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Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he regretted supporting Clarence Thomas during his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, calling it a “mistake.”
During the show, host Kristen Welker remarked that Clyburn had previously testified in favor of Thomas’ appointment to the Supreme Court during his contentious 1991 hearing. Since his appointment, Thomas has been considered a prominent conservative justice.
Welker asked Clyburn whether he stood by his decision to support Thomas as the Democratic Party increasingly supports court-packing and enforcing term limits for justices.
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South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn previously supported Clarence Thomas during his 1991 confirmation hearing. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Absolutely not. I have made mistakes in my life,” Clyburn said. “And that’s one that I made, and I will own up to that mistake. The fact of the matter is, I had faith and confidence in the fact that his background and experiences would instruct him in his professionalism, especially sitting on the bench. We had worked together when he was chair of the Equal [Employment] Opportunity Commission and, of course, I was running the state agency here in South Carolina.”
Clyburn said that, despite their political differences, he believed that Thomas would be “upholding those precedents” set by the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act.
“I had no idea that Clarence Thomas would rebel the way he has against his own background and experiences. He was raised by his grandfather, and he has shown very little sensitivity to the environment his grandfather grew up in Pin Point, Georgia,” Clyburn said.
During the 1991 hearing, Clyburn referred to Thomas as “a personal and professional friend, in spite of the fact that he shares a conservative Republican philosophy.”
By Sunday, however, he referred to Thomas as a “very angry rightist.”
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Rep. James Clyburn, left, told “Meet the Press” that he regrets his past support for Clarence Thomas, right. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters; Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
“I had hoped that Clarence Thomas would follow the modern underpinnings of that Constitution of ours, but he has not done so,” Clyburn said. “In fact, he decided to go all the way from an angry leftist to a very angry rightist.”
During a rare interview with Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz last week, Thomas rejected the idea that being a Black man requires him to subscribe to Democratic beliefs.
“We had this saying [that there are] only two things I have to do: stay Black and die,” Thomas said. “That was a retort to people who had these sort of requirements for us, these mandates for us because of our skin color… But at any rate, they think that here’s the way you’re supposed to think. Again, here’s your skin color. There’s this kind of deterministic view that you’re supposed to think this because we say so.”
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken out against Democratic critics attacking him for his conservative views. (Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
He added, “And I, of course, declined that invitation. And so now that means something, that I’m a walking contradiction because I’ve deviated from their perception of what I should think.”
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Cruz spoke to “Meet the Press” on Sunday about his new book, “Going Further: The Incomparable Clarence Thomas.”
He responded to Clyburn’s remarks on X.
“I understand Jim Clyburn has a political base to answer to. But his explanation is actually a pretty good test of why Clarence Thomas is such a great Justice. Apparently, Thomas’s great ‘mistake’ was refusing to treat precedent as more sacred than the Constitution. When the Court got it wrong, he said so. When others stopped short, he went further,” Cruz wrote.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Supreme Court for comment.
