laugh, and it. it never dialed in his life. so he whistles, and the girl laughs. he gives her a little wolf whistle. and when he did that, he had to have understood the atmosphere in 1955. in mississippi. a black man whistling at a white woman. i, mean that was death itself. >> reverend wheeler parker junior with his book, a few days full of trouble. sunday night at eight eastern on c-span's q&a. you can't listen to q&a and all of our podcast on our free c-span now app. c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are founded by these television companies and, more including comcast. >> you think this this is just a community center? it is way more than. that comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers to

create wi-fi enabled lift soak students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> we are joined from philadelphia by michael kirk, who is a co-writer and co-producer of the new frontline documentary clarence and ginni thomas, politics power and the supreme court. michael, kurt welcome to the washington journal. >> great to be here. thanks for having me. >> what got you interested to begin with in justice clarence thomas and his wife jenny? >> about six months ago somebody told me that they made a reference, they said the thomas court. and i said what do you mean the thomas court? as in the roberts court? and they said no, if you look closely, the cards have lined up and the population of the court is such that it is, the

endurance of clarence thomas as a person writing over the last three decades. it is really lined up for clarence thomas to be in charge. he has waited a long time and this is the moment. so, we started to dig into it. and it is the thomas court. and there are profound implications about that. which you can obviously talk about. but we started to make an hour film and then we looked at the back story. they love story of clarence in the life story of johnny. and the unlikely story of the two of them, coming together. and becoming with somebody in the film calls the it's a couple of the far right. in washington. so we said to ourselves, okay we'll make a 90 minute film and then all the information comes out about harlan crow and other gifts that have been given to clarence and ginni thomas, and our film expanded to two hours.

so we've got kind of a whole package. inside this film. the backstory, the reality of the course, the reality lies of these two remarkable individuals. and that is really where we found ourselves, earlier this week when the film started to air on streaming and on pbs. >> how did their story began? clarence thomas and ginni thomas, how did they first get to know each other? >> they were at an anti affirmative action conference in new york city. ginni was an attorney for the national chamber of commerce. she was very big into not getting equal pay for women and other issues like that. so, really contrarian issues and clarence himself was the head of the eoc and the reagan administration, one of the rare black people in the top upper reaches of the reagan administration. that is another story we tell,

how does clarence thomas find himself in a position? anyway, there they are in new york. they share a cab, her version of the story is she saw this incredibly powerful attractive man who also was in the cab. he says to her, how can you work in the reagan administration, as she, herself, is very conservative? how does a black man do it? he says, well, there are a lot of challenges. a lot of trials and tribulations, he reaches into his wallet and pulls out some prayer cards and says, i read these prayers to myself every day. when i'm up against challenges. that did it for ginni, who has a very binary view of the world anyway and part of it is religious fervor against the other side, the democrats. the liberals, progressives, the whoever her forces are up against. so, that was it. it kind of kismet moment in new york, of all things, with no irony intended, affirmative action, anti affirmative action conference is where they met and where they had been

together about from ever since. >> well, i wonder if after doing -- you mentioned the colleague of yours saying it was the thomas court. after doing the film, you view and you also view it as the thomas court. how much of an influence his wife ginni has been in that regard. >> well, that is really the question about supreme court appointees, appointed for life, as almost everyone knows. with very few rules, not even the rules of conduct and other things that apply to federal judges, united states supreme court judges are relatively free. there's this sort of idea of everything should look and appear. there's the appearance of it should be pretty good, and for a long time, the institution of the supreme court has felt kind of -- buy it. but the idea that clearance is there, and the longest serving justice, and jimmy is such a

close companion of his, they say all the time, we are each other's best friends, we discuss everything. so then the question is, if jeanie is involved in things that might be, she's very political, that might find their way up into the supreme court, should he recuse himself? especially around january 6th, where she is quite visible in the incursion into the capital building. not that she was there, but that she was part of the events in the ellipse, one don't trump was speaking and the sense is that he should, maybe he should, probably he should, declare a potential conflict of interest, if any of those cases come forward. but he has said he will not and that, on top of lots of other new charges that had been made about him and his unwillingness to not only talk about them, but recuse himself from any cases that might come forward.

that's where people start to worry about and begin, according to polls, some polls, begin to lose faith, it's a funny word, the sanctity of the supreme court. >> and michael kirk is with us. the new documentary on clarence thomas and his wife, ginni, is out on the front line youtube channel. its streaming at the on the pbs video app. the new documentary, clients and ginni thomas, politics, power, and the supreme court. we welcome your calls and comments at 202 748 8000. that is the line for democrats, 202 748 8001 for republicans, and for independence and others, 202 748 8000 into. i want to start with one of the earlier clips in the documentary, the launching of point of clarence thomas and what surprised me was his interest in and participation in the black power movement at holy cross. holy cross college in new

england. but before that, how did clarence thomas wind up at a school like holy cross? what was his background like getting to that point? >> affirmative action brought him to holy cross, as it did yale and even many people argue as it did to the supreme court, when george h. w. bush picked him to fill what was known as the black seat on the supreme court. so, even affirmative action wasn't in place there. that's one of the great ironies about justice thomas's profound -- of affirmative action as an issue or as a way to elevate minorities and others into positions of power or education, whatever. so, he gets to new england after a series of rejections in his life, which were just profound. it's a heartbreaking back story

on clarence thomas that the film spends a considerable amount of time on, trying to understand where his mind was. it's 1968, 1969. bobby kennedy has been murdered, martin luther king has been murdered, clarence thomas is in college as part of a college that has 2000 students, catholic college, all male, and 28 black students there as an affirmative action early stage affirmative action approach taken by holy cross. and it is there for the first time in his life, really, where he has a cohort of friends who are also black, as a child, he was made fun of by the black kids. you can see why in the film. so, by the time he gets the holy cross, it's great for him to be with a group of black men. they are all in various states of frustration and anger at america, the american political

world and their opportunities. the streets, the rage in the streets is drawn both by the police and by the protesters, and clarence decides he loves the notion of the black panthers as a way to exercise his own anger or deal with it. he dresses like a panther, he wears the beret, he wears a combat boots, he wears the uniform, and he finds an idol and all of this process, and that is malcolm x. so, clarence gets the name clarence x from that experience. >> let's take a look at a portion of that piece of the documentary, here it is. >> he definitely was inspired by the black panthers. he dressed like them, he talked like them. he had a beret, he had army fatigues, and he had the army boots. >> he wore an afro, he was out there with everyone else.

i think it was positive because he had a group, he was not alone now. he became part of his group. >> i don't know if he had a well formed political philosophy before he got to holy cross. maybe he was simply going along, but the years, 1968, 1969, gosh, i was there and the forces of conformity to a sense of outraged fury, resistance, the throwing off of oppression, by any means necessary, was a very seductive, very compelling to many, many people among whom was clarence thomas. >> and he had a hero, malcolm x. >> we want freedom by any means necessary. we want justice, by any means necessary. we want equality, by any means necessary. >> they have a poster of malcolm x in his dorm room.

>> justice thomas boasted at one point, he had read all of his speeches and he said, at one time, he could quote you some of them by heart. i mean, so, he really did pay attention to malcolm x. >> michael kirk, were you as surprised as i assume some of us or many of us may be about that part of justice thomas's background? >> yes and it's just part of, one part of the matrix the, whatever you want to call it, the complications of clarence thomas's approach. very surprising in every step of the way, as he veers from one side, to another, and he gets to form his political ideology, and also his way of living in his way of life. while he was a campus radical, for lack of a more specific term, he was also extremely against inter marriage between black people and white people. in the end, of course, he would

marry ginni. so, the back and forth, the pendulum swinging of clarence thomas's approach to the world, approach to life, approach to the law and learning, all surprised me, as much as you could surprise anybody like me. you think of, i know the story, i have the broad outlines, but i had no sense of either clearance or ginni until we started to make this film. as i said several months ago, it takes months to make one of these things. the deeper we dug, the more i realize, oh my gosh, this is a tremendously complicated figure we are trying to explain. >> michael kirk is the co-writer, the director of the new frontline documentary, clarence and ginni thomas, politics, power, and the supreme court. we will play more from the documentary in a bit. we will get in a bit, we will also get into the propublica revelations, which we talk about some in the film, as well. michael kirk, let's get the

calls here. first, we've got a few waiting with clyde first up and at cannes, minnesota. independent line. go ahead, clyde. >> good morning. i hope i have time to get my thoughts through. this is going to be hard for me, in some ways, as you will understand. i'm a 75 year old combat vietnam veteran. 1969, i married an african american lady. so, that doesn't make me an authority on anything, but it gives me some insight into some things i experienced back in those times. clarence thomas definitely is, and still is, i think, an angry black man and has you see him sitting for round with all white powerful men smoking his cigars, he's basically kind of giving the middle finger to america. he could've done so much better and benefited from affirmative action, which is tantamount to, like, the reconstruction back after the civil war. but affirmative action has been

played down. i don't believe that the man has the character that you should have to be a supreme court justice and as he got a leg up and realize that he was going to make it and make it pretty big, i think he kind of snubbed his nose at his roots and where he came from, and marrying ginni thomas back in the day, it's a black man married a white woman, whether she was drop dead gorgeous or not did not matter. if you married a white woman, that was -- and that was another part of what was going on at that time, and i still think it is with clarence thomas. one of the things i'd like to say, you take any average 100 intelligent people today, black, white, whatever, and school them in the constitution for a year, we could make just as good, if not better, decisions in the supreme court is making today. now, this does not make me an authority on anything, but it does give me some insight and i think i would put him in a

category, as far as angry black goes, like, bill cosby. that is what i have to say. >> all right, clyde, michael kirk, a lot there. but if you want to respond in any way, go ahead. >> it is the conundrum that, you know, many americans, especially once they learned that clarence thomas and ginni thomas's stories, they find themselves in the exact same place, scratching your head saying, well, wait a minute. he's supposed to act one way, he's a black man, he has come up from the hard as possible, most debilitating childhood i could imagine virtually. there are a couple of other things that are horrible that could've happened, but really, he had a rough road all the way up and he switched between all these things, trying to fit in, trying to be somebody who could be who he is, and he has come up with an amalgam of who he is that minimizes his blackness,

because of a lifetime of trouble being black. he freely now has kind of walked away from that over the last few decades and people, we know who know him, who are his friends from when he was a child, all the way up to now, and there are people like that all over this film. they are just as surprised and as astonished and scratching their heads as anybody could be. it is hard not to easily characterize clarence thomas, but he doesn't fit that easily into it. that's why you have to know his story and jimmy's story to get a sense of how you really feel about what they are doing and how, in fact, he's determined, and has been determined, since his very difficult confirmation process in the indian hill against the indian hill allegations of sexual harassment at work. he has been, he has kept a list

and he has been, some say, engaged in revenge in all of his jurisprudence. others say he's just, he's going his own route and he does not care that he are black people or liberals may think because he is a black man, he should go a certain way or have to default position, a certain default position of somebody who is raised the way clarence was raised. but he is determined to go another way and not let the fact that he is black characterize where he stands on a number of issues that people might, voting rights and other things, that people might easily characterize him and drop him into a slot. that is not what clarence thomas is like. >> and in a moment, we will show you a portion of the partnership, how the partnership was formed, forged, between clarence thomas and his later wife, ginni. barbara is in texas on the democrats line. you are on. >> good morning. i haven't yet seen the

documentary, but i'm looking forward to doing so. i understand that harlan crow was an old friend of clarence thomas's youth, but only approached him after he was seated on the supreme court. in contrast, a group of high school friends of elena kagan handed her a box of bagels and justice kagan had such a high ethical standard that she refused to accept a box of bagels because it might look like a conflict of interest. what can you say about that? >> and michael, barbara brings up harlan crow, so allow us to introduce the reporting of propublica on the lavish vacations and gifts that harlan crow gave to justice thomas and ginni thomas over the year. over the years. how does your documentary deal with these reports? >> well, essentially, clarence thomas, someone said this in

our conversation this morning here. clarence thomas is in the company, let's do it this way. as a child, he really viewed the world and himself in it as untouchable, a caste system in america. he has been working against climbing out of that untouchable status up to get the equivalent of the highest cast in america. if he had brahmin's, he would consider himself a brahmin now. what that meant in his life experience was you had to become extremely friendly with, in his case, with white wealthy people, white, wealthy men. he gets there, as he, after his confirmation hearings, he stops reading the new york times, the washington post, any national media, really. and he relies for information about the world on two people. his wife, jenny, who tells him what is happening and what her take on it is, and we know what her take is, very binary, very

black and white, very evil and good, and he relies on, this might surprise a lot of people, rush limbaugh. he and rush become very close friends over the decades. he officiated at one of russia's marriages. and it is from that world, the portal through rush and other wealthy white men that clearance finally arrives. he only makes only less than $300, 000, and i say only because the people he's hanging out with are making two and $3 million a year, his lawyers and even more, if you are harlan crow and other super wealthy people. but that is the world he lives in and he lives kind of lavishly in a kind of strange way, relying on the gifts of strangers like wealthy strangers, wealthy white strangers, like harlan crow. there is no doubt they are friends from clarence's perspective, justice thomas's perspective, and also,

apparently, according to mr. crow, from his perspective. but there is the appearance problem. there's no obvious quid pro quo's here. clearance hasn't done what apparently harlan crow wants him to do, but he has been in the company of lots of people who are friends of harlan crow's, who have business before the court. and that is really the reason that some people now are beginning to say, we have to tighten the standards of conflict of interest. not because of, i'm sorry. >> what was the extent of that relationship? the financial relationship between harlan crow and justice thomas, such an open secret and it took the reporting of propublica to reveal the extent of that. >> i don't know how open a secret it was. they were seen together a lot. he flies on crow's plane, sometimes even to do some business, give a speech, or whatever it is. it is open, in that sense. but i think the wonderful thing,

the tremendous important thing that from my perspective, as someone trying to pull this whole story together, what they delivered was actual facts, the kind of digging that investigative reporting is great at, which is going down in and seeing, how much does it cause to fly a plane? how many planes have justices of the court flown? how many private planes, so that the information about thomas grew organically out of the fact checking they were doing about the activities of various members of the supreme court. it was not like there was this open secret and they decided to step in and go for it. there was a lot of sweat, blood in the effort to uncover the extent of which, to which, thomas and, clarence and ginni thomas, and harlan crow, and his wife, are like connected. really close friends who every year, vacation, travel the

world, and the question i always ask of the people i interviewed from propublica and other places is, so, what happens when you are harlan crow and you are alone in a room with clarence thomas for a weekend, or you're on a trout stream, or you're on your jet, on your way to his speech, that is the question everybody should be asking, and hope that justice thomas and other justices, who have sort of strangely dicey connections as well, should come clean and tell us that they have decided to try to come up with some rules and regulations taken follow. let's go to derek in maryland, on the democrats side. >> good morning, clarence thomas can travel the world, he can travel to the moon, as far as i'm concerned, but clarence thomas is a sellout. clarence thomas is a role model

to black people, he could be a role model to young black men who aspire to be attorneys, for some reason, i don't know why he thinks he's being treated unjustly. he is a disgrace, where i come from, he is called an uncle tom. he is a sellout. he forgot where he came, from and he did not bring any black people with him. clarence thomas, i hope everything that happens to you is not good because you deserve everything that you got, black people want to give you. thank you. >> michael kirk, your film points out that he's a role model to a number of -- obviously conservatives in this country. >> it is true and it's an interesting problem for justice clarence, the people we talk, to who know him, best to talk to him a lot. he is aware that a lot of black people in america no longer

like him, but his name is at its health a joke. it's a derisive act in many circles. he has always been having momentary -- he was a member of a largely black cooper friends and contemporaries. but people we talk to who knew him, best they say that it bothers him that he doesn't have that kind of sway with young black would-be attorneys and others. but that he is in that position where he says that he is going to steadfast loosely do what he thinks is right with the law, and color be dammed. >> you are able to speak to a couple of his former clerks, was it difficult to find folks who had worked with him to come on camera with you? >> it is, i don't know if i would say it's difficult, there is a certain unwritten rule

about what you do if you're a clerk, and what you, honor and never of the people that we talk, to we never asked for -- i, mean we ask, but we never expected inside information about the decisions on what cases to do and whatever. but that was less important to me than understanding who he is, and who jenny is, and how they operate in washington first, with, trump and then when their power was at their absolute pinnacle, and now during biden, where it continues to be quite powerful. and their impact in the world, in the way things will change, which becomes long-lasting changes, the dog's decision about abortion, for example, the impact of clarence thomas on that, and many decisions before the court right now or long-lasting. and done, according to justice thomas in some of his clerks,

done independent race and gender. he wants to take it themself as a person above that. but the clerks, by the way, they love him. the people in the supreme court, even people you would think of like rgv, and others, they actually were very friendly with thomas. he is quite liked in the building, janitors, others, he knows everybody's last names. names of the kids. he is apparently a fantastic person and his clerks are -- some of the best clerks on the court. and has had for decades. but also, they formed a kind of group that jenny runs, former clerks, who really are talking all the time and in vies-ing, at a distance. and they have the kind of thomas view. they're quite supportive of him.

some of the people that we talked to, who wanted to talk, they were not critical, necessarily, others jurisprudence, but were quite critical in some cases, quite knowledgeable of the difficulties he has faced coming up in the world, and jenny too. >> let's go to philip on the republican line in ohio. welcome. >> thank you for taking my call. my only problem is that the documentary, do you stream all the trips that the other supreme court justices took, domestic and foreign? and as far as you are doing, jenny, unheard vibes in clarence thomas, what's the difference between that and michelle obama revising barack obama? it's the same cat and mouse game. is it not? thank you for taking my calls. >> michael? >> michelle obama didn't have a business that was in politics. as far as i, know no --

supreme court justice's spouse has had such an active independent in quotes political career and business. she wanted to be a congress person, a conservative congressperson, she's active in issues. she has been a long-standing follower of qanon and other conspiracy theories, very much into that world. access to a lot of the trumps and trump family, mark meadows, his chief of staff. she is in the business of shaping the politics of the country. michelle obama, i reported on the abode bomb administration, had plenty of negative things to report about, that but not michelle obama was playing a role like ginni thomas. ginni thomas is a unique character, as far as i can, tell from the people we talk to, the way justice thomas has handled the harlan crow, moment is, in the hundreds of

thousands of dollars and gifts that apparently crow has given them, bestowed upon them with these trips and other things and gifts. you know, in all kinds of starts to complement kate the smell test. it's not about genie, it's really about the very wealthy, very conservative, white people doing something that's never really been done with the supreme court justice. a very powerful supreme court justice. i happen to know in trying to find out how many other troops were being taken by numbers of the supreme court, and by any standards that anybody talks, about this is the largest case, the biggest example, the most flagrant example. however you want to phrase it. of a justice of the supreme court accepting gifts of magnitude of hundreds of thousands of dollars, including

$500,000 given by harlan crow to chinese political action group, an offshoot that she was running of the tea party. she was paid $120,000 a year out of. that so these are all things that are factual and accurate and i think very different than anything michelle a bomb ever did or could conceive of. >> let's take a quick look at the portion of the, film from the earlier days, of clarence and ginni thomas. here's a look. >> she sees that outside world that is attacking her as something that needs to be beaten down. something that needs to be destroyed. >> it was spiritual warfare, good versus evil. we were fighting something we did not understand. we needed god. >> it is a reprisal of the kind of ideology ginni thomas had from her birch society days. they regarded their opponents

as enemies and practically, you know, satanic. so, she says, you've got to fight. fight back against the sort of evil tormentors. >> michael kirk, how different was ginni thomas's background versus clarence thomas? obviously, she's white, he's a black man. how economically different and experience wise was a different from his upbringing? >> in some ways, the geography of where she lived and grew up, and where he lived and grew up, is equally interesting and impactful. clearance and segregated gym crow south of the 1950s, absolute poverty, living in a house that did not have running water or a toilet, you know? everything you can imagine, horrible. ginni thomas, on the other hand, rose up in omaha, nebraska,

goes to a high school, there's 750 students in her class in the high school. there are very few, if any, minority students in this, so she's kind of living in a world where she has a sophisticated understanding of people of color and different kinds of people. her world is largely white, her fox -- wrote wealthy real estate developer and an engineer. her mother is incredibly active in politics, especially conservative politics. the john birch society is swirling around them. her mom, marjorie, runs for the, runs for office. she is an acolyte, a supporter, a partner with foolish laughably on the and equal rights amendment movement. jenny grows up in that world, she self describes herself as a mistake child. all of her siblings were a lot older and mom and dad,

surprisingly, have little genie and they take her everywhere they go. on all their political trips. so, she sees reagan as a young girl, she sees nixon as a young girl, she is at the convention when the reagan revolution is beginning and taking, picking up steam. and is an assistant to the local congressman from omaha when she first moves to washington. so, her life story is privilege, tremendous privilege, and a kind of black and white good and evil upbringing in, political terms, that grows out of her parents allegiance to the john birch society, view of the world, the goldwater, her mom was a goldwater girl and in that campaign in 1964. so, she is steeped in it and clarence, on the other hand, is just kind of, you know, pinballing through one terrible

circumstance after another in search of, as we say in the film, in search of a home. when they finally come together, he finds somebody who can nurture him, somebody who can help him create a home, psychologically, emotionally, and, of course, practically. >> all right, here's louise in fredericksburg, virginia on the republican line. >> well, i give it to you. you've -- old bogeyman, you know? the john birch society and all, and all, and all. and i want to ask you something. when you were a young person, aren't you searching for direction? aren't you searching for what you truly believe in? this man is a godsend to the world. he is a good man, he's an intelligent man, he is a man with wisdom, and all i can see is this is a hit a job on

somebody that is black. your anti-black, your anti-black and white marriage, you, it is you. you are projecting you want to clarence thomas. >> all right louise, we will give michael kirk the chance to respond. >> this is the enemy of the people counterattack. i just spent six months of my life, i don't know how much time you've spent out there, ma'am, with all due respect. you've got an absolute right to your opinion, but i think we, with an open mind, -- >> we are leaving this program on justice clarence thomas here, but you can watch it in its entirety if you go to our website, c-span.org. we are going to take you live now to capitol hill for a senate hearing on u.s. supreme court ethics, in light of an investigative report on alleged violations by justice thomas. we will hear testimony from law professors before the senate judiciary subcommittee on federal courts. live coverage here on c-span 3.