'minimal and mainstream activity'

Ginni Thomas meets with Jan. 6 committee, reiterates 2020 fraudulent election claims

Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas, met with the House Jan. 6 committee behind closed doors for more than four hours on Thursday. The Jan. 6 panel had been trying to secure an interview with Thomas for months, and she is one of the final major witnesses to sit down with the panel before it concludes its investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob trying to stop the certification of President Biden's electoral victory. 

The Jan. 6 committee wanted to ask Thomas about her conspiracy-laced text messages with Mark Meadows when he was former President Donald Trump's White House chief of staff, her communications with lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin urging them to try to overturn Biden's victory, and her contacts with John Eastman, the architect of Trump's legal effort to illicitly keep Trump in power.

Thomas told the panel she still believes the 2020 election was riddle with fraud but provided no evidence, Jan. 6 committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters after the interview. "The information was typical of a lot of information we received from other people who were involved in this effort around Jan. 6. A lot of: 'Well, I believed something was wrong,'" he said. Thomas answered "some questions," Thompson added. "At this point, we're glad she came."

Thomas' lawyer, Mark Paoletta, said his client was "happy to cooperate" and "answered all of the committee's questions" on Thursday. "As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas had significant concerns about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election," and she told the committee "her minimal and mainstream activity focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated," he added. "Beyond that, she played no role in any events after the 2020 election results." 

The Jan. 6 committee has at least one more public hearing in the works. It was scheduled for this week but postponed due to Hurricane Ian, and no new date has been set.