Brown Jackson, because her record is so wholly unassailable,” Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the racial justice organization, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said on MSNBC.Raphael Warnock, the Democratic senator from Georgia and former senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta where King once preached, pondered in the New York Times: “Would they be asking these questions if this were not a Black woman?”There were other awkward moments in Jackson’s epic inquisition, which she survived while barely dropping the perma-smile from her face. There was the moment that Lindsey Graham, Republican senator from South Carolina, flounced out of the hearing having earlier wrongly accused Jackson of having called George W Bush and the then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld “war criminals”.Yet more bizarre was the episode when Marsha Blackburn, Republican senator from Tennessee, asked Jackson whether she could “provide a definition for the word ‘woman’.” “No, I can’t,” came the curt reply.It was all a far cry from the promise delivered by Senator Chuck Grassley, the top Republican in the judiciary committee, at the start of the hearings. There would be no “spectacle” or “political circus” coming from his side of the aisle.Several Republican senators followed that pledge by channelling QAnon. Senators Josh Hawley from Missouri, Cruz and Graham all pursued the inquisitorial line that Jackson had been unduly lenient as a federal district court judge in her sentencing of sex offenders who consume and distribute images of child sex abuse.Though they avoided stating so explicitly, the senators clearly intended to imply that Jackson’s sympathies lay with pedophiles. That’s a short stone’s throw away from the core conspiracy theory peddled by QAnon, the toxic Donald Trump-supporting online movement.At its “Pizzagate” inception during the 2016 presidential campaign, QAnon fantasised about a child trafficking ring around Hillary Clinton and other Democratic leaders and liberal Hollywood celebrities.As Media Matters has noted, the claim that Jackson was lenient towards sex offenders consuming images of children first surfaced last month. A conservative group American Accountability Foundation (AAF) ran an “investigation” into her writings while a student at Harvard law school in which she explored discrepancies in sentencing policy in such cases.The group misleadingly claimed that her writing exposed her as a radical judicial activist dedicated to “social justice engineering”.Days before the confirmation hearings began, Republican senators had taken up AAF’s lead and were plotting how to use it during the confirmation process. Last week Politico obtained a document that was circulating among the senators in which they rehearsed the claim that the judge “routinely handed out light sentence”, and that the lightest of all were in “child pornography cases”.A pedophile-sympathising, critical race theory-loving, judicial activist, radical leftist social engineer. The vision of the nominee that was presented over hours of Republican grilling made for quite the spectacle.But will the political circus work? “They are trying to find some way to make her look less than qualified,” Nelson concluded. “They failed miserably.”TopicsKetanji Brown JacksonUS supreme courtLaw (US)US politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Ketanji Brown Jackson says Roe v Wade ‘the settled law of the supreme court’ – live

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      Key events

      Show

      2.06pm EDT

      14:06

      Psaki tests positive for Covid-19

      11.33am EDT

      11:33

      Jackson: Roe v Wade is ‘settled law’

      8.58am EDT

      08:58

      Ketanji Brown Jackson hearings continue

      Live feed

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      Show key events only

      5.42pm EDT

      17:42

      In response to Hawley’s insinuations that she was not tough enough on defendants in child sexual abuse cases, Jackson has explained in detail how sentencing works, saying, “What a judge has to do is determine how to sentence defendants proportionately consistent with the elements that the statutes include, with the requirements Congress has set forward … Judges are doing the work of assessing in each case a number of factors that are set forward by Congress, all against the backdrop of heinous criminal behavior … and Congress has given judges factors to consider.”
      Jackson said she has to consider the facts and the recommendations of government and the probation department in sentencing, adding, “You’re questioning whether or not I take them seriously or if I have some reason to handle them in a different way than my peers or in a different way than other cases, but I assure you I do not.”
      Hawley said: “I am questioning your discretion and judgment.” He asked her why she was not tougher on an 18-year-old in a case involving child sexual abuse images.
      Jackson explained that she was following guidelines and responding to specific facts in the case, and sentenced him to three months in federal prison.

      5.31pm EDT

      17:31

      Josh Hawley, Republican senator from Missouri, started his questions with detailed descriptions of child sexual abuse cases and accusing Jackson of not being tough enough on offenders. Here’s the response from a White House spokesperson, saying Halwey’s remarks are “embarrassing” and a signal to QAnon conspiracy theorists:

      Andrew Bates
      (@AndrewJBates46)
      Hawley’s embarrassing, QAnon-signaling smear has been fact checked by: @washingtonpost, @nytimes, @AP, @CNN, @ABC, and @NRO:https://t.co/JDHAWH7l3dhttps://t.co/JbPnmE7lbIhttps://t.co/8DuoUg80hGhttps://t.co/fA4hUmeqGyhttps://t.co/fA4hUmeqGyhttps://t.co/UVCtmAImJ2

      March 22, 2022

      5.17pm EDT

      17:17

      Martin Pengelly

      Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, is now questioning Jackson. There was an interesting nugget from Punchbowl News this morning, on Hawley and why he is pressing his attack on the judge over her past sentencing of offenders convicted over child sexual abuse images. More

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      Ketanji Brown Jackson defends against Republican’s claims on child abuse sentences

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      Ketanji Brown Jackson defends against Republican’s claims on child abuse sentencesSupreme court nominee responds to Josh Hawley’s accusations, which have have been debunked as false, at Senate hearing

      Ketanji Brown Jackson faces questions on second day of confirmation hearings – live updates
      Ketanji Brown Jackson gave a passionate defense of her sentencing of child sexual abuse imagery offenders as a rebuttal to attacks from a Republican senator who has accused her of endangering children, as her confirmation hearings for a seat on the US supreme court entered a critical second day.Ketanji Brown Jackson vows to defend US constitution in opening remarksRead moreAt the start of an epic day of questioning before the Senate judiciary committee on Capitol Hill, Jackson strongly rejected claims made by Josh Hawley, Republican senator from Missouri.The senator has spent several days advancing the theory that the Biden nominee, in her eight years as a federal district court judge, handed down sentences that were far more lenient than federal guidelines suggested or prosecutors requested.Hawley’s accusations have been debunked as misleading and false. On Tuesday, Jackson gave a personal response to the claims.“As a mother and a judge who has had to deal with these cases, nothing could be further from the truth,” Jackson said under questioning from Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic committee chair.She said child abuse cases were among the most difficult she dealt with as a judge, and described child sexual abuse imagery as a “sickening and egregious crime”.On the second day of hearings, each committee member was given 30 minutes to engage with Jackson. On Wednesday, they will get 20 minutes for follow-up questions. The final decision on confirmation will be made in a vote of the full Senate that is likely to be held by the first week in April.After a relatively amicable opening day, Jackson was facing up to 12 hours on Tuesday of possibly grueling interrogation from the 22-member committee, half of which is Republican. If confirmed, Joe Biden’s nominee would become the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court in its more than two centuries of existence.At Durbin’s invitation, Jackson defended herself against the Republican attack line that she was soft in her legal approach to terrorist suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay military camp in Cuba. Jackson spent two years as a federal public defender and in that role represented some of the detainees in their bid for review of their cases.Jackson pointed out that her brother, Ketajh Brown, joined the US military in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. But she went on to say that American justice required all defendants to be represented and treated fairly.“That’s what makes our system the best in the world, that’s what makes us exemplars,” she said.The committee also scrutinised amicus briefs filed by Jackson before the supreme court relating to Guantánamo. Lindsey Graham, Republican senator from South Carolina, focused on a brief that argued that detainees held there indefinitely as “enemy combatants” should either be put up for trial or released.Graham said that if her argument had been accepted by the court it would have damaged the US war on terrorism. “This is not how you run a war,” he said.Jackson replied that she had been conveying the views of the private groups and thinktanks that she had been representing, not her own opinions.Graham also tried to impugn Jackson by association, pointing to progressive groups who had backed her nomination. He especially referred to groups that wanted to dilute conservative dominance of the supreme court by expanding the number of its justices.“Every group that wants to pack the court, that believes this court is a bunch of rightwing nuts that is going to destroy America, that considers the constitution trash – all wanted you picked … That is problematic for me,” Graham said.The nominee was asked by the committee to lay out her views on abortion. The subject is currently before the supreme court which is expected to dismantle the fundamental right to a termination enshrined in its own 1973 ruling Roe v Wade.Jackson said that she agreed with two of Trump’s appointees to the court, Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett, when they said in their respective confirmation hearings that Roe was settled law. She added that she believed that stare decisis – the legal principle of sticking with the court’s past precedent – was “very important”.John Cornyn, Republican senator from Texas, tried to puncture the stare decisis argument that Roe should be respected as established precedent by invoking Dred Scott, the 1857 supreme court ruling that stripped people of African descent of US citizenship, and Plessy v Ferguson, the 1896 ruling that approved racial segregation. “Thank goodness the supreme court has been willing to revisit its precedent, otherwise we’d still be living with Plessy and Dred Scott,” he said.Cornyn quizzed Jackson on her views about same-sex marriage and whether it was legitimate for the supreme court to have declared gay marriage legal in 2015. She said the court had decided that marriage equality was a right under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.Cornyn riposted that five unelected justices had created a new fundamental right ignoring the will of voters. “We five members of the supreme court are going to decide what the law of the land should be, and anyone who disagrees with me will be labeled a bigot.”TopicsKetanji Brown JacksonUS supreme courtLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ketanji Brown Jackson vows 'liberty and justice for all' during opening remarks – video

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      Ketanji Brown Jackson, US president Joe Biden’s nominee to become the first Black woman on the US supreme court, has stressed her patriotism in her opening statement during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. Jackson said she was blessed to be ‘born in this great nation.’ The 51-year-old judge pledged independence if confirmed by the Senate to the nation’s top judicial body and embraced a limited role for jurists. ‘My parents taught me that, unlike the many barriers that they had had to face growing up, my path was clearer, such that if I worked hard and believed in myself, in America I could do anything or be anything I wanted to be,’ Jackson said

      Ketanji Brown Jackson vows to defend US constitution in opening remarks
      Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks at her confirmation hearing – finally More

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      Republican Hawley’s attack on supreme court nominee Jackson is wrong, says senator

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      Republican Hawley’s attack on supreme court nominee Jackson is wrong, says senatorSenate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin says Hawley’s attacks should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week The Missouri Republican Josh Hawley is wrong to attack Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee, and should be ignored in confirmation hearings this week, the Senate judiciary chair said.How Ketanji Brown Jackson became Biden’s supreme court nominee – podcastRead moreHawley, the Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin said, is “part of the fringe within the Republican party … a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of the last year.“He doesn’t have the credibility he thinks he does.”If confirmed, Jackson will be the first Black woman on the court. If Democrats hold their 50 votes she will be installed, via Kamala Harris’s vote as vice-president.Jackson has attracted Republican support before and some have indicated they may back her this time. Jackson’s confirmation will not affect the balance of a court which conservatives dominate 6-3, as she will replace another liberal, the retiring Stephen Breyer.Hawley is however one of several hard-right members of the judiciary committee, alongside Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, to harbour presidential ambitions. Such senators could see attacking a Biden nominee as a way to appeal to supporters.This week, in tweets echoed by the Republican National Committee, Hawley highlighted a potential line of attack.“I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children,” Hawley said.He did not raise the issue when he questioned Jackson last year, before voting against her confirmation to an appeals court. The White House said the senator was pushing “toxic and weakly presented misinformation”.Jackson sat on the US Sentencing Commission, an agency meant to reduce disparity in federal prison sentences. The sentencing expert Douglas Berman, an Ohio State law professor, has said her record shows she is skeptical of the range of sentences recommended for child pornography cases, the subject seized upon by Hawley.“But so too were prosecutors in the majority of her cases and so too are district judges nationwide,” Berman wrote.Durbin told ABC’s This Week: “As far as Senator Hawley is concerned, here’s the bottom line – he’s wrong. He’s inaccurate and unfair in his analysis.“Judge Jackson has been scrutinised more than any person I can think of. This is her fourth time before the Senate judiciary committee. In three previous times, she came through with flying colors and bipartisan support, the last time just last year.“And now Senator Hawley is making these charges that came out of nowhere. The independent fact checkers … have discredited his claims already. They should have. There’s no truth to what he says.“And he’s part of the fringe within the Republican party. This was a man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on 6 January of last year. He doesn’t have the credibility he thinks he does.”This week, Politico demanded Hawley stop using for fundraising purposes a picture of his famous raised-fist salute to protesters before the deadly attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. Hawley indicated that he would not stop using the image.12:30PM: Senator Josh Hawley pumps his fist at pro-Trump crowd gathered at the east side of the Capitol before heading into the joint session of Congress. #Jan6NeverAgain #TheBigLie pic.twitter.com/rEFsfLY4x9— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) April 16, 2021
      On ABC, John Barrasso of Wyoming, a member of Senate Republican leadership, was asked if Hawley was guilty of “character assassination” in his attack on Jackson.“The whole process is going to be fair, respectful and thorough,” Barrasso said, adding that he found Jackson “clearly, very intelligent”.Using a key Republican attack line in an election year, Barrasso added: “Going through the record, there are some concerns that people have about her being perceived as soft on crime. That’s all going to come out with the hearings but they’re going to be respectful, they’re going to be thorough and they’re going to be fair.”Asked if Hawley’s attack was fair, Barrasso said: “Well, he’s going to have his opportunity to question the judge as will all the members of the committee.“The last time we had a hearing with [Brett] Kavanaugh, he was accused of being a serial rapist with no evidence whatsoever. So, I think we’re going to have a fair process and a respectful process, unlike what the Democrats did to Justice Kavanaugh.”In fact Kavanaugh – who denied allegations of sexual assault detailed by an alleged victim in confirmation hearings – was the second of three justices installed by Republicans under Donald Trump. The third, Amy Coney Barrett, was jammed on to the court shortly before the 2020 election, after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, told CBS’s Face the Nation he and Jackson “had a very good conversation”. He asked her, he said, to “defend the court” against those who say Democrats should expand it beyond nine justices to redress its ideological balance.Mug shot: Republican Josh Hawley told to stop using January 6 fist salute photoRead more“Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Breyer both publicly opposed court packing,” McConnell said, “that is trying to increase the number of members in order to get an outcome you like. That would have been an easy thing for [Jackson] to do, to defend the integrity of the court. She wouldn’t do that.”The man who drastically shifted the balance of the court in part by denying a nomination to Barack Obama in 2016 and swiftly confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett four years later also said: “I haven’t made a final decision as to how I’m gonna vote.”Hearings begin on Monday. Jackson is expected to make a statement and answer questions. Harvard-trained, she spent two years as a federal public defender. That makes her the first nominee with significant criminal defense experience since Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American on the court.The American Bar Association has given Jackson its highest rating, unanimously “well qualified”.Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said she was excited to see a Black woman on the verge of a seat.“Representation matters,” Wallace said. “It’s critical to have diverse experience on the bench. It should reflect the rich cultural diversity of this country.”
      The Associated Press contributed to this report
      TopicsKetanji Brown JacksonUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, attended rally preceding Capitol attack

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      Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, attended rally preceding Capitol attackConservative activist who runs a political lobbying firm, says she briefly attended rally but left before Trump addressed crowd Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has admitted attending a rally which preceded the January 6 attack on the US Capitol but denied helping to plan it.Critics accuse CPAC of becoming pay-to-play as Trump loyalists gain powerRead moreIn an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Thomas, a conservative activist who runs a political lobbying firm, said she briefly attended the rally near the White House on 6 January 2021 but left before Donald Trump addressed the crowd.Trump used his address to tell supporters to “fight like hell” in support of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud. A bipartisan Senate report said seven deaths were connected to the assault on Congress which followed.Thomas said brief attendance at the rally was the full extent of her involvement.“I was disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse on 6 January,” she told the Free Beacon, a conservative site.Investigations by the New York Times and the New Yorker have raised questions about Thomas’s ties to organizers of the January 6 rally.According to the Times, Thomas sits on the board of a rightwing group that circulated “action steps” after the 2020 election, in an attempt to keep Trump in power.One of the organizers of the rally told the Times Thomas was a peacekeeper between various factions. Thomas denied those allegations.“I played no role with those who were planning and leading the 6 January events,” she said.The Times told the Free Beacon it stood by its “fair and accurate” reporting.Thomas, who has been involved in conservative activism for decades, also categorically rejected any suggestion her political activities present a conflict of interest for her husband. Some judicial ethics experts have called on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases involving causes with which his wife has been involved.However, Ginni Thomas’s comments on the morning of 6 January only intensified questions about her husband’s possible conflicts of interest.In a series of Facebook posts that are no longer visible, Thomas said “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” and “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING!”She later added a note that the posts were written before the attack on the Capitol, according to Slate.Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politicsRead moreThomas has insisted her activism has no bearing on her husband’s rulings, saying they have kept their careers separate since he was confirmed in 1991.“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles and aspirations for America,” Thomas told the Free Beacon. “But we have our own separate careers and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me and I don’t involve him in my work.”Justice Thomas’s critics will closely scrutinize his work related to the Capitol attack.In January, he provided an early hint about his opinion of efforts to investigate January 6. The supreme court rejected Trump’s request to stop a House select committee accessing his White House records.Only one justice dissented: Clarence Thomas.TopicsClarence ThomasUS supreme courtLaw (US)US politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politics

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      Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politicsThe court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights

      The Agenda: how the supreme court threatens US democracy
      The US supreme court could “at some point” become “compromised” by politics, said Clarence Thomas – one of six conservatives on the nine-member court after Republicans denied Barack Obama a nomination then rammed three new justices through during the hard-right presidency of Donald Trump.Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife?Read more“You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court,” said Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, has come under extensive scrutiny for work for rightwing groups including supporting Trump’s attempts to overturn an election.“You can cavalierly talk about doing this or doing that. At some point the institution is going to be compromised.”Thomas was speaking at a hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday.“By doing this,” he said, “you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they’re going to have civil society.”The court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights. Conservative victories are expected. The conservative-dominated court has already ruled against the Biden administration on coronavirus mitigation and other matters.The US constitution does not mandate that the court consist of nine justices. Some progressives and Democratic politicians have therefore called to expand it, in order to reset its ideological balance. Democrats in Congress last year introduced a bill to add four justices and Joe Biden has created a commission to study expansion.Few analysts think expansion is likely to happen.Republican senators are currently attacking Biden for his campaign promise to nominate a first Black woman to the court, a promise he fulfilled by nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace the retiring Stephen Breyer.Republican presidents have nominated justices on grounds of identity, most recently when Trump said he would pick a woman to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the liberal lion who died in September 2020.Ignoring their own claims about the impropriety of confirmations in election years, made in denying Merrick Garland even a hearing to replace Antonin Scalia in 2016, Senate Republicans installed Amy Coney Barrett, a hardline Catholic conservative, as Ginsberg’s replacement.In Utah on Friday, Thomas also voiced a familiar conservative complaint about so-called “cancel culture”, the supposed silencing of voices or world views deemed unacceptable on political grounds.He was, he said, “afraid, particularly in this world of cancel culture attack, I don’t know where you’re going to learn to engage as we did when I grew up.“If you don’t learn at that level in high school, in grammar school, in your neighborhood, or in civic organizations, then how do you have it when you’re making decisions in government, in the legislature, or in the courts?”Thomas also attacked the media for, he said, cultivating inaccurate impressions about public figures including himself, his wife and Scalia.Ginni Thomas has faced scrutiny for her involvement in groups that file briefs about cases in front of the supreme court, as well as using Facebook to amplify partisan attacks.Thomas has claimed the supreme court is above politics – a claim made by justices on either side of the partisan divide.Congress is preparing for confirmation hearings for Jackson. She will be installed if all 50 Democratic senators back her, via the casting vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris. Some Republicans have indicated they could support her too.In Utah, Thomas recalled his own confirmation in 1991 as a humiliating and embarrassing experience. Lawmakers including Biden grilled Thomas about sexual harassment allegations from Anita Hill, a former employee, leading him to call the experience a “high tech lynching”. Biden has also been criticised for his treatment of Hill.‘The Scheme’: a senator’s plan to highlight rightwing influence on the supreme courtRead moreOn Friday, Thomas said he held civility as one of his highest values. He said he learned to respect institutions and debate civilly with those who disagreed with him during his years in school.Based on conversations with students in recent years, he said, he does not believe colleges are now welcoming places for productive debate, particularly for students who support what he described as traditional families or oppose abortion.Thomas did not reference the future of Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed abortion rights. The court on which he sits is scheduled to rule this year on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, concerning whether Mississippi can ban abortions at 15 weeks.The court is expected to overturn Roe. While the justices deliberate, conservative lawmakers in Florida, West Virginia and Kentucky are advancing similar legislation.
      The Associated Press contributed to this report
      TopicsClarence ThomasUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)US politicsRepublicansUS CongressnewsReuse this content More