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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Comment
Robert Reich

I thought Alito was history’s worst supreme court justice. But Thomas has outdone him

Clarence Thomas speaks at the University of Texas at Austin
Clarence Thomas. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

I’ve long assumed that Samuel Alito was the worst.

Alito – who authored the majority opinion in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the case that ended constitutional abortion rights by merely asserting that the high court’s prior opinion in Roe v Wade (1973) was wrongly decided; who accepted a 2008 luxury fishing trip to Alaska, including private jet travel, from hedge fund billionaire and GOP donor Paul Singer yet failed to disclose it on Alito’s financial forms and didn’t even recuse himself from decisions involving Singer’s subsequent business before the supreme court; who hoisted an inverted American flag outside his Virginia home shortly after the January 6 Capitol riot, a symbol of support for Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election – has the moral and intellectual stature of a poisonous toad.

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