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Although Ginni Thomas has said she would testify before the Jan. 6 committee, her lawyer is requesting investigators offer “better justification” for why she should appear for questioning.
Mark Paoletta, the lawyer, wrote a letter dated Tuesday that raises concerns about a lack of sufficient reasoning to warrant testimony and raised concerns that the panel will treat her client unfairly, citing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) decision to reject some of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) picks for Republican lawmakers to sit on the committee.
GINNI THOMAS ‘CAN’T WAIT TO CLEAR UP MISCONCEPTIONS’ IN JAN. 6 PANEL TESTIMONY: REPORT
“As she has already indicated, Mrs. Thomas is eager to clear her name and is willing to appear before the Committee to do so,” Paoletta said in his letter to the Jan. 6 committee, which was first obtained by the Daily Caller. “However, based on my understanding of the communications that spurred the Committee’s request, I do not understand the need to speak with Mrs. Thomas. Before I can recommend that she meet with you, I am asking the Committee to provide a better justification for why Mrs. Thomas’s testimony is relevant to the Committee’s legislative purpose.”
The Jan. 6 committee requested Thomas’s cooperation to sit down for an interview with the panel on June 16, citing communications between Thomas and John Eastman, a Trump-linked conservative lawyer who wrote up memos about overturning the 2020 election results, including throwing out electors. Eastman provided the emails after being subpoenaed by the committee and an ensuing legal fight.
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However, these emails do not provide a basis for the panel to interview Thomas, Thomas’s lawyer said, because lawmakers failed to produce evidence or cite specific communications between the two that prove coordination between Thomas and Eastman, who has also denied that he coordinated with either Thomas or her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to talk strategy in relation to election litigation at the high court.
“Not a single document shows any coordination between Mrs. Thomas and Mr. Eastman,” Paoletta wrote. “And further, all of these emails were exchanged on or before December 9, before the electors met and were certified by each of their states.”
Another reason the committee may be seeking Ginni Thomas’s testimony is because of text messages she had sent then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that pushed him to aid in overturning the election results, according to copies of texts obtained by multiple outlets in March. These messages are “entirely unremarkable,” her lawyer argued, and were simply personal text messages that were sent by a private citizen to a friend.
Ginni Thomas had also sent emails to at least 29 Republican lawmakers in Arizona urging them to “choose” new electors to reverse former President Donald Trump’s loss, according to emails obtained by the Washington Post. Paoletta argued the emails did not warrant an interview with the panel because Ginni Thomas did not draft or edit the message or organize the email campaign.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“You, like all members of Congress, receive hundreds, if not thousands, of form letters and emails each week,” he wrote. “And I am confident that you do not treat each such form letter as a weighty personal letter that may change your actions. Rather, you understand that they are typically generated by constituents with a view about a particular topic who are willing to push a few buttons. Indeed, the email Mrs. Thomas sent was also sent by other citizens over 48,000 times.”
The Jan. 6 committee has not yet publicly responded to Paoletta’s letter, and the panel did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
