Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is slated to testify under oath to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Ginni’s testimony has long been sought in light of her pushing former President Donald Trump‘s election fraud claims and her involvement with key figures in his administration following his November 2020 presidential election defeat.
As a conservative activist, Ginni has also generated controversy due to her husband’s position on the Supreme Court, which last year ruled on matters related to Jan. 6 and efforts by Congress to investigate the riot at the Capitol. Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting voice against handing presidential records over to the committee, a vote that has prompted some progressive Democrats to call for his removal from the bench.
STEPHEN BREYER REFUSES TO CRITICIZE GINNI THOMAS AHEAD OF HER JAN. 6 APPEARANCE
What did she mean by ‘Release the Kraken’ in her text to Mark Meadows?
One of the first revelations of Ginni’s involvement in Trump’s inner circle was the emergence of text messages between her and Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows voicing support for lawyer Sidney Powell to become “the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team in challenging the results.
“Mark (don’t want to wake you),” Ginni Thomas wrote to Meadows on Nov. 19. “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.”
Powell, who became infamous for saying she would “release the Kraken” (referring to a massive mythical sea monster) by exposing voter fraud, appeared alongside Trump’s then-personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump campaign counsel Jenna Ellis during a 90-minute press conference less than a week later, on Nov. 19, at the Republican National Committee. But her insistence on making unsupported claims about voting machines switching votes quickly led the Trump legal team to distance itself from her.
What was the extent of Clarence Thomas’s knowledge of his wife’s efforts?
Both Ginni and Clarence have gone on the record several times in their careers to call each other their “best friend,” so it became apparent whom she may have been referring to in one of her exchanges with Meadows.
“This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote of Trump’s post-election challenges. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”
Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting vote when the high court rejected Trump’s attempt to block the release of some presidential documents to the Jan. 6 committee.
But notably, retired Justice Stephen Breyer defended the autonomy of Ginni and Clarence in a recent interview.
Breyer said, “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,” adding that he refused to criticize either of them.
How much did she know of John Eastman’s alleged Jan. 6 plans?
Interest in Ginni Thomas by the Jan. 6 committee was prompted by her communications with Trump lawyer John Eastman, who has been subject to allegations of coordinating a plot to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the 2020 election results in Congress, despite knowing this would be unconstitutional.
Eastman was also allegedly part of a plan to install an alternate slate of electors to dispute election results, aiming to have Pence bring up the list as a means to delay the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Ginni has said she was part of the “stop the steal” protests in Washington, D.C., on the day of the Capitol attack, though she said she left before violence broke out.
In which states was Ginni Thomas encouraging lawmakers to find alternate electors?
Multiple reports have shown that Ginni was actively involved in efforts to overturn election results in Arizona and Wisconsin, according to emails she sent to state lawmakers urging them to “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure” and choose electors who would not declare Biden the winner of the election.
But it’s not clear whether her efforts extended to other states and localities where election results have been subject to scrutiny, such as Georgia’s Fulton County, where the district attorney opened a criminal investigation “into attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election.”
The investigation surrounds an alleged plot involving 16 Republicans who were fake electors, mirroring similar strategies touted by Eastman in the early days of Trump’s election fraud claims.
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Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a member of the committee, said on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday that the next Jan. 6 live televised hearing on Sept. 28 would be “more sweeping” than previous hearings, adding that there could be future criminal referrals.
Trump has maintained that he did nothing wrong and has cast the committee as partisan. Meanwhile, Ginni said in June that she “can’t wait to clear up misconceptions” with the committee and that she looks “forward to talking to them.”
