Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

[Music] private school tuition for Clarence Thomas's Grand nephew amid controversy Jenny Thomas thousands of dollars their histories Jenny Thomas grew up with Republican activism their influence the idea that I won't be told what to think just because of the color of my skin animated Clarence Thomas returning Roe versus Wade now Clarence and Jenny Thomas politics power and the Supreme Court some people might call it payback others might call it the Fulfillment of his dreams yeah in the days before the 2020 election a massive impact on the American Judiciary a decisive moment Clarence Thomas Amy Coney Barrett folk do you know how big this is this is huge presiding over the ceremony Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas I will support and defend the Constitution Amy Coney Barrett had chosen Thomas to swear her in so help me God so help you God a sign of transformation inside the high court it's a moment of victory for Clarence Thomas he's now become the center of the Court and I think he would say he won [Music] Justice Thomas has developed into one of the leading lights on the court if not the leading lights this is why it's often referred to as the Thomas court now he really is sort of the ideological and intellectual center of gravity on the court his wife Jenny it was a momentous moment Jenny Thomas is as good as any maybe the best embodiment of the American right today she's a True Believer she has always been on the far right her politics are all about this politics of fear and anger Thomas two powerful conservatives on the court and in politics pursuing a shared vision this Duo of Clarence Thomas and Jenny Thomas they are the it couple of the far right [Music] two lies shaped by history politics [Music] the American women do not want era they do not want abortion Henry's affirmative action is not equality the conservative majority overturning Roe versus Wade the right to choose abortion challenging the use of race in college admissions which could have an impact on affirmative action in a nation braided with division and upheaval the Thomases have found their moment they are one in the same in how they look at their opponents it's a war with the other side [Music] foreign [Music] memories are those of pinpoint Georgia a life far removed in space and time [Music] Clarence Thomas's Journey to the Center of American power began as far away as one can get from it became a poor very poor from a marginal community they talk about marginalized and underrepresented communities well the kichi dialect speaking Sea Island dwelling poor black people of the 1950s which is when he was coming along where as marginal I can imagine as you could get within the context of American society in 1955 my brother and I went to live with my mother in Savannah we lived in one room in a tenement [Music] we shared a kitchen with other tenants and we had a common bathroom in the backyard which was unworkable and unusable it was hard but it was all we had and all there was his father left early and moved away his mother was a single mother his mother married many times he didn't have a relationship with any of not his biological dad or any that came afterwards his mom has talked to me about how that was a very um Bleak period of her life when she had to do but you know she said you know but I had to do what I had to do desperate clarence's mother Leola Williams gave up the boys sending them to live at their grandfather's house clearance had been rescued from a life of poverty and ended up in a house that had a toilet running water and his ability to go to school every day but life with his grandfather Myers Anderson had its own challenges [Music] he was tough he was hard I don't think empathy might have been his strongest point interview Clarence Thomas's mother described it the grandfather would lock Clarence Thomas and his little brother in the hall closet and not let them out for punishment and he also whipped them with a belt quite routinely his grandfather beat the two boys quite often whenever it was that they didn't do something fast enough or or well enough he was physically mentally verbally abusive to to both of the boys [Music] probably the unhappiest that he's ever been in his life was the time that he spent in his in his grandfather's house things weren't much easier for Clarence out in segregated Savannah so that it would have been divided on racial lines and when I say that don't just think that I'm talking white black we had racial devised among the black community the brown bag were complexion um and it is either equal to the brown bag or lighter [Music] and darker it was ridiculed or derogated in some way Thomas wrote about it in his autobiography most of the insults aimed at me had to do with the darkness of my skin the flatness of my nose the kinkiness of my hair and the way I talked such racial slurs stung all the more for having come from my own people the issues of class and race have always been at the heart of how Thomas has seen himself that's the prism through which he sees his own life and at every turn there is a racial Dimension to his life that he talks about Clarence was frankly never comfortable around the black people in Georgia Clarence had been ridiculed by the children in that area around pinpoint and he was nicknamed ABC for America's blackest child so from an early age Clarence really felt estranged I think from his entire community the resentment and anger that that can provoke within the darker skinned and Blacker individuals also not so pretty uh it's a psychologically debilitating aspect of African-American experience this kind of class color Prejudice that operates amongst black Americans [Music] I guess the thing I remember most about Clarence is him as an altar boy whenever father needed to find Altar Boys all my classmates and all would hide Clarence would volunteer 's videos he had a grandfather who was a devout Catholic and wanted him to have the Catholic experience [Music] his grandfather paid twenty dollars a year for Clarence to attend Saint Benedict School our teachers were the nuns were called The Nuns in in Savannah in other words our they're assigned to educate black kids whatever our circumstances the nuns treated us all with respect and insisted that we do our best though some of them insisted harder than others one of the nuns paid special attention to Clarence Sister Mary virgelius my eighth grade teacher took a no-nonsense high expectations approach to teaching which may be why she got the most out of me I think his nurturing came from them because it wasn't coming from his immediate family I don't think he had the nurturing of of parents and whatever we would normally get and and the nuns and the priests provided that form Ed the Catholic church can be a refuge from everything else that's going on in your life I wanted to be a nun before I hit puberty and so it was not surprising to me that he would want to go into the Seminary Clarence excelled at the school and before long the nuns began to tout him as a role model the nuns that's all they talked about Clarence Thomas is going to be our first black priest in Savannah and you should really admire him for that young boys and young girls [Music] he is hard driving and ambitious and very hard working he's trying to prove himself you can sort of see in him from this early period that it's kind of like I'll show them and I don't care if you reject me I'm gonna make it anyway and I'll show you [Music] foreign [Music] if Clarence Thomas struggled in the segregated South in the middle of America his future wife Jenny lamp was living a seemingly picture-perfect life [Music] the thing about the Midwest is that the largest feature of the landscape is the sky there's like over 180 degrees of sky I suppose a long Vista gives you a sense that there's something Beyond you know there's something more out there [Music] what's the matter with your eye which eye mom I remember watching Leave it to Beaver and thinking as a child well this is that's that's my that's my neighborhood that's where I'm growing up the kind of American Dream Locale in the 1960s and early 70s Kurt Anderson grew up across the street from Ginny where we lived was this prosperous all-white neighborhood except for the housekeepers and cleaners it was easy to go for days weeks months forever without seeing black people frankly is what it was came from within almost a walled Bastion you know Scott bench was her High School boyfriend there was no exposure in her life to somebody who was a high school kid and drank smoked weed or did all those things that I thought were normal and high school kids did she was a pretty good little girl she was just kind of a non-exceptional you know middle of the pack girl and these giant classes of 750 people she was involved in things like PEP Club and then she became something they called Warrior woman she would like lead the marching band and all these you know people carrying pennants and whatnot but at home there was something underneath the everyday Suburban veneer she's the youngest child of a very prosperous real estate developer her mom was a homemaker and political activist they were leading what looked outwardly like a idyllic Suburban lifestyle I've heard Jenny Thomas say that she was sort of the mistake child that she was born a lot later so her parents were very politically engaged they thought they were done having children and then comes along Jenny they would take her to these Republican rallies and so she grew up with Republican activism um and and obviously it took it was a republican activism beyond the norm even in conservative Omaha I first became familiar with the Lance from my parents talking about them as what they call black hats that was their phrase for extreme far right John birchie Republicans the lamps were immersed in a growing culture of right-wing fear-mongering like this film from supporters of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater our streets are not safe immorality begins to flourish violence pits American against America we don't want this it's there in this film shots of the city newsstands with pornography on it and fast cars and and kids doing the Twist and topless dancing and the whole realm of cultural you know Boogeyman demodelization chaos this is the change the other America that the people slowly wake up to in the streets the mob as Jenny was growing up the conflicts of the 1960s were being broadcast on television and I say segregation now segregation tomorrow and segregation forever there you are for pre-teen and you're a sponge right it was in a March this morning to the county courthouse at Selma Alabama [Music] television had really expanded the whole black nation has to be put together as a black Army everything came right into your living room so to speak every night in response the lamps were drawn to the John Birch Society the Civil Rights Movement as we know it today is simply part of a worldwide movement organized and directed by Communists to enslave all mankind the John Birch Society became a code word for very far out there right wing beliefs and activities their objective is not communist Conquest it's Anarchy breakdown of Law and Order helplessness for young Jenny communist might see so many echoes in the John Birch Society of what became Q Anon and other sort of far-right radical conspiracy theories and you know this was a very sort of black and white point of view that would made politics into war that was the kind of the mindset that Ginny lamp grew up in thank you [Music] in Gullah the name of this poem is damn full gals okay God stick by chillin it got much a good thing fling about as a child Clarence had grown up speaking the language of the enslaved people of Georgia [Music] it's called gulligichi when we greeted people we say how Una datu we used to call it pigeon English but I think it was a French flavor to it [Music] as one of only two black students attending a high school Seminary the vestiges of that dialect made him a target of ridicule [Music] does it remind everybody around him that he's different it also reminds them that he's of a lower caste it has to be Monumental for him father Coleman told me matter of factly but I didn't speak standard English and that I would have to learn how to talk properly if I didn't want to be thought inferior his blunt words hit me like a slap in the face that moment stuck with him for the rest of his life [Music] clearance when he got really relaxed would revert to some of those ways of phrasing and that accent but he was always extremely conscious of how he pronounced words because he had been forced to do that when the Justice was on the high court he was famous for not speaking during oral argument and one of the explanations he would offer for that was because he was embarrassed about how he talked even though that was so far in the past that no one who knows the present-day Clarence Thomas would think that that would be a concern of his but it indeed was his days living in the white Seminary shaped him in other ways too he was in a dormitory living on that campus so it had to be tough you know when somebody says something derogatory to you in that environment you got to deal with it because you there 24 7. when night before he'd go to sleep now and then you know it'd be a laughter in the room and someone said Clarence smile so we can see you that kind of thing when they put the lights out at night his peers would shout like for like you know hours at night keep him up after he entered the major Seminary one event would become a turning point I have some very sad news for all of you and people who love peace all over the world and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight after Martin Luther King is assassinated that day he hears his fellow seminarians say good I hope the SOB dies you know it it's it's crushing to him it's absolutely crushing our hero is murdered and you're dancing on his grave so to speak these are not my people the people who would dance on his grave what am I doing with them where am I who am I this kind of thing you begin to ask yourself what am I buying into here I tore off the beliefs I had learned from the nuns I knew what was wrong who to blame for it and what to do about it I I was an angry black man that Seminary was too much for him he had to leave it was heart-wrenching not only did he lead the religion that sustained him but he was also living there and so he had to go back to this household where he was treated like like a dog had to be tremendously painstaking you're going to disappoint so many people your grandfather the black community the black Catholic Community in Savannah um other all these people are looking for you to be the first black priest The Grandfather's saying what you're leaving the Seminary you know you're out of my house I'm cutting you off you're not going to be supported and again Thomas is abandoned right he's left alone he's left to fend for himself I'm finished helping you he said you'll have to figure it out yourself you'll probably end up like you're no good daddy or those other no-good pinpoint Negroes instead of the grandfather being sympathetic and compassionate and and loving and hugging him and saying I love you no matter what or whatever a normal person would do he excoriated him and told him that he was a failure and expressed his dire disappointment over the years Thomas would downplay this image of his grandfather and express admiration for the man who gave him a home as a child I mean the grandfather is in the title of his autobiography my grandfather's son that's how he thought of himself but the picture that he Paints in that book is completely the opposite of how Clarence described his grandfather to me [Music] so uh my thanks to all of you and I was on to Chicago and let you in there [Applause] one day I turned on the radio while making my sandwich I heard that Bobby Kennedy had been shot oh my God Senator Kennedy has been shot I fell to my knees and burst into tears okay [Music] okay hold on to the guy I felt the blind self-destructive rage that haunted so many of the people I knew the crowd is running and the police are chasing them Park surely the time for politeness and non-violent protest was over look what it had done for Dr King and Bobby Kennedy [Music] we are going to put up with the nonsense with their irrationality with their murder any longer the more Injustice I saw the angrier I became we go shoot the cops were shooting our black brother in the back in this country angrier I became the more Injustice I saw and the more I read about the black power movement the more I wanted to be a part of it which means we shall conquer without a doubt Black Power [Applause] [Music] it's Thomas budding campus radical would pursue his education elsewhere he received a scholarship to a private college in Massachusetts across at the point when Clarence Thomas got into Holy Cross this school was actually actively looking for black students the president of Holy Cross Johnny Brooks who set up this program described it as affirmative action that's what opened the doors for him Holy Cross Catholic all mail more than 2 000 white students 27 black students many of them as frustrated as Clarence was now I was pissed off I had evolved from being hopeful to being pissed off a lot of young people in America was pissed off and they weren't seeking a Reconciliation okay they're seeking a coup changed the whole thing we all involved it I was involved in the protest he was literally everybody who went up there and and we those of us from the south we were right there with them saying yeah man we we want to push he definitely was inspired by the Black Panthers he dressed like them he talked like them he had a beret he had Army fatigues and he had the army boots they were afro he was out there with everyone else I think it was positive because he had a he had a group he wasn't alone now he became part of his group I don't know if he had a well-formed political philosophy before he got the Holy Cross maybe he was simply going along but the years 1968 1969 gosh I was there and the forces of Conformity to a sense of outraged Fury resistance the throwing off of Oppression by any means necessary it was very seductive it was very compelling to many many people among whom was Clarence Thomas and he had a hero Malcolm X we want Freedom by any means necessary we want Justice by any means necessary we want equality by any means necessary we had a poster of Malcolm X in his dorm room just as Thomas boasted at one point he had read all of his speeches and he said at one time he could quote you some of them by heart I mean so he really did pay attention to Malcolm X we are [Music] open Clarence Thomas's activism culminated in his junior year as protests broke out 40 miles away in Harvard Square it's an estimated 2 000 radical students decided to march to Cambridge and continue demonstrating we drank our way to Harvard Square where I disorderly parade deteriorated into a full-scale ride the demonstration then turned into the most extreme civil disorder in Cambridge history four thousand students against two thousand police the police fired rounds of tear gas into the crowd but that didn't deter us we kept on riding well into the night I got back to campus at four in the morning horrified by what I'd just done all over the United States yesterday there were anti-war protests most of them peaceful one was not at Harvard University last night nearly 200 people were injured 40 students were arrested I had let myself be swept up by an angry mob for no good reason other than that I too was aimed certainly somebody talks about a lot here I am in Harvard Square and like this mini Riot like what am I doing here right what am I doing he was conflicted about what he'd done who he was what he stood for I don't think anything about Clarence Thomas is simple I mean he's a bundle of contradictions and it seems like there's just always so much inner tension within him yes he was Radical like his peers but not as radical and he broke with them in various ways and he's always breaking with whatever the dominant political Trope is he says you know he's always talking about how he's not going to do what's fashionable he wants to be different he set about remaking himself gone was the Black Panther uniform proving his grandfather wrong he excelled at school graduating near the top of his class on the next day he married his college girlfriend Kathy ambush [Music] him why did you marry her and he said because she was the first woman who was nice to me he always had a problem with women uh he regarded himself as not attractive at all he regarded women as being pretty mean to him or indifferent to him and this was the first woman who did not show that so he married her [Music] I would like to thank my husband Fred for letting me come today I love to say that because it irritates the women's livers more than anything that I say [Music] Phyllis Schlafly was a colorful Dynamic anti-feminist right-wing reactionary as Jenny lamp was growing up Phyllis Schlafly was a role model her mother Marjorie was a prominent member of Schlafly's group The American women do not want era they do not want abortion they do not want lesbian Privileges and they do not want Universal child care in the hands of the government but she saw in Phyllis Schlafly and her mom was no excuses you don't need affirmative action you don't need women's kind of special accommodations you make your own fate you create your own path and you lean in it doesn't have to be the liberal way you can also do it the Republican way they were waging a battle against the era Equal Rights Amendment this one woman Schlafly pretty much single-handedly stopped a whole movement and killed the Equal Rights Amendment it really was an example of what you could do as a conservative woman leading a crusade and we can build this into a mighty movement that can set America on the right path then conquer we must for our cause it is just and this be our motto in God is our trust Jenny's inspired she wants to go into politics she wants to go to law school she wants to be like this and like her mom Jenny watched as her mom ran for the State Legislature and wrote dozens of letters to the editor of the local newspaper aren't you all getting sick and tired of the news media and liberals taking off in all directions to persecute Republicans particularly President Nixon and Vice President Agnew Mrs Donald G Lamb by 12 Jenny was writing her own letters I am 12 years old but I don't understand why they can ban all products with cyclamates in them when they aren't even sure they cause cancer why don't they ban cigarettes they know cigarettes cause cancer Jenny lamp would become a page at the Republican Women's Conference following her mom to see Richard Nixon I ask for your support instead of as so many teenagers do faced with that at that time reject it and go get high and wear jeans and tell their parents to get out of here she obviously embraced it and kept embracing it and never stopped embracing it's simply saying yes Mom and Dad I'm just like you and I'm proud to be just like you many families you don't talk about politics at the dinner table right but that was important to her parents and it leads to that manicheistic view between good and evil and if you look at things in terms of Good and Evil you end up angry you're bitter you don't accept defeats and so it takes you to a really dark place when politics is your focus [Music] Ed after Holy Cross Clarence Thomas was off to a very different world once again Yale Law School it was a chance to leave pinpoint far behind defying his grandfather's prophecy and get positioned to make real money we know what the reputation of Yale is you got a network of folks in all walks of life in the legal community and all you got to say is man I'm a Yale Alum and Bam you got a job that was our perception he had thought well you know what I just go go make me a bunch of money maybe go to New York and be a lawyer he and Kathy moved into marriage student housing they made a connection with their neighbor we were both in married student housing he set up his study room in what should have been you know a joint storage room his classmate John Bolton would become un Ambassador under Secretary of State and National Security adviser and we started talking and talked for the next two years basically and that's where we got to know each other over time Thomas would open up to Bolton I don't think he was Terribly Happy at the law school look people at Yale law school generically speaking are pretty arrogant group they think that they're going to rule the world for example in the year ahead of us were Bill and Hillary Clinton that was kind of the atmosphere I don't think Clarence came with that in mind for himself and I think it was kind of off-putting there are other black students there but again the black students who were there like he doesn't feel they are like him he's not part of the elite there in his mind privileged kids you know the Sons and Daughters of doctors and lawyers so he feels again like the outcast [Music] he believed that people assumed he was there as a as a beneficiary of affirmative action and it graded on him [Music] I think of all I'm around these white students who he senses question his presence at Yale how is it that you not just you Clarence Thomas but you all you black students are here is it because of marriage or is it because of affirmative action there was one law professor Ralph winter who in a challenging way mentioned this people don't think you know you deserve to be here that kind of thing and Thomas doesn't take up the challenge he takes it as a slight rather than try to fit in Thomas tried to stand out he dressed in overalls in a t-shirt it was kind of a uniform but neither one of us was terribly Rich so I didn't wear overalls but I understood what it meant for him with Clarence Thomas what you see is somebody who's isolating himself and he's kind of saying you know I don't want to try to join you maybe because he doesn't want to be rejected again after three years of Yale Law School graduation was Nearing but Clarence Thomas wasn't getting the offers he expected from prestigious law firms he was saying that he wasn't getting the kind of offers that other students were getting and and we couldn't understand it we thought that well you know you're at Yale and if you're not getting off of something something's wrong you know because that's the whole purpose of going to those schools Thomas would never forget the sting of those rejections he said he would keep stacks of rejection letters he had gotten from law firms even when he was like a Supreme Court Justice he had these letters just to sort of remind him of those again this feeling of rejection by kind of the elite law firms he had his Yale law degree and he had a 10 cent stamp stuck to it you know like a 10 cent price tag stuck to it because he's like yeah this is what it's worth right 10 cents so I know more he came to blame affirmative action for the rejection he felt [Music] now I knew what a law degree from Yale was worth when it bore the taint of racial preference I was humiliated and desperate we thought that his degree was devalued that he didn't get the same kind of cachet out of the degree once he was looking for a job and trying to move in his career he assumed that others were assuming that it's a Yale law degree but with an asterisk next to it I disagree I disagree totally Orion Douglas had a strikingly similar academic journey to Clarence Thomas's scholarship to Holy Cross law school eventually becoming a judge I ain't gonna blame affirmative action for not getting a job when you never was offered the job for a hundred years before okay system was still there the infrastructure for separation discrimination was still there it was still a segregated mindset of White America [Music] Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign rocked the world of conservative Republicans they called it a revolution and Ginny and her mom were there watching as Reagan used a catchy phrase to describe it for those who've abandoned hope will restore hope and we'll welcome them into a great National crusade to make America great again Jenny headed to Washington hoping to do her part break into politics I spoke to her brother Russell he said you know Mom was a big politician and Jenny wanted to be like Mom and I think Ginny actually came to Washington thinking that she might run for Congress one day she was prodigious she worked very hard morning noon and night and I certainly didn't need anybody to light a fire under she was very very anxious to perform and to deliver she was young she was fairly new to Washington she was someone who wanted to do things in the world wanted to accomplish something had a sense of being on a mission but Washington was a far cry from Life in Omaha I had an idealistic from the Midwest and her mom and dad weren't there her older siblings weren't around [Music] it's easy to get lost in Washington people drink people sleep with their bosses people do all kinds of crazy things during this time Ginny suffered a traumatic experience something she later described in People magazine I was once sexually harassed at work it wasn't verbal harassment it was physical it was something I had put way down in the recesses of my mind she had mentioned to me that she'd had an incident with the sexual harassment she didn't want to get into the details of it so I didn't know much about it I just knew that there had been some trauma involved and she was someone who felt kind of alone in the world and I was looking for not only companionship but for the tools that she needed to reattach to the world create the relationships that she thought would make her healthier She was drawn to a controversial self-help group called Life Spring in your life up until now whether you consider yourself successful or not you've really done the best you can [Music] this program is an invitation for you to open up new areas for success the program gave her a sense of belonging a group of other Searcher type people who felt lost or lonely who now came together and go through a deeply intense experience of exposing their emotions to one another hugging a lot crying together it does not hurt it feels one [Applause] she was deeply impressed she's felt that she had been reborn almost it was a spiritual religious experience for her [Music] at first Jenny was feeling pretty good about it and felt like it was maybe you know strengthening her but then there were some troubling exercises [Music] nobody ever helped one of them was something called the stripper where they they stood in a u-shape and they disrobe they took off their clothes and they made fun of people's bodies and the fat people and she realized that this was sort of more than just a spiritual journey that this was some kind of cult-like stripping down of the self and it was dangerous Jenny's parents and closest friends were also worried Jenny felt that she'd been misled LED astray and so she wanted to get out and she turned to a deep programmer a counselor for help in getting out hey I was in my spring and I was speaking to a deep programming and she was somebody who had been to Hell and back and she was going to stand up and speak publicly about you know about saving others from the similar a similar fate when you come away from a call you have a friend of yourself and what was it that made you get into that group and and what's what open questions are there that still need the answer she was angry that she had fallen victim to a group like this when she goes into something she does it fully with all her heart and when she leaves something and feels betrayed and angry she is against it with all her heart so all those things that got me the last fingers still there and I guess I struggle with working overboard and fighting in calls but I know that's important too I spoke to her Minister and I guess he gave me the greatest insight into her he said that she's a very very trusting person you have to be careful with he told me that he thought it was that kind of trusting quality that led her to Life Spring that she believed in in them until until she was burned how are you I got it happy birthday thank you Mr President I appreciate it [Music] thank you very much brother I appreciate it was 38 years old in the Oval Office with the president of the United States he's one of the highest ranking African-American officials in the government and he's seen as someone you know certainly On The Rise people already are eyeing him thinking well maybe we could get this guy prepared for a supreme court seat it paid his dues by being the front man for Reagan on issues of race I think that the president is has has really been treated unfairly in the media with respect to his views of minorities especially affirmative action Rich Thomas came to see as deeply flawed and insincere where you do run into the conflict is when you have a system set up under the guise of affirmative action that is called preferential treatment he's playing the role of a black conservative he's the he's playing the role of a black reaganite the president has been singularly supportive he supports us where it counts he's giving the Reagan Administration cover so that when people say you know Reagan administration is racist Reagan said well you know you can't say that look at these look at these people over here look at this guy Clarence Thomas he's black I support you I'll do anything look at what he's saying he's he's with us thank you very much okay for Clarence Thomas it had been a long journey to the White House [Music] unable to get a prestigious job out of law school he'd settled for a low-paying job as a staff lawyer for the Republican attorney general for Missouri Jack Danforth when I first met Clarence I told him that I would offer him more work on less pay than anybody else interviewing Yale Law School and he took the job he followed Danforth to the United States Senate where he worked as a staffer Danforth offers Clarence Thomas a job in Washington which is kind of a turning point in Clarence Thomas's career he has said that he wants to be a big courtroom litigator and make a ton of money but that's not really happening I think at this point what you can see is he's ambitious he decides maybe he can make it in government he can get to the top there faster than in Corporate America but as he rose in Washington there was trouble in his personal life moving to Washington had done nothing to ease the dissatisfaction I felt with my marriage I hated myself for my inability to be the loving devoted husband Kathy deserved his marriage was falling apart he was struggling to raise his young son and dealing with crippling debt they're young they had a son early it was very difficult I think to keep that marriage together in the early years and I think they just kind of drifted apart I grew despondent and resigned I drank more heavily than ever before I knew I was on the road to trouble the first mad Clarence he more than anything else is a very angry person he was self-medicating when I met him with alcohol Lillian McEwen was a lawyer for Senator Joe Biden on the Judiciary Committee she met Thomas as he was going through a divorce Clarence was in the midst of a lot of changes in his life and so I would uh pretty much just listen to whatever it was that he had to say about his childhood about what was going on with him as they began dating Lillian found Clarence to be ambitious and determined I would say that every act that Clarence performed at work and socially was always geared toward getting ahead and making sure that he was doing what was necessary to take the next step whatever that was the idea has already occurred to him by 1981 that if he plays his cards right he could be on the Supreme Court he's telling people that 1981 this is so long before it happens but he's got a plan in the back of his mind and he knows that he needs to keep doing the right things punching the right cards meeting the right people making the right friends and it might happen one important step he had joined a small circle of conservative black Republicans you're an ambitious you know black person you have a Yale law school degree um makes a lot of sense to go where the where the line is shorter so it's a long line and you know with the Democrats a lot a lot of people over there uh much shorter line with the Republicans he'd been tilting conservatives since leaving law school and now began to flesh out his conservative ideology he reconnected with his former Yale classmate at one point he said can you send me some books or something that might be worth reading and so I put together a bunch of things I thought he might be interested in reading and send him out I think he went through clearly an evolution he had certainly become much more conservative uh really out of outside of Yale law school out in the real world you've heard about Clarence Thomas but not by name he is one of the black people now on Center Stage in American politics he is a Republican Thomas would put himself in the spotlight making controversial comments in the Washington Post Thomas is also a man who has a sister on welfare back in his home state of Georgia but he feels that he must be opposed to welfare because of the dependency it can breed in a person she his sister gets mad when the mailman is late with her welfare check he says that is how dependent she is what's worse is that now her kids feel entitled to the check too they have no motivation for doing better or getting out of that situation it hit pretty hard folks in Savannah their first reaction was why would you talk about your sister in public you know we we don't do that that's not black Savannah you know if you've got something to say about your sister you don't like what she did or whatever you don't publicize that you know you keep that in the family but in Reagan's Washington the article propelled Thomas Ronald Rigg and you know was famous for denouncing welfare Queens so wow you know here is you know a Yale law school graduate who's African and American and who's talking about how terrible it is that his sister was on welfare that was like Mana from heaven for Ronald Reagan Reagan elevated Thomas to run the EEOC the equal employment opportunity commission this is a real journey that Clarence Thomas makes from modest humble Origins to the top of one's profession and ultimately to a leading position in American government [Music] now for the first time in his life Clarence Thomas was in charge but people who knew him then saw disturbing changes his personality his aggressiveness sexually everything changed he became a different person after he after he got that job he stopped drinking alcohol so he was not self-medicating anymore and his mood swings were quite obvious he never really seemed to be anyone who took any particular joy in anything unless it was denigrating someone or somebody and then he'd just go far after he made such a comment Angela Wright was Thomas's communications director I think he really really wanted to um just sort of prove to conservative white people that you know he was their God he just took such pride and denigrated black people he is taking stereotypes and laughing at them and making white people feel comfortable in his presence because he's the first one to make the racial joke he comes up with derogatory nicknames for people he bullies some of the weaker people he makes fun of them he's supposed to be running an organization that protects for instance older people in the workplace and he tells his underlings to get rid of an older guy in the office because he's too old he says he's got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel there was a woman on his staff who is a little person and I remember him specifically saying forgive my language but this is what he said she got that big ass despite the fact that sexual harassment was against the law people just let it roll off eventually Thomas fired Angela Wright and Lillian McEwen concluded she'd had it with Clarence [Music] I I just couldn't tolerate it anymore I didn't like what he was becoming I didn't like the speeches that he was giving I didn't like the positions that he was taking I didn't like the Embrace that he was getting from the most horrible people in the Republican party I I I couldn't tolerate it this was his plan this was his karma this was how he wanted to go through the world um and but I wanted nothing to do with it Jenny lamp finally met the man of her dreams we first met in the spring of 1986 at an affirmative action conference in New York City Clarence was then EEOC chairman I was a labor relations attorney at the U.S Chamber of Commerce [Music] when she sat in that meeting with him for the first time and saw him what she saw in her own words was a powerful man [Music] and they kind of strike up a friendship at this conference they're both there speaking they get a cab together you know and that kind of you know touches off this Romance [Music] she shared a taxi with them to the airport and she asked them how do you feel about being a black man in the Reagan Administration how do you deal with critics and he pulled out his wallet and and found and showed her the prayers that he recites every day that kind of fortify him keep a clear eye toward life's end do not forget your purpose and Destiny as God's creature she said it was a humbling experience seeing a person who lived their values their Christian values for her I think that was the moment of connection just a few months later Jenny and Clarence were engaged the whole thing is so improbable it's a novel it's a novel I wouldn't believe that these people in such dissimilar worlds end up getting together and being of such enormous political consequence you can't make it up it's so extraordinary but they had important similarities Terence Thomas is at odds with the Civil Rights Movement he's against affirmative action Jenny Thomas is at odds with the feminist movement and she's opposed to equal pay for women in some ways they really have a lot in common politically and in terms of sort of where they position themselves in sort of opposition um to the the politics of their their own generation soon out in Omaha Jenny lamp became Ginny Thomas when she got married to Justice Thomas back in Omaha she didn't tell people that she was marrying a black man she just said I'm getting married and so the Gus show up at the wedding and they're shocked that he she's marrying a black guy and one of her relatives was quoted in the Washington Post as saying well we were surprised when he turned out to be black but you know when we got to know him he's so good to her that it made up for him being black and so it was obvious this person and maybe others thought him being black was a bad thing those who knew him from his black power days at Holy Cross were also surprised Thomas when he was in the Holy Cross he was he was sort of adamantly opposed the interracial marriage he thought that black people should marry black people and you know we should embrace his community and he would even point out interracial couples [Music] I found a little ironic they evolved from that position married to white lady okay well that's how life does it I never thought when he was at Holy Cross that he be part of Ronald Reagan's team also but you followed the path that God puts before us and I guess God sent him to Jenny I don't know I'll leave that up between them [Music] [Applause] a stunning decision at the Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement from the Supreme Court today on a court that's leaning to the conservative right his departure signals a major change for the court the great Thurgood Marshall Mr civil rights retires I'm getting old and coming apart the search is on for a supreme court nominee with the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall is the president expecting pressure to appoint another black American you bet he is Peter I think that pressure is bound to be forthcoming the Washington Rumor Mill has gone into overdrive this morning trying to think President Bush said he would pick someone representative of all Americans but should that person be black well I am very pleased to announce that I will nominate Clarence Thomas to serve as associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Clarence Thomas is nominated now you know immediately there's certain things that happen that you know get my attention first uh did race have anything to do with this what I did was look for the best man and the fact that he is black and a minority has nothing to do with this in the sense that he is the best qualified at this time and we have well I mean you know who believes that Clarence Thomas stands to be one of the great beneficiaries in American Life of affirmative action president he was only 43 years old spent just one year as a federal appeals court judge but he built a strong reputation as a conservative and strong connections with Washington Republicans he got there through networking he was in the right place at the right time he had the right support people behind him he was connected pretty well he settled on the 43-year-old appeals court judge Clarence stopped replacing the Court's first and only African-American with another African-American reaction has been flowing and ricocheting ever since Clarence Thomas is a self-made man with many self-made enemies liberals have been scared about Clarence Thomas for years what impact will Clarence Thomas have on the high court I thought I'd be able to sneak in him [Laughter] he could not have been prepared for the mob of still photographers TV cameras reporters police and Senators which engulfed him this morning it promised us to be a political ideological and cultural event of historic proportions the hearing will come to order good morning judge welcome to the blinding lights the Democrats politically they were in a very difficult position it's very difficult to attack an African-American judge and they wanted to befriend him not attack him certainly that was true for Biden heck you're our six seven years younger than I'm 48 how old are you judge 42 through well I've aged over the last 10 weeks but uh 43. 43 years old advised I know this to be very careful to be very modest they're going to ask you about every controversial issue that has ever come before The Supreme Court who's in the area of civil rights I don't remember or recall participating he's told to just basically sit there like a potted plant and don't say too much it's insulting in a way but he he he does he he does what he's told I think that to take a position would undermine my ability to be impartial there did come a point at which people said well hold it uh you know maybe you don't know enough to be a Justice um would undermine my impartiality really undermine my ability to be impartial it was just laughable Clarence Thomas basically played the role so well as a cipher that he'd said things that seemed just on the surface very hard to believe such as that he had never ever debated the Roe be weighed decision what I'm trying to do Senator is to respond to your question and at the same time not offer a particular view on this difficult issue of abortion that would undermine my impartiality it plays into his fears if you will because he's very sensitive more than that to how people perceive him he worries about how people see him as a black man so that had to bother him but as the hearings concluded it seemed like confirmation was imminent Senator Jack Danforth had shepherded Thomas through the process and I can remember thinking well we've got you know however many votes there was no question that he was going to get confirmed so we've got this so it was I just felt uh you know I didn't feel threatened that there was any threat at all Thomas ran in over charges of sexual harassment against Thomas the FBI did indeed interview Anita Hill a former subordinate of Thomas's the effect was to create chaos and a great deal of uncertainty about what would happen to Clarence Thomas's nomination tonight with the potential for political explosion on Capitol Hill was one of those explosions where no one in Washington knew what was going to happen not even the White House trouble today for Clarence Thomas enough trouble that some senators are calling for a postponement of this week's confirmation vote these 11th Hour sexual harassment charges stunned Washington he'll emphasize she has nothing to gain by making allegations against Thomas and resents those who question her motives I went out to his house it was a big media Stakeout outside of his house that was excellent driving and so I went in I have never had an experience like that ever still haven't because he was a Broken Man he was just broken [Music] he couldn't sleep according to his wife he was in a fetal position in bed he couldn't eat [Music] and uh like it was boy I mean to see somebody you care about suffering that [Music] and um it was just it was just terrible I lay across the bed and curled up in a fetal position tired Beyond imagining I felt like a marathon runner who had hit the wall all my reserves were used up foreign anticipates will be a brutal hearing later that week testified capital and before the world an emotional dispute of historic proportions Professor do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth will help you God I do thank you [Music] Mr chairman Thomas was at home members I told Jenny he wouldn't watch my name is Anita but she did conversations were very Vivid he spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes it was incredibly compelling television she was gorgeous composed obviously projecting sincerity on other occasions he referred to the size of his own penis as being larger than normal and he also spoke on some occasions of the pleasures he had given to women with oral sex he said that if I ever told anyone of his behavior that it would ruin his career there's an anger and suspicion that washes over Ginny Thomas she sees others attacking her husband attacking her attacking their core beliefs she sees that outside world that's attacking her as something that needs to be beaten down something that needs to be destroyed [Music] spiritual warfare good versus evil we were fighting something we didn't understand we needed God it's a reprisal of the kind of ideology Jenny Thomas had from her Birch Society days they regarded the their opponents as enemies and and practically you know satanic so she says you've got to fight fight back against the sort of evil tormentors that night the Thomas has traveled back to the Capitol to Jack danford's office we sat with Thomas he with Jack Danforth Thomas there weren't very many people in the room and I just looked over and I said did this happen he said I'm I'm torn to bits this didn't happen and I told him my theory of political life and attack on answered is an attack believe not only that but agreed to and he was teary I told him that he should go up and look at the Senators and Senator Ted Kennedy was on that program and he should quote the Bible and he should say judge not that you be not judged condemn not that you be not condemned senators you wouldn't say that Thomas had something else in mind he just sat there in my office and it was darkened and it was quiet that was when he said to me Jack you know what this is It's a lynching it's a hijack lynching massive clearances if that's the way you feel go up and say it [Applause] will come to order Clarence Thomas had people standing behind him first and foremost his wife who by her presents made it obvious that she believed that these were lies she had to be there I felt such anger and revulsion looking at some of those senators I was watching them and I felt like my eyes were laser beams they wouldn't look at me these little people they seem so small and our purpose seemed so great judge tough day and tough night for you I know let me uh ask do you have anything you'd like to say do you have anything you'd like to say senator I would like to start by saying unequivocally uncategorically that I deny each and every single allegation against me today that suggested in any way that I had conversations of a sexual nature or about pornographic material with Anita Hill that I ever attempted to date her that I ever had any personal sexual interest in her or that I in any way ever harassed her his testimony was very much you know sort of absolute against Stark black and white new I can't think of a way of reconciling the stories right that wouldn't mean that someone perjured second but clearly someone someone lied I think that this today the travesty I think that it is disgusting I think something is dreadfully wrong with this country in these lies that's the real Clarence Thomas they've come for me at the jugular and I'm a man I am a man here before you I'm furious about the way I'm being treated you're going to do what you're going to do but I'm going to hold a dignified line in defense of my integrity this is a circus it's a National Disgrace from my standpoint as a black American as far as I'm concerned it is a high-tech lynching you will be lynched destroyed caricatured by a committee of the U.S U.S Senate rather than hung from a tree when everything was on the line he knew what to say high-tech lynching there are a lot of people who rush to his side they disagree with them they disagree with them about lots of things but he blew that whistle and there were lots of black people who immediately went to his side we we're sitting there saying give it to him Clarence give it to them we didn't been here before we had to live through this in Savannah when they try to beat you down what do you do you fight back that's the way we do it here and so we were very proud of him and we would roared him on in a moment the politics had changed chairman Biden and the committee moved quickly on this vote the yeas are 52 and the Nays are 48. within days Clarence Thomas had realized his Ambitions the nomination of Clarence Thomas of Georgia is hereby confirmed a permanent seat on the United States Supreme Court [Music] but he would never forget those who had opposed him he invited me to come and visit him in his Chambers and he you know he if I were novelists I would paint the scene you know he sits back in his chair he puts his feet up on his desk he takes a puff on the cigar and he says I'm gonna be here forever you know they've had their say now in my leisure I will have my say I'm here I'm planted they're gonna have to deal with me I'll be here forever he was going to get his as it were Revenge simply by putting one foot in front of the other day in day out year in and year out and they can make all the noise they can scream like banshees they can scream but the fact of the matter is I'm going to be writing those opinions [Music] he spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films the Anita Hill allegations would not go away I deny each and every single allegation against me today well I'm just sitting here thinking I'm just saying this man is a liar is what I'm thinking I'm thinking lie lie Biden's committee never called Angela Wright or a number of other witnesses to testify the comments range for expressing me about [Music] Anita Hill is probably telling the truth because I can remember him asking me what size my boobs were asking me about going out with him even though I discussed no interest in going out with him there were other women and they didn't get a chance to testify there was the speech right of the older woman Rose jourdain who who talked to Angela Wright about her experiences there was a woman named K Savage who was willing to describe that that she'd gone to Clarence Thomas's apartment and that he had a huge interest in pornography about pornographic material with Anita Hill watching as well Lillian McEwen who dated Thomas during his time at the EEOC Clarence is one of those guys who look at women as sexual objects that's it and he doesn't bother to hide it he talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises or large breasts yet stacks of magazines with pictures of genitalia and also women's huge breasts that was pretty much what was men's and women's genitalia that was pretty much what his his uh his collection consisted of for others it was the little details that stood out he went over to his desk to get the coat looked at the can and asked who has put pubic hair on my Coke I heard him say that before he said it before we were in the uh Hogan Campus Center and a group of us black students were walking by and he says oh look is that public caramel mcco cam those were the exact words he used then and I heard it later on when Anita Hill spoke it so I believe what she said she was telling the truth he liked adult films he made jokes Thomas is inappropriate and things like that that all Stack Up on Anita Hillside of the of The Ledger so you know I think I've had to say who lied it was Thomas both Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas were under oath so one of them was perjuring themselves and the problem was if the person who was lying was Clarence Thomas it was someone who was going to be one of nine of the most important judges in America for the rest of his life and for decades to come somebody with enormous unchecked power somebody who could decide the fate of many many other people so much was hanging in the balance and and it has ever since [Music] Clarence Thomas had prevailed but he saw his accomplishment questioned even dismissed once again immediately after that confirmation in the early 1990s I can remember some of these commentators dismissing him writing him off giving him the back of his hand calling him second raid stupid uh incompetent uh Vino and whatever there are other black Americans that are out there that are qualified that are bright and I don't think he's qualified I think he's a second-rate jurist and an opportunist and not totally honest about a lot of things in those early years Thomas was overshadowed by another conservative Justice Antonin Scalia you have Scalia you know who is this gregarious big large figure and is the dominant conservative on the court look Scalia Cast a Giant Shadow because he was Nino Scalia is one of the most powerful intellects ever to sit on the United States Supreme Court many people looked at Thomas as kind of Scalia light you know somebody that was not did not have the Hampton the intellectual Firepower and the ability to debate Thomas told people he stopped reading mainstream news foreign on two primary sources his wife and Rush Limbaugh greetings and welcome back rushland ball I knew he didn't do it I knew Clarence Thomas didn't do it Anita Hill's stories about Clarence Thomas were not true he would listen to Rush Limbaugh when he as he was doing a long commute and he would have court staff tape recorded so he could listen to it when he was commuting your attempt to assuage all of your white Guild by supporting Obama is worthless because you know he's not he's not the race of people should not have guilt about slavery it's caucasians the two became close friends the fear was Clarence Thomas has confirmed he then becomes the most powerful influential black man in America and he's not a Democrat and he's not a liberal Thomas even presided over one of Limbaugh's weddings throughout his career he's been willing to do things that were certainly eyebrow raising Justice Thomas you know seemed to relish his close relationship with Rush Limbaugh as a way of you know giving the finger to people who you know he didn't like a misogynist is a guy who hates women almost as much as women hate women Thomas was establishing his place in the world of white conservative Republicans he found another group to accept him he did found the conservatives he found the powerful found a rich he found all these other people who accept him and not necessarily because they like him but because he's powerful one of those wealthy conservatives was Harlan Crowe Harlan Crowe has given millions of dollars to Republican candidates and Crow has taken a special interest in funding groups that are involved specifically in trying to shape the law and the courts trying to sort of push the law in a conservative Direction their friendship was commemorated with a painting this was a painting that Harlan Crowe commissioned we have Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crowe both smoking cigars and a cross for them is Leonard Leo Leonard Leo is one of the leaders of the Federalist Society he is widely regarded as you know a principal architect of the Supreme Court and the judiciaries turned to the right Crowe even helped fund a documentary that aired on PBS promoting Thomas as a humble man one of clarence's biggest loves is when he can get away from Washington DC and be on the road in his motor home you know I don't have any problem with going to Europe but I prefer the United States I prefer the RV parks I prefer the Walmart parking lots I'd come from regular stock and I prefer that I prefer being around them but out of the public eye Thomas was living a very different life Harlan Crowe has been taking Clarence Thomas on luxury vacations really around the world for more than 20 years so we're talking flights on his private jet cruises on his very very large yacht in places like Indonesia and New Zealand stays at Harlan Crow's Resort up in the Adirondacks compared to somebody that's a partner at a big DC Law Firm that might be making two or three million a year like these Supreme Court Justices are poppers Thomas could not afford to take the kinds of vacations that Crow is taking him on Crow has denied any wrongdoing and Thomas says he wasn't required to disclose who paid for the trips which were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars it shows that he is comfortable accepting largesse at a scale that has no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S Supreme Court and Crow paid tens of thousands of dollars for Thomas's Grand nephew to attend private boarding schools [Music] Crow also purchased Thomas's childhood home directly from him and other relatives after Crow bought Thomas's mother's house she continued to live there for about going on 10 years now which obviously puts crow in the rather unusual position of being the landlord effectively to a sitting Supreme Court Justice's mother Crowe even gave Jenny Thomas's conservative advocacy group five hundred thousand dollars it paid her a salary of one hundred and twenty thousand when you have a friendship even if it's a genuine friendship and there's an enormous amount of money being spent by one party on gifts and real estate deals that that pushes the relationship into a totally different light Crow and Thomas described their relationship as a normal friendship but their ties have raised questions about the high Court's Independence and Thomas's opinions have often been in line with the conservative politics of his friends gorvey Bush he provided one of the crucial five votes for delivering the White House to the Republicans the Democrat Party accused the Supreme Court of being rigged for Bush he insisted that key parts of the Voting Rights Act were unconstitutional the end of a key element of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. he argued against laws regulating guns what do Democrats want your guns he called for the overturn of Roe vs Wade roses are red violets are blue see you later I aborted you and on one of his most personal issues he declared he would ban affirmative action affirmative action is not equality Clarence Thomas what a godsend you give me a country run by Clarence Thomas and I would sign up for it tomorrow [Music] the closer Thomas aligned with the conservative world the greater the divide with the politics and perspective of the world he'd grown up in the key voted against the voter Rights Act we grew up in Savannah when King was marching and struggling and it died to pass the balloon how can the African-American Community how are they to perceive it and why would he do it I think the overall opinion of African-American Community was he's no longer us he's them foreign America he is not celebrated in fact in much of Black America just the opposite he's derided his name stands for something you know to pull to pull a Clarence Thomas that means something to pull a Clarence Thomas means to use your blackness to you know reach a high place and then turn your back on it that is to pull a Clarence Thomas gosh he knows that and he cannot be happy with that you want to be thought of as a good black man or woman not as a traitor or a turn code a sellout on the other hand the idea that I would think for myself and I won't be told what to think just because of the color of my skin is one that very powerfully animated Clarence Thomas if somebody's going to tell me I'm not black because thinking for myself I arrived at certain conclusions that they didn't like you question my authenticity you you question my legitimacy I take under check that I don't I don't appreciate that [Music] system [Music] at the tone please record your message good morning Anita Hill it's Jenny Thomas and I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband it had been nearly two decades since the confirmation hearings certainly pray about this and hope that one day you'll help us understand why you did what you did okay have a good day Jenny Thomas had been rising inside the Republican Party Republican politics keep moving toward her and it keeps moving right and there she is right where it's where it's moving each step along the way the Republican revolution of election 94 moved the whole political landscape sharply to the right when hardright Republicans seized control of the house Jenny became an aide to one of the leaders dick Army shared my values my beliefs and my understanding of the world they called him Dr no I enjoy calling the left down there are a bunch of damn clowns I think they should be mocked and ridiculed and I think they should be given no difference whatsoever they're foolish and selfish [Music] years later as the Tea Party rose up Jenny Thomas the pep rally Warrior woman cheered them on they think they can intimidate you they think they can demoralize you Gina Thomas seems to absolutely adore the Tea Party Movement are you gonna be intimidated me either are you gonna be demoralized me either these are people who are ordinary people rising up in Anger against the government it's very much kind of an echo of the same strain in American politics that she grew up in in the John Birch Society and these become her people and they say a storm was coming they ain't seen nothing yet right as republicanism itself has changed and gotten more nationalistic and more populist and more aggressive uh and um in my view less defensible she's sort of blown with those wins as well her husband was very limited in what he could do or say politically she saw herself as having more Running Room more freedom to get out there and play a Hands-On role in rallying and organizing conservatives saw herself as on the same Mission as her husband but in a much more partisan political Hands-On practical kind of way she came to Washington hoping to run for Congress and she found another path to power she's fully committed to politics she's fully committed to her beliefs and her agenda she's going to make a difference in the world she just had to find a different way we're up against a very big battle there may be some dark days ahead I know there's dark days ahead [Music] please raise your right hand and repeat after me I Donald John Trump who's solemnly swear Clarence and Jenny Thomas's power reached a new level When Donald Trump was elected president are driven by hatred Prejudice and rage they want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country as we know it Donald Trump is a divider who very much like Jenny Thomas sort of sees America's political divisions as fights Wars good versus evil our nation apart we're up against a fascist left and so this is a battle they're coming for my husband they're coming for president Trump what's interesting is she became a voice for pushing Trump even further to the right we all have a gun Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court of the United States and Mrs Virginia Thomas in the Trump White House the Thomases were honored guests and now after the death of Justice Scalia it was Clarence Thomas who was vetted as a hero of Mega Republicans but schooly is passing the attention to started focusing on Thomas people are paying more attention particularly on the right to what Thomas is saying and seeing that as those of us who know him always knew he's his own man Trump moved to secure Thomas's hold on the court appointing three new conservative justices I will nominate judge Neil Gorsuch judge Brett Kavanaugh Judge Amy Coney Barrett this gave Clarence Thomas for the first time in all the time he'd been on the court a group of justices who would side with him and it gave him power he became kind of the leader in many ways of the conservative wing of the court and the conservative wing of the Court ruled they would have normally called it the Roberts Court but everybody began to see it as the Thomas Court Ney Thomas was expanding her own influence too she had Direct access to the White House to Lobby the administration it's no secret that Ginny Thomas wields power because of who her husband is she gets doors opened for her she gets invited into the the important rooms into the important discussions because her husband is Clarence Thomas here's Jenny being Phyllis Schlafly but at the center of things of power in Washington philosophy never had the person-to-person political on the ground influence I think and in centrality that Jay Thomas has carved out for herself but then the 2020 election the Fox News decision desk can now project that former Vice President Joe Biden will win Pennsylvania and Nevada he is president-elect Joseph Robinette Biden become the 46th president of the United States Ginny is absolutely shattered she's upset in a way that is very sincere and genuine she truly believes that Joe Biden is a force of immense evil who is going to destroy America remember Joe Biden presided over Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings so Jenny views Biden not just as any regular presidential candidate but as almost a personal enemy we were getting ready to win this election frankly we did win this election as Mega protesters were taking to the streets [Music] Jenny Thomas was working from the inside she texted messages to a white house chief of staff Mark Meadows do not concede it takes time for the Army who is gathering for his back you guys fold the evil just moves fast down underneath you all in those text messages it's not just texting Mark Meadows it's saying that she could send emails to Jared Kushner it's that she was working directly with Congressional staffs all of that is revealed Denver riggleman was a former Republican congressman and investigator for the January 6th committee he helped uncover the text messages you know by the first text message I knew that we had an issue right she's referring to a bizarre conspiracy theorist who talked about this um incredible operation where the Biden crime family should go to gitmo and I just I had to read it about 10 times Biden crime family and ballot fraud co-conspirators are being arrested and detained for ballot fraud right now and overcoming days and will be living in barges off gitmo to face military tribunals for sedition Jenny had something of a break with reality because even though we've seen her say a lot of stuff that's out there we had not until this point seen her promote conspiracy theories on the level of Q Anon with such Vigor and certitude make a plan release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down riggleman is convinced Justice Thomas had to know what his wife was doing even though the couple has said they keep their work lives separate when you have the wife of Supreme Court Justice who's uh who they both have called each other their best friends and said that they do everything together they would defy common sense to think that they weren't discussing this this is spiritual warfare as you must feel mark it is about America continuing and this lonely leader and man we are living through what feels like the end of America amazing times the end of Liberty she has this very dark manichaean view you're either good or you're evil and everything is a battle between good and evil and no wonder then she Advocates extreme steps and her texts to Mark Meadows because for her the battle between Biden and Trump just like the battle between and Republicans and Democrats or anything is good versus evil we're good they're evil on the morning of January 6th Trump supporters gathered Jenny Thomas was there among the crowd posting on Facebook it's unprecedented and extraordinary that the wife of a Supreme Court Justice one of nine who's on the court for life that she was basically advocating for the overthrow of Democracy in America God bless each of you standing up or praying it's a scary thought it's a dangerous feeling situation not long after Jenny Thomas says she left Trump supporters preached the capital in an attempt to overturn the election [Music] the Supreme Court of the United States is now sitting Clarence Thomas's prominence on the Supreme Court continues to grow Just As Trump is leaving office is coming into his own and commanding a true majority on the court and once again the stakes are enormously High Clarence Thomas and His fellow conservatives are said to dominate on issues like affirmative action voting rights religion Free Speech the Thomas court is not just extremely conservative but extremely uninterested in concepts of judicial restraints and respect for precedent the Thomas court is in a hurry to shift the law rapidly to the right the conservative majority by a six to three vote overturning Roe versus Wade the right to choose abortion the Thomas court has overturned nearly 50 years of precedent on abortion he's been very disciplined very persistent and over the years has really pulled the court over towards the right and has become you know extremely influential in American legal system circles I don't think I I must say I don't think that people would have thought that he would be able to pull that off [Music] and he has it's Accord with an energized conservative majority that's already demonstrated it is ready and willing to overturn Decades of precedent and settled law the court is facing a decision on an issue that has hovered around Clarence Thomas his entire life challenging the use of race and college admissions which could have an impact on affirmative action if you look at where the Supreme Court is right now in many ways it's implementing the political agenda and imposing the views of people like Clarence Thomas and Janie Thomas some people might call it payback others might call it the Fulfillment of his dreams Clarence and Jenny Thomas had arrived at the Pinnacle of American power but they brought with them the divisions Grievances and the bitter approach to politics that had shaped them we already know too little about Clarence Thomas and Jenny Thomas's entanglements the controversy continuing to follow them Clarence Thomas has refused to recuse himself from Supreme Court cases related to Trump and the election it'll just roll off its back like water off of a duck's back they're out to get me they're going to use anything they can to get me I've got a very clear view of where I'm trying to go and what I'm trying to do and I'm not going to look left or right Jenny Thomas has publicly denied any conflict of interest between her activism and her husband's work their personal scandals in Clarence Thomas's case this is not the first ethics incident even in recent years now fueling doubts about the legitimacy of the court itself Supreme Court Trust hitting an all-time load the court no longer has the confidence of the American people because of its own behavior and that is something that hurts the institution of the Supreme Court what is troubling is what happens to a democracy when the people don't trust the Supreme Court anymore [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] for more on this and other Frontline programs visit our website at pbs.org Frontline [Music] front lines Clarence and Jenny Thomas politics power and the Supreme Court is available on Amazon Prime video [Music]

Channel: FRONTLINE PBS | Official

Views: 4,609,279

Keywords: frontline supreme court documentary, clarence thomas documentary, ginni thomas documentary, clarence thomas, ginni thomas, supreme court news, clarence thomas news, pbs supreme court documentary

Id: wJuRx1wARUk

Length: 113min 17sec (6797 seconds)

Published: Tue May 09 2023