Pryor cleared of allegations involving clerk hire

Appeals court’s judicial council unanimously dismisses complaint.

Bill Pryor, chief judge of the federal appeals court in Atlanta, has been cleared of allegations of wrongdoing in that he hired a law clerk accused of sending racist and xenophobic texts.

After seven members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson of Lithonia, asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to investigate the matter, the court referred the complaint to the federal appeals court in New York. On Thursday, that court’s judicial council voted unanimously to dismiss the complaint. It upheld a decision issued Dec. 22 by its chief judge, Debra Ann Livingston.

The law clerk in question is Crystal Clanton, a student at

George Mason University’s law school. After graduating, she first will work this year as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Corey Maze in Alabama and then for Pryor in 2023. Maze was also named in the lawmakers’ complaint.

Pryor, the former Alabama attorney general who was appointed to the 11th Circuit by President George W. Bush, and Maze both declined to comment

on the court’s ruling.

According to published reports, Clanton, while working as national field director for a conservative student group, sent a colleague a text message that read, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like (expletive) them all.” She also allegedly sent text messages demeaning Muslims.

Neither Livingston’s ruling nor the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision identified

Clanton or the two judges, Pryor and Maze. But their identities were disclosed in letters Pryor and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote to the court on Clanton’s behalf.

In her ruling, Livingston cited one of the Turning Point USA’S executives who said Clanton treated everyone with “kindness, respect and fairness.” This person also said “the media reports are not accurate,” Livingston wrote.

The Turning Point executive “had determined that the source of the allegations against (Clanton) was a group of former employees,” Livingston wrote. “One of these employees was fired after the organization learned that this person had created fake text messages to be used against co-workers, to make it appear that those co-workers had engaged in misconduct when they had not.”

Pryor and Maze knew about the allegations against Clanton when they interviewed and hired her.

And both determined the allegations of racist behavior by Clanton were untrue and found she was highly qualified to serve as a clerk for them, Livingston wrote.

“There is nothing in the record to dispute any of this,” she noted.

In his letter, Pryor wrote, “The complaint against me alleges, without any evidence, that I either failed to investigate this scurrilous accusation or that I knowingly hired someone who had engaged in racist behavior. It saddens me that any member of Congress would make such an unfounded accusation against a federal judge or smear the reputation of an innocent law student.”

In his letter, Thomas said he and his wife, Ginni, took in the distraught Clanton after she left Turning Point. She lived in their home for almost a year, the justice said.

“I know Crystal Clanton and I know bigotry,” Thomas wrote. “Bigotry is antithetical to her nature and character.”

AP FILE Federal Judge Bill Pryor knew about the allegations regarding Crystal Clanton and determined they were untrue and found she was highly qualified.

AJC FILE U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a letter on behalf of Crystal Clanton, who lived in his and his wife’s home.