Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, shared in her interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that the Thomases have an “ironclad” rule not to talk about pending cases in the court.
Thomas testified that she has been active in public and policy work since she was in her 20s, “long before” she met her husband in 1986.
She also gave the committee her “guarantee” that her husband has never spoken to her about cases pending before the court.
“It’s an ironclad rule in our house,” Thomas said in a voluntary interview with the House select committee in September. A transcript of the interview was released by the panel on Friday.
Thomas also shared details about her husband, saying the justice was “uninterested” in politics and that she doesn’t discuss her day-to-day work with him, including who she was meeting with or texting.
Thomas said her husband was “completely unaware” of her text messages to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
“Let me also add, it is laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence — the man is independent and stubborn, with strong character traits of independence and integrity,” she said.
“Regarding the 2020 election, I did not speak to him at all about the details of my volunteer campaign activities, and I did not speak to him at all about the details of my post-election activities which were minimal in any event,” Thomas added.
The interview took place as a result of a months-long effort by the committee to interview the conservative activist, who reportedly exchanged emails with John Eastman, the lawyer who drafted memos for the Trump campaign outlining how then-Vice President Mike Pence could keep then-President Trump in power.
Thomas also texted Meadows and Arizona lawmakers regarding efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Reports revealed that in the weeks following the 2020 election, Thomas exchanged dozens of text messages with Meadows that appeared to show her strategizing over how to install Trump to a second White House term despite his loss to Biden, an outcome she then described as an “obvious fraud” and “the greatest heist of our history.”
Thomas shared in her testimony released Friday that she wanted to do “something about the fraud and irregularities at the state level because she “thought the election was not going the right way.”
However, she added later in the testimony when asked about her text messages to Meadows that she “regrets” the tone and content of the messages.
“I regret the tone and content of these texts. … It was just an emotional time,” she said.
Critics have previously said that in light of his wife’s political activities, the justice should have recused himself from any case tied to the Jan. 6 attack.
Hours after her testimony was made public, Thomas’s attorney, Mark Paoletta, said on Twitter that Thomas was not mentioned “once” in the committee’s 845-page final report.
“This is unsurprising, as the facts and this transcript demonstrate that Mrs. Thomas’s post-election activities were minimal and mainstream, and the committee had no legitimate reason to interview her.”
Despite that, Paoletta added that Thomas voluntarily met with the committee for the interview and “fully cooperated” with the inquiry.
He further slammed the Democrats and their “allies” for what he referred to as a “malicious and unrelenting assault” on Thomas along with “unsubstantiated smears.” He also alleged that someone on the committee leaked Thomas’s texts and emails to the press.
“Despite all the vitriol directed towards Mrs. Thomas, the committee concluded that none of her activities merited a single mention. To any fair observer, that conclusion was obvious from the beginning,” he added.