Ginni Thomas sought by panel over role in Trump’s bid to overturn election
The House January 6 committee will seek an interview with Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, over her involvement in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election which led to the Capitol attack.
On Thursday, Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the panel, said: “We think it’s time that we, at some point, invite her to come talk to the committee.”
Thomas told the Daily Caller, a rightwing website: “I can’t wait to clear up misconceptions. I look forward to talking to them.”
Thompson spoke after the Washington Post reported that the committee, preparing for a third public hearing, had obtained emails between Ginni Thomas and John Eastman.
The New York Times then reported that emails showed Eastman told a proTrump lawyer and campaign officials of a “heated fight” between justices over whether to hear arguments about Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat, which was driven by his lie about electoral fraud.
“The odds [of success] are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices’ spines, and I understand that there is a heated fight underway,” Eastman reportedly wrote.
Until January 2021, Eastman was a law professor at Chapman University in California. He once clerked for Clarence Thomas.
The Times and the Post said it was not clear when the emails between Eastman and Ginni Thomas were sent, or what they discussed.
The court did not hear arguments over Trump’s attempt to overturn the election.
But when Trump attempted to stop the release of documents to the committee investigating the attempt and the Capitol attack, Clarence Thomas was the only justice to vote in the former president’s favor.
Messages between his wife and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, subsequently came to light.
Ginni Thomas’s activities, including attempts to overturn results in Arizona, led to calls for her to be investigated by the January 6 committee and the Department of Justice.
On Wednesday night, Tristan Snell, a commentator and lawyer, said: “If Ginni Thomas were married to anyone other than a supreme court justice, the January 6 committee would have subpoenaed her months ago.
“She should NOT get special treatment. She was involved in January 6 and should get called to testify like everyone else. Subpoena her NOW.”
Thomas’s comment to the Daily Caller suggested she would not need to be compelled.
Supreme court justices are not subject to ethical oversight, other than possible impeachment and removal. Congress has tried just once, in 1804-05. The effort failed.
Before the Post and Times reports, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, said Ginni and Clarence Thomas’s behavior showed that “we must fix the supreme court’s broken ethics system”.
The Times said Kenneth Chesebro, the lawyer Eastman told of the “heated fight” among justices, wrote: “I don’t have the personal insight that John has into the four justices likely to be most upset about what is happening in the various states, who might want to intervene, so I should make it clear that I don’t discount John’s estimate.”
Chesebro also reportedly wrote that the “odds of action before January 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on January 6 unless they rule by then, either way”.
The Times said the emails were sent five days after Trump told supporters events in Washington on 6 January 2021 would be “wild”.
That day, Trump told supporters at a rally near the White House to “fight like hell” in his cause. A mob attacked the Capitol but failed to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Some chanted for Mike Pence, Trump’s vicepresident who was overseeing certification, to be hanged.
According to the January 6 committee, Trump told advisers: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea” and Pence “deserves it”.
A bipartisan Senate committee linked seven deaths to the riot. More than 850 people have been charged.
Two Trump aides, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, have been charged with criminal contempt of Congress, for refusing to cooperate with the House committee. Bannon has pleaded not guilty. Navarro has not entered a plea.
On Thursday, ahead of the third January 6 hearing, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, said the committee was telling “a tightly woven story of a carefully planned attack on American democracy – and a potential criminal conspiracy”.