Sen. Ted Cruz bragged on Twitter that citizens should watch him “expose the baseless smears directed at Justice Clarence Thomas by Democrats and the corporate media.”
Posting a 6-plus-minute video to back up his boast, Cruz argues in committee that Democrats and their “lapdogs in the media” are engaged again in a “high tech lynching” — just as Thomas famously said he experienced when he went through the original process of being confirmed to the bench by the Senate in 1991.
Referencing Thomas’s comments from the George H. W. Bush era, Cruz says it is “sad to see 30 years later this committee is again engaged in the same despicable tactics.”
Cruz describes the efforts by Democrats to investigate Thomas — for possible ethics violations concerning undeclared gifts and travel received over decades from conservative billionaire Harlan Crow — as a “political campaign designed to smear Justice Clarence Thomas” because he is a “conservative African American.”
WATCH: I expose the baseless smears directed at Justice Clarence Thomas by Democrats and the corporate media. pic.twitter.com/lAjYnOtyHj
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) May 2, 2023
Cruz insists “this is not about judicial ethics,” suggesting “we could have a reasonable discussion about that.”
Instead Cruz states repeatedly that the left is applying a “double standard” to Thomas “and only Clarence Thomas.”
What is the double standard? Cruz presents as his evidence that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the retired Justice Stephen Breyer took more trips — including international trips — than Thomas has while seated on the nation’s highest court.
Cruz says Breyer’s travels were largely paid for by a billionaire family, too, the Pritzkers, Democrats, with one of their number the current Governor of Illinois.
It is true that Breyer has enjoyed a long association with the Pritzker family, having helped jury the Pritzker’s prestigious architecture prize since 2011. Breyer’s job on the Pritzker Prize jury was publicly known, and he retained the position after retiring from the SCOTUS.
