Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) sat down with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press Sunday, and the segment on the Supreme Court went about as you’d expect from a Democrat these days. He’s on board with Kamala Harris’s push to expand the Court to 13 justices, because of course he is. I don’t care how many times Democrats swear this isn’t about seizing permanent power. Packing the bench only becomes a priority whenever they’re the ones stuck losing decisions, and something tells me Clyburn’s enthusiasm for a bigger bench is entirely dependent on which party gets to fill those seats.
But that’s not even the part of the interview that made me sit up.
Welker brought up something I had no idea about: Clyburn testified in favor of Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation back in 1991.
Welker even played the tape.
“It’s a pleasure for me to be here today to present testimony in favor of my good friend, Clarence Thomas,” Clyburn said in the old clip. “I have known Clarence for ten years and I consider him to be a personal and professional friend, in spite of the fact that he shares a conservative Republican philosophy.”
I looked up his entire testimony, and I was floored. Clyburn praised him as “zealous in his pursuit of the facts and intellectually honest and objective.”
Most significantly, Clyburn said civil-rights officials who worked with Thomas found him “highly compassionate, sensitive, judicious” and possessed of the “intellectual honesty that is required in this field.” Despite their disagreements, Clyburn said he had “never found anything in his philosophy of a nature to deny him this Supreme Court confirmation.” He concluded that Thomas was “deeply committed to an even-handed system of justice” and possessed “the integrity, the conscientious spirit, and the basic sense of fairness” required of a Supreme Court justice.
Hellbound and Down 