US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decried “the nastiness and the lies” he and his wife Ginni have “had to endure” in recent years.

“There’s certainly been a lot of negativity for my wife and I in the last few years,” Thomas said Friday at a conference of the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Point Clear, Alabama. “But we choose not to focus on that.”

Thomas was the focus of controversy over Supreme Court ethics in 2023, after reports emerged that he accepted luxury travel via yacht and private jet from billionaire businessman and conservative political donor Harlan Crow without disclosing the gifts publicly. The justice also sold real estate including his childhood home in Georgia to Crow and failed to include those deals in his annual financial disclosures. ProPublica received a Pulitzer Prize on May 6 for its role in uncovering the financial connections.

On Friday, Thomas recounted a conversation with a friend during a walk around his neighborhood years ago. “That’s before they started attacking my friends,” Thomas said. “I hope I still have some.”

Thomas also described Washington as a place where “people pride themselves in being awful.”

“It is a hideous place as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said.

“It’s one of the reasons we like RVing,” he added. “You get to be around regular people who don’t pride themselves in doing harmful things merely because they have the capacity to do it or because they disagree.”