Ginni Thomas’ pro-trump texts put husband’s Supreme Court role in focus
WASHINGTON — Justice Clarence Thomas is facing calls to recuse himself from U.S. Supreme Court cases involving the 2020 presidential election after revelations that his wife repeatedly pushed former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff to do more to overturn his loss to Joe Biden.
Thomas already participated in the Supreme Court’s decision this year to let some of Trump’s papers be turned over to a congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Thomas was the lone dissenter from that order, giving no explanation.
“I think it’s a big problem,” said Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethics scholar who teaches at New York University Law School. “Justice Thomas should have recused himself from any case that concerned, and any that hereafter concerns, the validity of the election, the work of the Jan. 6 commission, or the Capitol invasion.”
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Ginni Thomas, a political activist, was in close contact with Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows in the weeks following the 2020 election, promoting conspiracy theories about Biden’s victory. “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History,” she texted on Nov. 10, the Post reported, citing documents Meadows turned over to the committee.
A person familiar with the text messages confirmed their authenticity to Bloomberg.
Democrats seized on the revelations. Thomas’ conduct “looks increasingly corrupt,” Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said Friday.
“Judges are obligated to recuse themselves when their participation in a case would create even the appearance of a conflict of interest,” Wyden said in an emailed statement. “A person with an ounce of commonsense could see that bar is met here.”
The activities of Ginni Thomas, 65, are creating another layer of controversy around a justice who has been one of Washington’s most polarizing figures since 1991, when he won Senate confirmation after denying sexual harassment allegations during a televised hearing that transfixed the nation. It comes as Thomas, 73, returns home Friday after a weeklong hospital stay to treat an infection.
Thomas didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment conveyed through a Supreme Court spokeswoman.
Federal law requires justices to disqualify themselves whenever their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Judicial ethics experts said Friday that cases involving the 2020 election and Jan. 6 Capitol siege meets that standard for Thomas.
Thomas should recuse “from Jan. 6 cases, because she was clearly involved,” said Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota
Law professor and former White House ethics lawyer. “That doesn’t mean she committed any crimes but she was close enough to the events of Jan. 6 that he should recuse.”
Ginni Thomas earlier this month told the Washington Free Beacon that she was at the Jan. 6 rally near the White House but went home before Trump took the stage and didn’t go to the Capitol.
Thomas hasn’t recused from any cases during the court’s current term, which started in October, according to Gabe Roth, executive director of the watchdog group Fix the Court.
The Supreme Court isn’t covered by the Code of Conduct that applies to other federal judges, and recusal decisions are largely up to the individual justice. Chief Justice John Roberts has said the justices consult the code for ethics issues.