Washington, D.C. ? Breaking his 16-year public silence on his bitter confirmation hearings, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says Anita Hill was a mediocre employee who was used by political opponents to make claims she had been sexually harassed.

Thomas writes about Hill, his former employee in two government agencies, and the allegations that nearly derailed his nomination to the high court in 1991 in his autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son.”

A copy of the book, which goes on sale Monday, was obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

He writes with indignation of the nationally televised hearings that he memorably called a “high-tech lynching.” A child of the segregated South, Thomas says he was being pursued “not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony.”

Powerful interest groups were out to stop him at all costs and chose “the age-old blunt instrument of accusing a black man of sexual misconduct,” he writes.

Hill declined comment Friday night.