<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1655392935551,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000177-1b39-d2c7-af7f-5fbf13ff0004","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1655392935551,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000177-1b39-d2c7-af7f-5fbf13ff0004","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_55392932", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1032401"} }); ","_id":"00000181-6d1b-d082-a1ad-7ffb4f600000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedVirginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, said she would comply with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot after the panel’s chairman announced plans to invite her for testimony.
Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist, said she “can’t wait to clear up misconceptions” in a statement to the Daily Caller, adding, “I look forward to talking to them.”
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Following President Joe Biden’s defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Ginni Thomas pushed then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to aid in overturning the election results, according to copies of texts obtained by multiple outlets in March.
Earlier on Thursday, Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told Axios: “We think it’s time that we, at some point, invite her to come talk to the committee,” adding that the invitation to Ginni Thomas will be pushed out “soon.”
The decision by Thompson comes one day after reports emerged from three sources on the panel that Ginni Thomas emailed Trump‘s campaign attorney, John Eastman.
Eastman, a conservative law professor, created a pair of memos for the Trump campaign in the buildup to Jan. 6, relaying a strategy to block the certification of election results. The three sources reported the existence of the emails to Ginni Thomas to the Washington Post but declined to include further details about the communications.
“We have discovered in those Eastman [emails] some information that refers to Ginni Thomas,” Thompson added Thursday, declining to elaborate on what the justice’s wife will be asked about.
In response to the inquiry over his correspondence with Ginni Thomas, Eastman released a copy of what he said was within the emails in question on his recently formed Substack page, noting that Ginni Thomas asked him in December 2020 to provide “a status update to a group of grass-roots state leaders” with whom she was affiliated.
“She invited me to give an update about election litigation to a group she met with periodically,” Eastman wrote. He also referenced an email he wrote Dec. 24, 2020, to other lawyers advising Trump, in which he said, “I understand that there is a heated fight underway,” in the Supreme Court, claiming it was only in reference to published reports he had read and not stemming from any inside information.
“I can categorically confirm that at no time did I discuss with Mrs. Thomas or Justice Thomas any matters pending or likely to come before the court,” Eastman wrote. “We have never engaged in such discussions, would not engage in such discussions and did not do so in December 2020 or anytime else.”
Efforts by Trump and Eastman to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to deny or delay the certification of electoral votes was one of the primary focuses of the committee’s hearing Thursday.
Reports of Ginni Thomas’s urgency to overturn the election results have been sharply criticized by Democratic lawmakers. Additionally, the Washington Post reported Friday that Ginni Thomas sent emails to 29 Arizona state lawmakers in an effort to reverse Biden’s win in the state.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), a member of the committee, would not confirm if the panel possessed the emails between Ginni Thomas and Eastman but said Wednesday that the resumption of the Jan. 6 hearings Thursday would only include content the committee believed would be a primary focus of the investigation.
“The committee won’t be shy about seeking additional information from people that have information relevant to the investigation,” Aguilar told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an interview Wednesday evening.
Ginni Thomas’s efforts to encourage lawmakers to decertify 2020 election results have prompted ethical questions surrounding her spouse’s role in deciding cases related to the election and Jan. 6. Clarence Thomas has maintained that his duties on the high court are kept separate from his wife’s political activism.
The Supreme Court rejected a request from Trump in January to block the release of White House records from the Jan. 6 panel, and Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to dissent and side with the former president.
Eastman, who has said Trump was his client at the time he created the memos, also was once a law clerk for Clarence Thomas.
Last week, U.S. District Judge David Carter ordered Eastman to hand over an additional 159 documents subpoenaed by the committee after the judge previously ordered him to turn in documents to the panel in April.
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Eastman had maintained that he had attorney-client privilege and cited that as his reason for shielding the documents from the committee. However, Carter ruled that Eastman waived his executive privilege claim because he “more likely than not” helped in a criminal or fraudulent endeavor with Trump.
The Washington Examiner contacted the Supreme Court, the Jan. 6 committee, Eastman, and Thompson.
