{"id":132568,"date":"2024-03-04T10:00:59","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T15:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=132568"},"modified":"2024-03-04T10:00:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T15:00:59","slug":"justice-clarence-thomas-hires-clerk-accused-of-sending-racist-texts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=132568","title":{"rendered":"Justice Clarence Thomas Hires Clerk Accused Of Sending Racist Texts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Justice Clarence Thomas<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas<\/strong> has hired a law clerk who faced controversy in 2017 for allegedly sending racist text messages.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thomas,<\/strong> one of two current Black Supreme Court justices, has named Crystal Clanton<\/strong> as a judicial clerk for the 2024-25 term, George Mason\u2019s Antonin Scalia Law School \u2014 Clanton\u2019s<\/strong> alma mater \u2014\u00a0wrote in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Her hiring comes more than five years after\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em> in 2017 obtained and published<\/a>\u00a0screenshots of text messages allegedly sent by Clanton,<\/strong> a former Turning Point USA staffer, to another staffer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like f??? them all \u2026 I hate blacks. End of story,\u201d Clanton wrote,\u00a0according to The New Yorker.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Clanton, at the time the messages resurfaced, told The New Yorker<\/em> she had \u201cno recollection,\u201d of the texts. She stepped down from her position at Turning Point USA in the wake of scrutiny over the text messages.<\/p>\n

Months later in 2018, Clanton<\/strong>\u00a0was hired by Thomas\u2019s<\/strong> wife, Virginia<\/strong> Thomas<\/strong>,\u00a0to assist her with right-wing media<\/a>\u00a0projects.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Clanton<\/strong> eventually went on to law school and clerked for Judge Corey Maze<\/strong> with the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama before being hired upon her graduation to clerk for Judge William H. Pryor, Jr.,<\/strong> a federal appeals court judge for the 11th Circuit.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Her position with Pryor <\/strong>brought the controversy back to the surface, prompting a group of seven lawmakers to voice concerns to Chief Justice John Roberts<\/strong>\u00a0in a letter\u00a0in November 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cPlacing an individual with this history in such close proximity to judicial decision-making threatens to seriously undermine the public\u2019s faith in the federal judiciary,\u201d the lawmakers wrote at the time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A federal appeals panel later cleared Maze<\/strong> and Pryor<\/strong> of any wrongdoing in their hiring of Clanton<\/strong> when they upheld the dismissal of a misconduct complaint filed against the two Republican judicial appointees,\u00a0Reuters <\/em>reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pryor,<\/strong> in the Antonin Scalia Law School\u2019s announcement of Thomas\u2019s <\/strong>hiring of Clanton,<\/strong> said she \u201cexceeded\u201d his \u201chigh expectations\u201d and called her an \u201coutstanding clerk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justice Clarence Thomas\u00a0 S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has hired a law clerk who faced controversy in 2017 for allegedly sending racist text messages. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thomas, one of two current Black Supreme Court justices, has named Crystal Clanton as a judicial clerk for the 2024-25 term, George Mason\u2019s Antonin Scalia Law School \u2014 Clanton\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132570,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132568\/revisions\/132570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}