25 years after Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas has another accuser

[MADem]

The Trump tapes inspired an Alaska attorney to come forward — about being assaulted by Clarence Thomas in 1999.


http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/10/27/13439992/clarence-thomas-anita-hill-moira-smith-sexual-assault

...Moira Smith, a 41-year-old lawyer in Alaska, first posted about her experience on Facebook on October 7 of this year, Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal and Law.com reported. That was the same night an infamous tape surfaced featuring Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault was made public by the Washington Post.

Smith told Coyle that in 1999, when she was a young Truman Foundation scholar, Thomas groped her at an awards dinner party:

Alone with Thomas, “I was setting the place to his right when he reached out, sort of cupped his hand around my butt and pulled me pretty close to him,” Smith said in an interview. “He said, ‘Where are you sitting?’ and gave me a squeeze. I said, ‘I’m sitting down at the garden table.’ He said, ‘I think you should sit next to me,’ giving me squeezes. I said, ‘Well, Mr. Blair is pretty particular about his seating chart.’ I tried to use the seating chart as a pretext for refusing. He one more time squeezed my butt and he said, ‘Are you sure?’ I said yes, and that was the end of it.”

Smith said that she definitely didn’t misconstrue Thomas’s advances. “You know when somebody puts an arm around your waist, it would have been overly familiar, but wouldn’t have crossed any boundaries,” she said. “Instead, he was 5 or 6 inches down and he got a good handful and he kept squeezing me and pulling me close to him ... it felt somewhat menacing and I felt vulnerable.”

The National Law Journal confirmed Smith’s account with three former housemates, who say they heard the story from Smith in the spring and summer of 1999....

[eleny]

1. And they already confirmed it with her housemates from back then - wow

k&r

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. It would have been no surprise to Hunter Thompson.

[lapucelle]

3. As many people pointed out after the esteemed Professor Hill's editorial,

there is an empty seat on the Court.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/10/what-can-still-learn-from-sexual-harassment/jCF5rxYbFMgE3bOKR984pI/story.html

[malaise]

4. Just saw your thread

Here's the HuffPo link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clarence-thomas-accused-groping-moira-smith_us_581230f8e4b0390e69cea53e

[Abouttime]

5. After Hillary wins

Maybe this will be the beginning of many women coming forward to accuse Justice Thomas of sexual harassment.
It wouldn't take too many accusations to get his resignation in disgrace from the court.
Hillary may have a chance to appoint 3 or 4 justices in her first term, Scalia, Thomas and Ginsberg.

[MADem]

6. I'd love to see the court picketed to get that jerk to at least retire.

Then I'd love to see Anita Hill put on the bench! LOL! She's only sixty; I'd like to see her warm the bench into her still-sharp nineties!

[eleny]

7. What a lovely thought

I recorded an interview Charlie Rose aired last night that he conducted with Sotomayor and Ginsberg.

Sotomayor told the story of the day Kagan was installed on the court. Obama asked Ginsberg if she was happy with the two sisters he provided her on the court. She said she was happy but she'd be happier if there were five.

Ginsberg then added the rest of the story. She said that she then told Obama that she'd be happiest when there were nine.

Adding Hill would be a nice step on the way to nine, whoot!