Biden Takes a Shot at Clarence Thomas for Spending ‘a Lot of Time on Yachts’ in Rare Criticism of Individual Justice

President Joe Biden directly criticized Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during an interview with The New Yorker in what was a rare instance of a president taking a shot at an individual member of the Supreme Court.

In a discussion about the Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Evan Osnos asked Biden if he thought that the Court might overturn cases that found rights to same-sex marriage and contraception in the Constitution.

“I don’t think there’s a majority to got there,” replied Biden, who nevertheless posited that “a couple on the Court would go considerably further” than that, naming “the guy who likes to spend a lot of time on yachts” as one.

“Thomas?” replied Osnos, who reported that Biden grinned in response to the inquiry.

Over the last year, a number of stories have been published about Justice Thomas’s relationships with wealthy friends, most notably billionaire Harlan Crow. Thomas has apparently flown on Crow’s private jet, sailed on Crow’s yacht, stayed at his lavish properties, and accepted other financially significant gifts from him.

Thomas responded to criticism of his relationship with Crow by noting that “Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearests friends.”

“As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them. Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable,” continued Thomas. “I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines.”

It is rare, but not unprecedented for presidents to directly criticize individual judges. In February 2020, for example, former President Donald Trump submitted that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor should “recuse themselves on all Trump, or Trump related, matters.”

Biden’s criticism of Thomas is particularly notable given the history between the two men. Biden was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during Thomas’s contentious confirmation process back in 1991 during which he was accused of sexual harassment by a former coworker and Thomas characterized the hearings Biden presided over as a “high-tech lynching.”