Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was discharged Friday after a week in the hospital, according to the court.
The Supreme Court’s public information officer said Thomas was discharged from the hospital earlier Friday, without elaborating further. Thomas was admitted to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., on March 18 with an infection after experiencing “flu-like symptoms,” a spokesperson for the court said at the time. On Sunday, when Thomas’ hospitalization was made public, that spokesperson said he did not have COVID-19.
The court had initially said the 73-year-old justice was expected to be released from the hospital “in a day or two.” The court did not say why he remained in the hospital for a slightly longer period.
His hospitalization came as CBS News’ Bob Costa and the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward reported that Thomas’ wife, Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist, repeatedly pressed White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks following the vote, according to copies of the messages.
Thomas, considered a member of the court’s conservative wing, was nominated for the high court by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 and sworn in later that year.
— Melissa Quinn contributed to this report.
