Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor made social media erupt this weekend. When asked about how she reacted to newly-minted Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, she had just nine words, and they’re certainly not what everyone expected.
Although Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is typically regarded as one of the most liberal judges on the high court, her first remarks to Brett Kavanaugh after his confirmation were markedly bipartisan, much to the dismay of those on the political left who despise President Donald Trump’s newest addition to the bench.
According to The Daily Caller, Sotomayor relayed one of her first exchanges with Justice Brett Kavanaugh following his bitter confirmation during a wide-ranging interview with CNN on Saturday. In welcoming Kavanaugh, Sotomayor recounted a story about Justice Clarence Thomas’ arrival at the Supreme Court in 1991.
“It was Justice Thomas who tells me that when he first came to the Court, another justice approached him and said, ‘I judge you by what you do here. Welcome.’ And I repeated that story to Justice Kavanaugh when I first greeted him here,” Sotomayor told CNN political commentator David Axelrod.
Like Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas was accused of sexual misconduct during his own confirmation hearings. On the day of his accuser Anita Hill’s testimony on October 11, 1991, the AP reported:
Anita F. Hill testified in graphic, lurid detail Friday of the sexual harassment she says she suffered from Clarence Thomas, who swore it wasn’t true. Thomas told investigating senators that not even a seat on the Supreme Court was worth the prying he’s faced into his personal life.
Thomas said he would answer questions about the harassment allegation but nothing else because “I will not provide the rope for my own lynching.”
At an extraordinary hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thomas testified under oath that “I cannot imagine anything that I said or did to Anita Hill that could have been mistaken for sexual harassment.” Nor, Thomas said, did he ever ask her for a date.
No one can deny the startling similarities between the debacle Clarence Thomas was forced to endure and what Brett Kavanaugh was put through 27 years later. Both conservative men were nominated by Republican presidents and subsequently put through the wringer by Senate Democrats content to ruin their reputations because of some obviously bogus accusations from women of questionable credibility at the eleventh hour.
Indeed, it almost seemed as though the Democrats tore a page from the very same playbook they had used for Thomas. Thankfully, it didn’t work the second time around, either. You’d think they would have learned something from their past mistakes, but you know what they say about those who choose to ignore history.
Although Kavanaugh and his family were put through hell during his confirmation process, he ultimately made it to the Supreme Court, just as Thomas had. And it appears as though he and his new colleagues are one big, happy family, according to Justice Sotomayor’s comments over the weekend.
The justices projected normalcy and camaraderie after Kavanaugh joined the court. During his first day on the bench, the justices were unusually lighthearted and deferential to one another.
In his first and, to date, only remarks on the Kavanaugh confirmation, Chief Justice John Roberts promised to protect the integrity and impartiality of the court, approvingly quoting statements the new justice made during his ceremonial installation at the White House. [Source: The Daily Caller]
Nothing could make the Democrats more angry than to know that the man who they tried so desperately to ruin has since been welcomed with open arms by the rest of the judges on the Supreme Court. Share this report if you’re happy to hear that Brett Kavanaugh is being treated warmly and fairly by the other men and women with whom he now shares the bench.
