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Retired SCOTUS Justice Breyer Stands Up for Embattled Clarence Thomas – Critics Are Not Impressed
Critics are responding to retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer‘s remarks voicing support for his embattled “friend,” Justice Clarence Thomas, who allegedly hid possibly millions of dollars of luxury gifts over the course of decades from a billionaire conservative megadonor.
Justice Thomas, according to investigations from ProPublica, wrongly and possibly unlawfully did not disclose at least hundreds of thousands of dollars of travel on private planes and a yacht, vacations at the billionaire’s homes, clothing, and food. He also failed to disclose that same billionaire, who reportedly has ties to organizations with business before the court, purchased Thomas’ mother’s home for an elevated price, allowing her to stay in the home rent free.
Breyer, at a federal circuit court conference in Boston, told attendees when asked that Justice Thomas is “a friend of mine” and a “man of integrity,” as he also denounced efforts to strengthen ethics standards for the nation’s top jurists, according to Bloomberg Law.
“As far as I’m concerned, I sat next to him on the bench for 28 years. I like him. He’s a friend of mine. I’ve never seen him do anything underhanded or say anything underhanded,” Breyer said.
READ MORE: ‘Clarence Thomas Should Be Subpoenaed’ Says Top Democrat as Senate Plans Hearing
“’My personal point of view is he’s a man of integrity,’ Breyer told attendees at the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit event.”
The event coincidentally was held the same day as U.S. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin sent a strongly-worded invitation to Chief Justice John Roberts, urging him to formally testify before the Committee on the “decade-long” ethics challenges the Supreme Court justices have created.
PBS NewsHour Supreme Court analyst Marcia Coyle interviewed Breyer on stage, and asked about Supreme Court ethics.
“Breyer acknowledged that the justices can make mistakes, but pushed back on the criticism that the Supreme Court does nothing on ethics,” Bloomberg reports. “Breyer said if an issue comes up, he views it as ‘whatever applies to all the judges applies to me.’”
Breyer apparently pushed back against a code of ethics for the Supreme Court, noting that if a justice recuses themself, unlike lower courts, there is no justice who can take their place.
Critics are blasting Justice Breyer for playing defense for the challenged Thomas.
The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal asked, “what was Breyer gonna say?”
READ MORE: Clarence Thomas Claimed Up to $750k From Real Estate Firm That Shut Down in 2006: Report
Mockingly, he offered this sardonic response: “I sat next to him for 28 years and, man, the stories I could tell. Crazy stuff, man. We’d be hearing a case and he’d lean over and say ‘That litigant they’re paid for this watch. It’s nice. I can hook you up.’ Crazy stuff.”
“I thought about telling somebody, maybe the chief, about all the underhanded stuff I saw Thomas do while sitting in open court,” added Mystal, continuing to pretend to quote Breyer. “But I didn’t. Maybe that was wrong, I don’t know. But the truth of the matter is: the watch really was very nice.”
MSNBC columnist and editor James Downie offered this insight into Justice Breyer: “A reminder that, while on the court, Breyer was one of three justices to trade individual stocks. Even Thomas doesn’t do that, so far as we know. And Breyer failed to recuse himself in multiple cases where he owned stock in one of the parties,: he wrote, pointing to a report from the nonpartisan group Fix the Court.
“The problem with Supreme Court justices, both current and former, is that their prestige and power all flows from the false perception that the Supreme Court is a noble institution that isn’t run by partisan hacks,” said Vox’s Ian Millhiser, who has written two books on the Supreme Court.
“I’ll say this for Breyer: He’s really strengthened my suspicion that the rot is institutional and that we should be prepared to learn that other Justices have corrupt arrangements with the plutocratic class,” offered attorney and writer Luppe B. Lupin.
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote: “I’d like to cross examine the witness to get his opinion on each item that has come to light: vacations, house sales, failures to disclosure, income claimed from closed businesses. Are these all okay? Still a man of integrity? Asking for a concerned country.”
Writer and editor Jay Willis blasted Breyer: “Even if condemnation of Thomas is too much to expect from Breyer, even a simple ‘the allegations are very serious and I hope my colleagues or the Senate take steps to protect the Court’s integrity’ would be a million times better than this treacly horseshit.”
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
