According to reports, Ginni Thomas pushed Trump’s chief of staff to try to have the election nullified.
Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife reportedly pushed President Trump’s senior adviser to try to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Meadows provided the texts to the House committee looking into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. He eventually ceased helping the commission.
In these exchanges, Ginni Thomas is hinted to have communicated with members of the White House and Trump’s legal staff.
The chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News, Robert Costa, told NPR that Ginni Thomas contacted Meadows a few days after the election, when “President Trump was already eyeing a potential hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Between November 2020 and January 2021, “that was the beginning of a 29 text-message exchange,” Costa said.
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Contents
This is not Ginni Thomas’s First Brush with Controversy.
This month, Ginni Thomas responded to criticism that she and her Supreme Court justice husband have a conflict of interest due to her conservative advocacy.
According to an interview she gave to the conservative news outlet The Washington Free Beacon, she did in fact attend the January 6 protest that preceded the violence at the Capitol, but she departed before Trump spoke at noon and before the rioters penetrated the Capitol complex.
Whether or not Thomas was aware of his wife’s correspondence with Meadows, he authored a scathing dissent when the Supreme Court refused to hear election challenges made by Trump and his allies in February 2021, a month after Joe Biden was sworn in as president.
The text exchanges prompt moral concerns about whether or not Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from election-related issues last year and in the future. Law professor and author of seminal legal ethics texts Stephen Gillers of New York University tells NPR that the newly released documents have caused him to rethink his positions on these issues.
He explained that she joined “Stop the Steal” because “by reaching out to Mark Meadows and maybe others, [she] became part of the team.” Their plan “included eventual appeals to the Supreme Court if necessary.”
Gillers argues that even if Clarence Thomas didn’t know what his wife was doing, he would have had to wilfully ignore her actions, as shown by these texts, and that he clearly knows now.
Further highlights from NPR’s discussion with Costa and the information revealed by the text texts are included below.
Summary of the Interview
Considering the Interconnectedness of the Several Branches of American Government as Depicted in the Texts
Just incredible. The spouse of a Supreme Court justice is in communication with the White House’s chief of staff, one of the highest-ranking executives and officials in the executive branch, and the two have had at least some conversations about the legislative branch.
There is this web of interconnected individuals and organisations within the United States government, all of whom share an interest in preventing Joe Biden from becoming president in 2020 by any means necessary (including illegal means), and who are occasionally in touch with one another to discuss legal strategy.
If Ginni Thomas Mentioned her Husband in the Writings
The Supreme Court and Justice Thomas… are never clearly referenced, which is something to keep in mind. In addition, Justice Thomas and Ginni Thomas have been contacted multiple times in an effort to gain insight. We have heard nothing back from them as of yet.
Nonetheless, Ginni Thomas makes reference to a best friend in her text chats. Who she is talking about in this context is unclear. Supreme Court justice Clarence and Ginni Thomas have publicly referred to each other as “best friends” in speeches and in public papers. But once again, we have no idea who she is talking about. Once, she even brings up his confirmation hearings from 1991.
Regarding Meadows’s reactions to Ginni Thomas’s Communications.
Occasionally, he seems to take what she’s saying to heart. This is not just an election, he says, invoking his religious beliefs and referring to God as the “King of Kings.” He casts the conflict as a struggle between good and evil.
On the Potential for Bias if the Spouse of a Supreme Court Justice Confers with the White House Chief of Staff in an Effort to Overturn the Results of a Presidential Election.
As of right now, we have no idea if Ginni Thomas’ messages to Mark Meadows were even known about. Were they a piece of that hoard at the time? Was he aware that his ruling would involve a committee and that their records would include her messages?
So, to sum up, was he making a decision about something in which his wife was involved?
More broadly, he has rendered decisions in various matters involving Trump. Even though he had a hand in dismissing several election cases, he insisted in writing that they should be heard.
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Concerning Potential Repercussions for Clarence Thomas
There is little monitoring of Supreme Court justices except the Congress.
Supreme Court justices are subject to impeachment, but there is no institutionalised system of review or governing framework for the court; hence, the fate of the institution ultimately rests with Congress.
