Of course they lied....

California Rep. Ted Lieu accuses conservative justices of lying about Roe v. Wade. See what they said.

Alec Regimbal

Just before the United States Supreme Court released its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, California Rep. Ted Lieu took to Twitter to share a poll showing public confidence in the high court had dropped to its lowest level in the nation's history.

A good example of why, Lieu said, is that several of the conservative justices that voted to strike down Roe on Friday signaled that the case was settled precedent during their confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

"Multiple conservative Supreme Court Justices led the American people to believe that Roe v. Wade was settled precedent during their confirmation hearings. The American people now know these Justices lied," Lieu said. "And now public confidence in the Court is at its lowest level in history."

Videos put together by Politico and The Washington Post give a look at (some of) what those justices said about Roe during their confirmation hearings. Of the five justices who voted to overturn Roe, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh made the strongest statements about the strength of Roe's precedent during their confirmation hearings.

Clarence Thomas (1991)

"I have no reason or agenda to pre-judge the issue. [I'm not] pre-disposed to rule one way or the other on the issue of abortion, which is a difficult issue. Do I have, this day, an opinion — a personal opinion — on the outcome in Roe v. Wade? My answer to you is that I do not."

Samuel Alito (2006) 

"It has been challenged on a number of occasions  and I think that when a decision is challenged, and it is reaffirmed, that strengthens its value."

Neil Gorsuch (2017)

"A good judge will consider as precedent of the United States Supreme Court worth of treatment as precedent like any other."

Brett Kavanaugh (2018)

"One of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that it has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years. Most prominently, and most importantly, [it was] reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed Roe, and did so by considering the stare decisis factors, so Casey now becomes a precedent on precedent. It's not as if it was just a run-of-the-mill case that was decided and never been reconsidered."

Amy Coney Barrett (2020)

"What I will commit is that I will obey all the rules of stare decisis. If a question comes up before me about whether Casey or any other case should be overruled, I will follow the law of stare decisis, applying it as the court has articulated it — applying all the factors: reliance, workability, being undermined by later facts in law, just all the standard factors. I promise to do that for any issue that comes up, abortion or anything else."

When asked about if Roe is considered "super-precedent," Barrett said, "I'm answering a lot of questions about Roe, which I think indicates that Roe doesn't fall in that category."