FACT CHECK: No, Clarence Thomas Hasn’t Announced That He Is Retir­ing on Jan­u­ary 21

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FACT CHECK: No, Clarence Thomas Hasn’t Announced That He Is Retiring on January 21

A post on X claims that Supreme Court Jus­tice Clarence Thomas has announced that he will retire Jan. 21.

Ver­dict: False

Thomas has not announced his retire­ment as of press time, and the out­let report­ing this is known for fake news.

Fact Check:

With Pres­i­dent-Elect Don­ald Trump soon to take office, Jus­tice Clarence Thomas, cur­rent­ly the longest tenured mem­ber on the bench, has faced calls to retire or recuse him­self from duty. The 76-year-old has faced accu­sa­tions of abuse of pow­er, and lead­ing Democ­rats have called for his res­ig­na­tion. Promi­nent Repub­li­cans are also sug­gest­ing he retire so that Pres­i­dent-Elect Trump would be guar­an­teed a chance to replace him.

A post on X claims that Jus­tice Thomas has announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court on Jan­u­ary 21, which would be one day after Trump’s impend­ing inau­gu­ra­tion. This is false, how­ev­er.

A Google search would have turned up cur­rent results for such a major announce­ment, how­ev­er it turns up emp­ty. Jus­tice Thomas does not have social media accounts where he could announce this, and the offi­cial Supreme Court web­site does not make any announce­ment of his impend­ing retire­ment as of Decem­ber 3. (RELATED: FACT CHECK: Is Joy Reid Mov­ing To Lon­don Fol­low­ing Don­ald Trump’s Vic­to­ry?)

The account that post­ed the fake claim, RT Amer­i­ca, is known for par­o­dy and fake news and states so in it’s X bio. It is made to look like an off­shoot of the Russ­ian state-con­trolled media out­let ‘RT,’ which shut­tered it’s Amer­i­can news­room in 2022. Check Your Fact has debunked claims made by them in the past.