Two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claimed during a Tuesday interview that Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is filled with “resentment,” “grievance” and “anger.”
“I went to law school with him. He’s been a person of grievance as long as I’ve known him,” Clinton told CBS’s Gayle King about Thomas. The two graduated from Yale Law School, Clinton in 1973 and Thomas in 1974, although neither has previously discussed their early interactions.
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In his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Thomas called on the Supreme Court to reject the doctrine of substantive due process, which the Court has used in rulings overturning bans on homosexual conduct, the purchase of contraceptives and same-sex marriage. No other justice joined his opinion, and Associate Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh pushed back on his arguments in their opinions.
Clinton claimed that those rulings are still in danger because Thomas was laying the groundwork to overturn them. (RELATED: ‘A Quarter Of A Person’: Whoopi Goldberg Claims Clarence Thomas ‘Better Hope They Don’t Come For Him’)
“He may be on his own, but he’s signaling, as he often did,” she argued. “And he has signaled in the past, to lower courts, to state legislatures, define cases, pass laws, get them up, I may not win the first, the second or the third time, but we’re going to keep at it.”
“So you’re saying people pay attention to this?” King asked.
“Yes, the people he is speaking to, right-wing, very conservative judges and justices, and state legislatures. And the thing is — well there are so many things about it that are deeply distressing, but women are going to die, Gayle. Women will die.”
Despite Clinton’s claims, Thomas’ colleagues on the Supreme Court have repeatedly praised his warmth and sense of humor.
“Justice Thomas is the one justice in the building that literally knows every employee’s name, every one of them. And not only does he know their names, he remembers their families’ names and histories,” Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor said at a recent conference.
“He’s a good friend,” Associate Justice Stephen Breyer said in 2021. “I think he’s a very decent person. I think he has a great sense of humor.”