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ASSOCIATED PRESS / APRIL 23
Justice Clarence Thomas, seen here during a group photo at the Supreme Court in Washington in April, has been released from a hospital in Washington after experiencing flu-like symptoms last week.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who had been hospitalized for the last week, was discharged this morning, the Supreme Court said.
After experiencing flu-like symptoms, Thomas, the longest-serving member of the U.S. Supreme Court, was admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington on March 18, the court said in a statement Sunday. A statement today offered no additional details.
He underwent tests and was told he had an infection at the time. He was treated with intravenous antibiotics.
Patricia McCabe, a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, said Sunday that Thomas’ illness was not COVID-19 or related to the coronavirus.
All nine Supreme Court justices have been vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19. At least two justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, have previously contracted the virus. Justices are regularly tested for the virus, in accordance with court protocol.
Thomas, 73, was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and was seated on Oct. 23, 1991, making him the court’s most senior conservative member. He is its second-oldest member, after Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, who in January announced his retirement.
In his resignation letter, Breyer said he intended to retire after the court completed its current term this summer, “assuming that by then my successor has been nominated and confirmed.”
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, President Joe Biden’s nominee to replace Breyer, serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was nominated to that position last year by Biden.
This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee began its hearings on her nomination. If confirmed, she would be the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice.
As the confirmation hearings were held, it was revealed that in the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Thomas, sent text messages imploring President Donald Trump’s chief of staff to take steps to overturn the vote, according to a person with knowledge of the texts.
The messages between Virginia Thomas and the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, represented the first evidence that she directly advised the White House in efforts to reverse the election results.
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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