After ‘Roe’ Leak, Clarence Thomas Is Concerned About Court Being ‘Bullied’

Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday told a group of judges and lawyers at the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference in Atlanta that “the events of earlier this week” show that if people cannot “live with outcomes we don’t agree with,” then the integrity of the judicial branch of government is undermined. Thomas, whose wife urged the Trump administration to work to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, decried what he perceived as a lack of respect for institutions. “It bodes ill for a free society,” the justice said in a question-and-answer session conducted by one of his former clerks, adding that it is not right that these institutions “give you only the outcome you want, or can be bullied” into issuing a desired ruling. Thomas, 73, also lamented the “different attitude of the young” toward these institutions. These remarks by the high court’s longest-service justice come the same week that Politico reported on a draft opinion in which the court votes to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision affirming rights to abortion nationwide. Thomas has previously called that ruling “grievously wrong.”