While speaking at a judicial conference on Friday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas addressed threats and harassment directed towards both he and his wife in recent years. Thomas ultimately described the nation’s capital as a “hideous place.”

Thomas spoke at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, which handles federal cases in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. He made the comments in response to a question about getting work done in an increasingly polarized world, Newsmax reported.

“I think there’s challenges to that. We’re in a world and we — certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been — just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible,” Thomas said.

“But you have some choices. You don’t get to prevent people from doing horrible things or saying horrible things. But one you have to understand and accept the fact that they can’t change you unless you permit that,” Thomas said.

The longtime conservative justice has been the target of left-wing smear campaigns aimed at getting him to resign from the Supreme Court. Thomas has been accused of accepting luxury trips from a wealthy donor without disclosing them, something he has faced relentless criticism for from the left despite the fact that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has been accused of doing the same.

Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, has also been the target of left-wing smear campaigns for using her social media pages to spotlight election irregularities from 2020.

During the conference, Thomas was asked questions U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a former law clerk for Thomas who was later appointed to the federal bench.

On the topic of Washington D.C. — the town where the longest serving justice has spent much of his life — Thomas revealed that he has an increasing disdain for it.

“I think what you are going to find and especially in Washington, people pride themselves on being awful. It is a hideous place as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said, adding that he and his wife have spent increasingly less time in the city in recent years.

“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,” Thomas said.