Mike Lee insists 'attack' on Clarence Thomas is over his 'audacity to be conservative as a Black man'

07 May 2023

United States Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) is doubling down on his defense of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as Democratic lawmakers continue to call for the longtime Republican jurist's resignation.

Thomas faces immense pressure to resign from the high court after ProPublica revealed last month the justice has accepted luxury gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow for decades.

Earlier this week, The New Republicreported Senator Lee tweeted an excerpt from Thomas' memoir, saying, "I had grown up fearing the lynch mobs of the ku Klux Klan; as an adult, I was starting to wonder if I'd been afraid of the wrong white people all along. My worst fears hadcome to pass not in Georgia but in Washington, D.C., where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony." Lee tweeted the quote is "More true than ever, 31 years later."

The GOPer reiterated his backing of the justice's actions during a Sunday Fox News interview with host Maria Bartiromo.

Journalist Aaron Rupar shared clip of the pair's conversation via Twitter, writing, "Mike Lee on Fox News dismisses Clarence Thomas's corruption: 'This is an attack on Justice Thomas ... they don't like the fact that he has the audacity to be conservative as a Black man.'"

Bartiramo asked for the senator's "take" on "these attacks" on Thomas.

Lee emphasized the Republican jurist is "a good man who has risen from poverty in the Jim Crow South to a position where he's one of the most respected jurists in our nation's history."

He continued, "This is categorically unfair. [The Democrats are] doing this not only to attack him, but to attack the legitimacy of the Supreme Court so that they can re-image the Supreme Court according to their own preferences."

The senator concluded, "There's not one allegation they've raised against him that reveals any impropriety, any wrongdoing, any violation of any law, any rule or ethical principle. They are wrong."

Last month, in response to ProPublica's report, The Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote, "in 1969, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren urged Justice Abe Fortas to resign 'after it was learned that he had accepted, then returned, $20,000 from a Wall Street financier.' Warren believed that the resignation of Fortas, appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, was necessary in order to protect the Court's reputation. And Fortas stepped down."

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