During public hearings on Thursday, the House select committee on Jan. 6 has announced that it intends to seek an interview with Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
On Wednesday, the House select committee revealed that it has a series of emails between coup-plotting Trump attorney John Eastman and Ginni Thomas. These emails are in addition to previous reports that showed Thomas attempted to pressure Arizona legislators into dropping the electors selected by voters, and a set of texts between Ginni Thomas and Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in which she pressed for overturning the election.
Select committee members have previously stated that Ginni Thomas is “not the focus” of the committee’s investigation. However, the correspondence between Ginni Thomas and Eastman only serves to underline her involvement as one of the loudest voices demanding that Republicans return Trump to power, no matter the results of the election. When added to other emails collected by the committee, there is a strong suggestion that Ginni Thomas was taking that message directly to her husband as part of an effort to convince the Supreme Court to participate in the scheme to overthrow democracy, even if there was no legal basis for the effort.
Thursday, Jun 16, 2022 · 6:14:48 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Virginia Thomas has indicated that she intends to cooperate with the committee. “I can’t wait to clear up misconceptions,” said Thomas. “I look forward to talking to them.”
Maybe Thomas can talk to the committee about the part where she claimed the Trump campaign and military worked together to conduct a sting operation and identified “watermarked ballots in over 12 states.” Or just what she said to John Eastman to convince him that the Supreme Court was ready to join the scheme.
The weight of all the correspondence now collected shows that Ginni Thomas wasn’t just part of the crowd cheering on Trump, but was working behind the scenes to exert pressure from Washington to Arizona. The emails between Thomas and Eastman, as well as a set of emails between Eastman and Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, indicates that there were serious efforts to draw the Supreme Court into the plot, including using the threat of violence on Jan. 6 to press the court toward taking up one of Trump’s baseless lawsuits.
Ginni Thomas is easily dismissed as another screaming Trump supporter spraying nonsense. But her access to the court, her connections with Eastman, her involvement in the “Stop the Steal” campaign, and her ability to leverage Clarence Thomas’ position to gain access to anyone in Washington makes her a key figure in the scheme—and someone who the committee now definitely wants to see in a witness chair.
We talk to expert Brandi Buchman about everything you need to know for the Jan. 6 committee, hearings, and investigation on Daily Kos' The Brief podcast
