People are demanding CNN retract a recent article written by legal analyst Joan Biskupic where she attempts to wildly distort a recent dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. Throughout Biskupic’s article titled “Justice Clarence Thomas reveals some sympathy for Trump’s baseless fraud claims”, she poorly attempts to claims Thomas “sympathizes” with President Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread election fraud and that he closely aligns with the former president.
Earlier this week Justice Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch voted against the Supreme Court’s decision to reject reviewing two Pennsylvania election cases.
The Daily Wire reports:
“A longtime conservative, Thomas’ legal views naturally aligned with the Trump administration,” she continued in the article. “But his dissent stands out for how much it subscribed to the Trump worldview of fraud, a notion debunked by election law experts and that has failed overwhelmingly in dozens of state and federal court challenges.”
Before going after his wife, Ginni Thomas, for her views, Biskupic went on to pull various quotes from Thomas’ 11-page dissent, noting how often he used the word “fraud” and implying that Thomas and Trump are basically on the same page regarding the 2020 presidential election.
It wasn’t long before critics blasted Biskupic’s distorted views. Ed Whelan, a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, stores apart Biskupic’s ridiculous argument with his own article for National Review titled, “Bizarre Distortion of Justice Thomas’s Election Dissent.”
“A trusting reader might imagine that Thomas’s dissent is replete with references to Dominion and Smartmatic and to various of Trump’s other allegations of fraud,” Whelan continued. “In fact, Thomas makes no mention of such allegations. Nor does the word ‘Trump’ appear a single time in his opinion.”
“Moreover, Thomas states in his opening paragraph (and repeats twice later) that the Pennsylvania supreme court decision that the Court was asked to review ‘seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election,’” added Whelan. “That’s not a statement you ever heard Donald Trump make.”
Twitter users blasted CNN for the publication of the article and demanded a retraction.
Joan you should rewrite your piece. You know the case was about the independent state legislature doctrine and has nothing to do with Trumpian conspiracy theories.
— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) February 24, 2021
This is a false framing of Thomas’s dissent. @CNN you should retract. https://t.co/d8AmZhVqlG
— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) February 24, 2021
No person with a IQ above room temperature could read what Thomas wrote and come to tbis conclusion
— Chris (@ChrisMears00) February 24, 2021
That's at best an exceptionally dishonest and disingenuous attempt to spin Thomas' dissent, and at worst, a blatent attempt to misinform for the sake of generating partisan outrage, and judging by the reactions in the comment thread, I'd say it's succeeding in the latter pic.twitter.com/TSfeWYMvOy
— Joe Townsend (@Jtownsend95) February 24, 2021
