Ginni Thomas, a longtime GOP activist who is also the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, will appear Thursday before the House Jan. 6 panel. The closed-door session was confirmed by sources familiar with the committee’s work.
The committee first asked to interview Ginni Thomas about her communications with those pushing a plan to reject the results of the 2020 election, including her discussions with John Eastman, one of the leaders of the campaign. Eastman, a conservative attorney, drafted a memo outlining a plan to reject the electoral votes in several states, and was an outside legal advisor to President Donald Trump in late 2020.
Thomas has acknowledged she attended a Trump rally the morning of Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, but criticized the violence at the Capitol that followed the rally. In the weeks leading up to the attack on the Capitol Thomas reached out to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, in text messages raising concerns about voter fraud. Legal challenges in several states alleging fraud in the 2020 election were all rejected by courts.
White House attorneys and counsels for then-Vice President Mike Pence pushed back against Eastman and other Trump allies’ efforts to have Congress overturn the election results, saying it violated the Constitution and would be soundly rejected by the Supreme Court if the matter was ever argued there. The court refused to hear election challenges by Trump and his allies and Justice Thomas dissented, saying the justices should have heard the case. Some critics argued he should have recused himself from cases surrounding the election due to his wife’s political advocacy.
After the publication of her communications with Meadows Thomas said she was willing to appear, and months of negotiations followed.
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