Former Clarence Thomas adviser talks Fox Nation documentary on contentious confirmation
'The Confirmation Chronicles Vol. 2' shines a light on the untold story of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' consequential 1991 confirmation hearings.
New York Times columnist Charles Blow called on former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign to respond to bombshell claims from a longtime friend and adviser to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who said that then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., assured Thomas that he would be confirmed, despite Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations.
The claim by Armstrong Williams, a radio host and former colleague of Thomas, seems to directly contradict Biden's repeated statements that he believed Hill's allegations and did everything in his power to prevent Thomas from reaching the Supreme Court.
Blow retweeted an article detailing Williams' remarks from yesterday on the Fox Nation show, "Deep Dive." Today, on "Fox and Friends" Williams added more detail to his claims.
"The justice has a lot of respect for Biden...Biden did the best he could under the pressure and Biden made it clear that he'd spoken to Metzenbaum, Simon and Kennedy and said clearly 'We don't believe these charges and nor does the evidence support it,'" said Williams.
Williams was referencing the late-Senators Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, Paul Simon D-Ill., and Teddy Kennedy D-Mass., who in 1991 were all members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which heard testimony from Thomas and Hill.
TACTICS USED AGAINST KAVANAUGH ROOTED IN CLARENCE THOMAS HEARINGS
Williams continued, "In the end, Biden assured [Thomas], repeatedly on the phone and in person, 'Clarence, you will be confirmed'. And he was."
"In the end, Biden assured [Thomas], repeatedly on the phone and in person, 'Clarence, you will be confirmed'. And he was."
Biden served as the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 when Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment in the midst of his confirmation process.
During three days of hearings, Thomas adamantly denied Hill's accusations that he made inappropriate sexual remarks, including references to pornographic movies. Thomas admitted that he did talk about X-rated movies while at Yale Law School, adding that so did many other young people in the 1970s.
This episode in American history is re-examined and new revelations are made in the new Fox Nation documentary, “The Confirmation Chronicles Vol. 2: High-tech Lynching.”
Biden’s handling of Hill's allegations has dogged his 2020 presidential campaign. Biden has apologized for the way Hill was treated during the hearings, but he has defended his own conduct. In April, Biden had a private conversation with Hill during which he expressed his regret for the treatment that she received, but she reportedly wasn't satisfied with his comments.
The new revelation is also not the first to apparently refute Biden on this sensitive topic.
In “The Confirmation Chronicles Vol. 2: High-tech Lynching,” another former member of the 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee says Biden told him that he did not believe Hill's allegations.
“Biden told me personally that he didn’t believe her. He said, ‘I don't know why she did this.’ I don't mean to malign Joe, but Joe told me he didn’t believe her and there were some others that told me that, too,” former Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told Fox Nation.
ORRIN HATCH: JOE BIDEN TOLD ME HE 'DIDN'T BELIEVE' ANITA HILL
Additionally, the late-Sen. Arlen Specter wrote in his 2000 memoir, “Passion for Truth: From Finding JFK’s Single Bullet to Questioning Anita Hill to Impeaching Clinton” that Biden told him in 1998 that he had doubted parts of Hill’s testimony regarding her interactions with Senate staffers. Specter was a Republican at the time of the Thomas/Hill hearings. He later switched back to the Democratic party. The passage from Specter’s book was first unearthed by Federalist Senior Editor and Fox News Contributor Mollie Hemingway.
Biden has repeatedly claimed that he believed Anita Hill from the very beginning.
In one instance, during an interview on ABC’s "The View" in April, shortly after Biden launched his current presidential campaign, he said “I believed her from the beginning. I was against Clarence Thomas. I did everything in my power to defeat Clarence Thomas…”
Fox News has previously reached out to the Biden campaign for comment on these claims.
'The Confirmation Chronicles Vol. 2: High-tech Lynching' available Sept. 18 exclusively on Fox Nation.
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