TThirty years ago, David Brock made his name as a reporter with The Real Anita Hill, a book in which he attacked the woman who accused Clarence Thomas, George HW Bush’s second Supreme Court nominee, of sexual harassment. After stormy hearings, Thomas was confirmed. Brock – who characterized Hill, a law professor, in sexist terms as “a little bit crazy and a little bit slutty” – was launched as a right-wing media star.

Thirty years later, Thomas is still on the court, the longest-serving hardliner on a bench that has tilted 6-3 to the right through three confirmations under Donald Trump. But Brock switched sides long ago, disillusioned by the lies of the right. He apologized for his defamation of Hill and eventually became a prominent Democratic official close to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

He founded watchdogs and Super Pacs and continued to write books. He covered his political conversion 20 years ago in Blinded by the Right: the Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. Now, with Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America, he has returned to what he calls “the original sin” of the modern Supreme Court: “Thomas’ perjury to get on the Court” and his allegedly untruthful answers to questions about his dealings with Hill and other women.

“That’s my starting point,” Brock says. “And then I show over time that other justices misled the public in their Senate confirmation hearings by denying the fact that they opposed Roe from the beginning – which sort of came to light with the Dobbs decision.”

In June 2022, the case of Dobbs v. Jackson took place, which overturned Roe v. Wade and struck down the federal right to abortion. The outcome of the case gave Brock his subtitle. John Roberts, the conservative Chief Justice, tried to uphold Roe, but the Dobbs case was decided 5-4 anyway because Roberts could not convince another right-winger. In Brock’s view, the court now belongs to Thomas.

“That was a turning point,” Brock says, pointing to major rulings on guns, affirmative action, environmental protections, corporate bribery, presidential immunity and more, all victories for the right. “But Roberts just ignored those ethical issues. They passed their own code of ethics about a year ago – and there’s no enforcement mechanism. I think he was a weak leader.”

If 2022 was Dobbs’ year, then 2023 and 2024 were the years of gifts and scams: a parade of reports – in ProPublica’s case, Pulitzer Prize-winning – about how Thomas failed to declare in court generous gifts from major donors with business backgrounds, prominent among them Harlan Crow, a billionaire with a penchant for Nazi collectibles.

For Brock, “all the revelations about Clarence Thomas and the gifts added depth to the book I was writing about the crisis of legitimacy at court that arose because Dobbs was so unpopular. There was also this ethical crisis.”

Thomas denies any wrongdoing. The same goes for Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, other hardliners with alleged ties to right-wing donors. Roberts refuses to testify before Congress on the issue. The result, says Brock, is “a situation where polls show the reputation of the Supreme Court is very low.”

BRock doesn’t hold Thomas in high regard either. On the site, he calls the judge “a fighter and a fighter,” a “Supreme Court justice turned showman” and a “Bork without a brain” – a caustic reference to Robert Bork, the hardliner whose nomination failed in 1987 and fueled the right’s determination to dominate at all costs.

Brock says: “Thomas hasn’t really spoken out as a judge for several years, but in recent years he’s been much more active and I think he feels a little emboldened by the fact that he now has at least four colleagues who will agree with him on many of these cases.”

Another driver of the court’s sharp shift to the right is Leonard Leo, the dark money impresario whom Thomas once called “the third most powerful person in the world.” Brock could have used “the Leo Court” as a subtitle, since Leo “was obviously responsible for the three Trump justices” through “an unprecedented move by Trump during the 2016 campaign to provide the Federal Society (of which Leo is co-chairman) with lists of the justices he had nominated in order to bolster his credibility with the evangelical right, which was skeptical of his personal conduct.”

Leo also backed Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, when he ruthlessly blocked Barack Obama’s last nominee for the court, Merrick Garland. “That allowed Trump to campaign on the prospect of an open seat. That’s how McConnell’s strategy and Leo’s strategy came together, and that’s essentially how Trump got elected.”

In that regard, Brock has written a comprehensive history of the Court’s rightward turn from Nixon to Trump and the succession. But he has also written an old-fashioned pamphlet, a 300-page call to political action. As for Thomas, Brock wants impeachment.

Brock identified “eight specific areas of misconduct that require further investigation by Congress,” and said Thomas must first face scrutiny for his “blatant lie” during his confirmation hearings, when he categorically denied having “sexual discussions in the workplace.” Numerous witnesses contradicted that statement.

The other charges against Brock relate to Ginni Thomas, the judge’s wife and a prominent far-right activist. They include failing to hold back in deciding cases related to her lobbying and involvement in Trump’s election fraud; failing to disclose her income from the right-wing Heritage Foundation; and failing to disclose his own donations from Crow, Leo and others.

Brock is not the first to call for Thomas’ impeachment. In July, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez launched her own attempt in Congress. Like the New York Democrat, Brock is a realist: He knows that even if the Democrats were to take back the House of Representatives and impeach Thomas, it would be extremely unlikely that Thomas would be convicted and removed from office in the closely divided Senate. But that is no reason not to try.

“Sometimes I play this thought experiment with myself about how Republicans would take an opportunity to exploit the vulnerabilities of their opponents. I have no doubt that if the tables were turned and Clarence Thomas, a Democrat, was in power, there would be hearing after hearing and I think there would probably be impeachment.

“So I’m saying that even if there’s just a hearing or an investigation in the House, it would bring all of this out into the open, and it still makes sense to do this, even though we know we wouldn’t get the votes needed to remove him. I think it would be a good experience for the public to bring all of this out into the open.”

Brock also believes that impeachment would “help push through the Supreme Court reforms longed for by the left in the face of staunch opposition from the right.”

AAnother good idea for Democrats in the election season, says Brock, is to keep Ginni Thomas in the spotlight. That spotlight may soon get even brighter. Citing two anonymous sources, Brock reports that anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney was responsible for blocking a serious review of the Thomas family by the Jan. 6 committee, even as it uncovered evidence of close involvement in Trump’s 2020 election fraud.

It’s a controversial claim – especially since Cheney recently endorsed Kamala Harris for president. For Brock, it’s just an indication of the damage the Thomases have done.

“I think people are becoming increasingly aware that there is something fishy going on when Thomas refuses to recuse himself from these cases in which his wife is 100% actively involved… She has long been a powerful agent, but she operates very much behind the scenes.”

That goes for Brock, too, of course. He was once on the same side as Clarence Thomas’ most prominent supporters, including Mark Paoletta, a lawyer and former Trump administration official. Brock says he “knew the truth about the allegations against Anita Hill” but worked to bring Thomas to justice anyway.

Notably, Brock also once moved in the same circles as Brett Kavanaugh, then a Republican consultant and attack dog, now another member of the far-right bloc that dominates the Supreme Court. His own controversial confirmation is also marred by allegations of sexual misconduct that are also part of American history.

Such close connections to his subject matter make Brock’s book a fascinating read. When asked how he would respond to attacks from former comrades, whether they read the book or not, he says: “They’re part of it.”