Audio: Biden Privately Praised Clarence Thomas’ ‘Character’

During his campaign to secure the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, Joe Biden infamously told the leftist co-hosts of ABC’s The View that, “from the beginning,” he believed Anita Hill’s unsubstantiated allegations of sexual harassment against now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“Not only didn’t I vote for Clarence Thomas, I believed [Hill] from the beginning. I was against Clarence Thomas, I did everything in my power to defeat Clarence Thomas and he won by the smallest margin anyone ever won going on the Supreme Court,” Biden said in the 2019 interview.

But if Biden’s claim about believing Hill is true, then why did he leave a voicemail on Thomas’ answering machine praising him as a “person of character” after his confirmation to the Supreme Court?

Obtained by The Federalist, the voice message in question further underscores Biden’s duplicitous behavior throughout Thomas’ Senate confirmation. As the then-chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Delaware Democrat had an instrumental role in shepherding the three-ring circus that sought to sink the George H.W. Bush nominee’s appointment to the highest court in the land.

In his 2007 memoir My Grandfather’s Son, Thomas — who was confirmed to SCOTUS 34 years ago on Wednesday — described a phone call he purportedly had with the Delaware senator prior to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on whether to advance his nomination to the full floor for consideration. As noted by Thomas, the Judiciary Committee was already aware of Hill’s allegations — including Biden.

During this alleged call, Biden told Thomas, as described by the then-nominee, that he “was torn over his decision and had actually brought two statements with him to the committee meeting that day, one for [him] and the other against,” but ultimately “decided to oppose [Thomas].”

Thomas reportedly assured Biden that “that’s fine” but emphasized that he “entered this process with a good name, and … want[s] to have it at the end.” In reference to Hill’s claims and a leak of one of Thomas’ draft legal opinions, Biden purportedly replied, “Judge, I know you don’t believe me, but if any of these last two matters come up, I will be your biggest defender.”

“He was right about one thing: I didn’t believe him. Neither did [my wife] Virginia,” Thomas wrote.

While breaking the news about Hill’s allegations against Thomas in 1991, NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg signaled — as she would years later — that it was Biden who tipped his hand that there was more to Thomas’ nomination than what the public was aware of. She noted how the then-senator “went out of his way to praise the nominee’s character” when explaining his “no” vote on advancing Thomas’ nomination to the full Senate for consideration.

“I believe there are certain things that are not at issue at all, and that is his character or characterization of his character. This is about what he believes, not about who he is,” Biden said at the time.

The news of Hill’s allegations unleashed chaos on Thomas’ confirmation, leading the nominee and his accuser to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Following Hill’s testimony — which was riddled with inconsistencies and unsupported claims — Thomas delivered an impassioned speech blasting the confirmation process and defending his character.

“This is a circus. It’s a national disgrace,” Thomas said. “And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate … rather than hung from a tree.”

The left’s efforts to sink Thomas’ nomination failed. Polling conducted after the hearings showed the American public believed Thomas over Hill by a roughly two-to-one margin, and the George H.W. Bush nominee was ultimately confirmed to the high court.

In the voicemail left after the Senate’s confirmation vote and now obtained by The Federalist, Biden can be heard congratulating Thomas on his ascension to the Supreme Court. More notably, however, he can also be heard praising the now-justice’s upstanding character.

“Judge, this is Joe Biden. I called to say congratulations and remind you [that] you have [inaudible] years to write the history books that say exactly what you are: a person of character,” Biden said. “Don’t let this part get you down. Congratulations. Enjoy it.”

Mark Paoletta, a then-Bush White House lawyer who played a key role in Thomas’ confirmation, verified the authenticity of the voicemail to The Federalist. The now-Trump Office of Management and Budget official said that he was present at a gathering Thomas held at his residence alongside “friends and allies to celebrate his confirmation,” and that Thomas played the voicemail “later in the evening for the few of us still there.”

(Paoletta referenced the gathering and Biden’s call in a 2020 article he authored for Fox News).

Joe Biden is “the OG for weaponization confirmation hearings to destroy people, and on the night Clarence Thomas is confirmed, has the audacity to call and leave a message admitting that he knows that Anita Hill’s claims were lies,” Paoletta told The Federalist.

Despite his claims about believing Hill in his 2019 The View interview, Biden admitted in the years following Thomas’ confirmation that he did not, in fact, believe her accusations. As The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway previously reported, former Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter — who was on the Judiciary Committee for Thomas’ confirmation — disclosed in his 2000 memoir that the then-Delaware senator told him 1998 that “‘It was clear to me from the way she was answering the questions, [Hill] was lying’ about a key part of her testimony.”

Former Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch — another then-member of the committee — also previously said that “Biden told [him] personally that he didn’t believe [Hill].”

“This entire episode captures the Democrats’ MO — smear people with claims they know are fake and made up — all in the service of trying to destroy your opponent,” Paoletta said. “I lived through it with my friend Justice Thomas in 1991 and continuing to this day, and that’s what President Trump has been fighting as well since he started running for office.”

Requests for comment made to the offices of Clarence Thomas and Joe Biden were not returned by press time.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood