The conservative majority of the US Supreme Court remains under fire from lawmakers and the public over the leaked draft that seeks to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights. Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein ripped into Justice Clarence Thomas following Thomas’s complaints of the backlash received for potentially overturning Roe v. Wade.
Speaking on CNN’s “New Day” with hosts Brianna Keilar and John Avlon, Bernstein pushed back on Thomas’s complaint that the Supreme Court is being “bullied” by those who support abortion rights. Bernstein said that Thomas – who was appointed by George H.W. Bush – should be considered a “rogue justice” and cited his wife Ginni Thomas’s involvement in the attempted coup to overturn the 2020 elections.
“I think that Clarence Thomas talking about faith in institutions is a little misguided given particularly the role of his wife in the Stop the Steal movement around the president of the United States,” said Bernstein.
“The wife of a Supreme Court justice doing what Ginni Thomas did is utterly unheard of in the history of the United States. So Justice Thomas talking about the legitimacy of institutions, either the White House or the court itself, and he should recuse himself, which he refuses to do from any case involving the president of the United States and the election,” added Bernstein.
Bernstein went on to say that Thomas’s refusal to recuse himself from cases related to January 6, along with the fact that his own spouse is involved, represents “a real failure of institutions.”
Chief Justice John Roberts is also under fire for his effort to immediately do damage control on the leaked draft overturning Roe v. Wade, which was authored by Justice Samuel Alito and leaked to the public last week. GOP strategist and founder of anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project Rick Wilson blasted Roberts for rushing to issue a statement on the leaked draft while remaining silent on the involvement of Ginni Thomas in the effort to overturn the 2020 elections.
Wilson explained that if there was an internal investigation by the high court into Ginni Thomas’s involvement or if Ginni Thomas was being held accountable, the public is in the dark on the matter.
Wilson then suggested that a right-wing figure may be responsible for the leaked draft as it would corner the rest of the conservative justices to block them from changing their stance should Roberts prefer a “more moderate” outcome, which he is rumored to want.