Clarence Thomas on SCOTUS Leak: ‘I Wonder How Long We’re Going to Have These Institutions’

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke out about the leaked draft opinion on abortion Friday, saying such a breach brings into question how long our country’s institutions will last “at the rate we’re undermining them.”

Thomas, the longest-serving justice on the nation’s high court, was speaking at a conference for black conservatives in Dallas when he addressed the issue of the leak, saying “I do think that what happened at the court is tremendously bad.”

“I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them, and then I wonder when they’re gone or destabilized what we will have as a country. And I don’t think the prospects are good if we continue to lose them,” he continued.

The draft opinion, the authenticity of which was confirmed by Chief Justice John Roberts, was written by fellow Justice Samuel Alito. It was an explicit overturning of the infamous pro-abortion case Roe v. Wade as well as Planned Parenthood v. Casey — sending the issue of abortion back to state legislatures.

In confirming its authenticity, Roberts said that it was not necessarily the ruling that the Court will come down with, while at the same time directing the Marshal of the Court to open an investigation into the origin of the leak.