Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer refused to criticize the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, Ginni, before she is slated to be interviewed by the Jan. 6 committee in the coming weeks.
In his first televised interview since he stepped down from the nine-member bench earlier this year, Breyer sat down with CNN anchor Chris Wallace on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace to speak about a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from the consequential overturning of Roe v. Wade to the House committee’s interest in speaking to his former colleague’s spouse over her alleged support of former President Donald Trump‘s 2020 election fraud claims.
Asked whether he believed Ginni Thomas’s political activism was damaging to the reputation of the court, Breyer said: “I don’t go through that in that I strongly believe that women who are wives, including wives of Supreme Court justices, have to make the decisions about how to lead their lives, careers, what kind of career, etc., for themselves.”
GINNI THOMAS TO BE INTERVIEWED BY JAN. 6 COMMITTEE IN COMING WEEKS
“I’m not going to criticize Ginni Thomas, whom I like. I’m not going to criticize Clarence, whom I like. And there we are,” Breyer, once a member of the court’s liberal minority, said during the interview.
Weeks after the November 2020 presidential election, Thomas messaged former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Nov. 19, voicing her support for lawyer Sidney Powell to become “the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team in challenging the election results.
“Mark (don’t want to wake you),” she wrote to Meadows. “Sounds like Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud. Make a plan. Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”
In her messages, Thomas also suggested lawmakers shared a responsibility to select electors, saying the ability was “yours and yours alone” and that they have the “power to fight back against fraud.”
The revelation of such messages, which were reported by the Washington Post, prompted interest by members of the Jan. 6 committee for her testimony, while some progressive House members, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MI), called for Clarence Thomas’s resignation over his participation in a case that went before the high court concerning the House panel’s investigation.
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Earlier, this week, Ginni Thomas’s lawyer, Mark Paoletta, confirmed that she would cooperate in a voluntary interview with the committee ahead of the panel’s likely final hearing, scheduled for Wednesday.
“Mrs. Thomas is eager to answer the Committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election. She looks forward to the opportunity,” Paoletta wrote in a statement.
