Clarence Thomas says he has 'no idea why or how' he got nominated to the Supreme Court: book

© Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images Judge Clarence Thomas is sworn in as the newest member of the Supreme Court on the White House South Lawn on October 18, 1991. Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images

• Clarence Thomas in a new book says he has “no idea why or how” he was tapped for the Supreme Court.
• He shared with “Created Equal” co-editor Michael Pack his concerns about rumors of an appointment.
• Thomas was eventually nominated by George H.W. Bush to replace the retiring Thurgood Marshall.

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Here’s what each Supreme Court justice said about Roe v. Wade before they were confirmed

The Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on Friday.  The opinion was supported by five of the conservative judges on the court.  Here’s what every judge said about Roe v. Wade during their confirmation hearings. 

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in a 5-4 vote on Friday.

The opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito and supported by conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, three of whom were appointed by former President Donal Trump.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in the opinion. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

The justices’ previous statements on Roe v. Wade have come into sharp focus after the landmark reversal. Senators Susan Collins and Joe Manchin said they were misled by Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.

Here’s what each justice said at the time of their nomination.

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Brett Kavanaugh

Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was nominated by GOP President Donald Trump and took his seat on October 6, 2018.

During his confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh said the decision was an “important precedent” that has been “reaffirmed many times.”

Kavanaugh has also said the ruling was “settled law,” but signaled he’d be open to overturning settled law, the Washington Post reported.

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GOP Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin accused Kavanaugh of misleading them during his hearing.

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Neil Gorsuch

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch was nominated by GOP President Donald Trump and took his seat on April 10, 2017.

Gorsuch, during his confirmation hearing, said Roe v Wade was a precedent that was reaffirmed in subsequent cases.

“So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the US Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other,” Gorsuch said.

He stopped short of saying how he’d rule on abortion if a case was presented in front of him.

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Amy Coney Barrett

Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett was nominated by GOP President Donald Trump and took her seat on October 27, 2020.

During her confirmation hearing, she said she’d follow the rules of precedent on issues tied to Roe v Wade.

“What I will commit is that I will obey all the rules of stare decisis, that if a question comes up before me about whether Casey or any other case should be overruled, that I will follow the law of stare decisis, applying it as the court is articulating it, applying all the factors, reliance, workability, being undermined by later facts in law, just all the standard factors,” she said, according to The New York Times.

At the time, Barrett sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee revealing that she had signed off on a 2006 anti-abortion ad.

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John Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court by GOP President George W. Bush and was appointed on September 29, 2005.

During his confirmation hearing, Roberts said the 1973 landmark decision was “settled as a precedent of the court.”

“I do think that it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent. Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and even-handedness,” he told the Senate at the time.

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Samuel Alito

Associate Justice Samuel Alito was nominated by GOP President George W. Bush and took his seat January 31, 2006.

During his confirmation Alito said Roe V Wade  was an “important precedent of the Supreme Court,” The Washington Post reported.

However, Alito stopped short of calling the ruling settled law. Alito has previously written a 1985 cover letter where opposed abortion.

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Clarence Thomas

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court by GOP President George H.W.  Bush and took his seat on October 23, 1991.

During his confirmation hearing, he refused to state his opinion on abortion and if Roe v Wade was properly decided, saying it would compromise his ability to impartially rule on similar cases.

“I think those of us who have become judges understand that we have to begin to shed the personal opinions that we have. We tend not to express strong opinions so that we are able to, without the burden or without being burdened by those opinions, rule impartially on cases,” he said, according to NPR.

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Sonia Sotomayor

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama and took her seat on August 8, 2009.

During her confirmation hearing, Sotomayor said the ruling was “precedent and settled.”

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Stephen Breyer

Associate Justice Stephen Breyer was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton and took his seat August 3, 1994.

During his confirmation hearing, said he believed that the 1973 ruling “is settled law.”

“Roe v Wade is the law of this country at least for more than 20 years,” Breyer said in 1994.

—American History TV (@cspanhistory) June 24, 2022

Clarence Thomas in a newly-released book said that he had “no idea why or how” he was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1991 as he recounted the process that set him up to become one of most consequential conservative voices on the bench.

In the book, “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” co-edited by Michael Pack and Mark Paoletta, Thomas sat down with Pack for over 30 hours between November 2017 and March 2018, in what became an expanded companion to the 2020 documentary of the same name.

While speaking with Pack, Thomas revealed he was surprised when he heard that Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, a revered civil-rights trailblazer and the first Black jurist on the high court, was stepping down from his post.

“I have no idea why or how I got nominated. All I know is that Justice Marshall retired, and that was a shock,” Thomas said. “My reaction was, ‘Oh no, this is going to be bad. People will go on a rumor that I’m one of the nominees.'”

Thomas — who had served as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and at the time was a judge on the influential United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — then spoke of the lead-up to his eventual nomination by then-President George H.W. Bush.

“I get a call from [White House Counsel C.] Boyden Gray the very afternoon Justice Marshall retired, saying, ‘Are you ready for another walk around the park?'” Thomas said.

He continued: “He sent Mark Paoletta over to take me to the situation room at the Justice Department, and Mark parked across the street from the DC Circuit, across from where my wife worked, at the Labor Department. And we drove to the Justice Department. And that’s where it started. They wanted to know who I thought my views and approach were closest to on the Court. And I said, ‘Justice Scalia’ and that was mostly because of his opinion in the Olson case.”

In Morrison v. Olson, which was argued in 1988, the court ruled 7-1 that the Independent Counsel Act was constitutional.

In his dissent, Antonin Scalia — an adherent of originalism when he served on the court — wrote that the law should be stuck down because criminal prosecution “is an exercise of purely executive power.”

Thomas then recalled how he ran into then-first lady Barbara Bush on the family’s property in Kennebunkport, Maine, after being flown to the locale to speak to the president. It was soon thereafter when he found out about his nomination.

“We were walking along to the Bush’s residence, and we ran into Mrs. Bush. And she said, ‘Congratulations,’ and then my heart sank,” he said in the interview. “And she said, ‘Oh I guess I let the cat out of the bag.'”

The president shortly thereafter proceeded to ask Thomas two questions about taking on the role as an Associate Justice.

“He said, ‘If you get on the Supreme Court, can you call them as you see them?’ I said, ‘That’s the only way I know how to do it,'” Thomas recalled.

He continued: “The other was, ‘Can you and your family get through confirmation?’ I said, ‘I’ve been through four, and I think I can get through one more.’ And then he said, ‘If you go on the Court, I will never publicly criticize any opinion of yours.’ And he repeated that, and then said, ‘At two o’clock, I’m going to nominate you to the Supreme Court. Let’s go have lunch.'”

After a contentious confirmation hearing, Thomas was eventually confirmed by the Senate later that year — and after the death of Scalia in 2016, he has become a pillar of the court’s conservative wing.

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