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."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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.
-
Political cartoons for January 19Cartoons Monday's political cartoons include Greenland tariffs, fighting the Fed, and more
-
Spain’s deadly high-speed train crashThe Explainer The country experienced its worst rail accident since 2013, with the death toll of 39 ‘not yet final’
-
Can Starmer continue to walk the Trump tightrope?Today's Big Question PM condemns US tariff threat but is less confrontational than some European allies
-
The billionaires’ wealth tax: a catastrophe for California?Talking Point Peter Thiel and Larry Page preparing to change state residency
-
Hegseth moves to demote Sen. Kelly over videospeed read Retired Navy fighter pilot Mark Kelly appeared in a video reminding military service members that they can ‘refuse illegal orders’
-
Trump says US ‘in charge’ of Venezuela after Maduro grabSpeed Read The American president claims the US will ‘run’ Venezuela for an unspecified amount of time, contradicting a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio
-
Bari Weiss’ ‘60 Minutes’ scandal is about more than one reportIN THE SPOTLIGHT By blocking an approved segment on a controversial prison holding US deportees in El Salvador, the editor-in-chief of CBS News has become the main story
-
CBS pulls ‘60 Minutes’ report on Trump deporteesSpeed Read An investigation into the deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s notorious prison was scrapped
-
Trump administration posts sliver of Epstein filesSpeed Read Many of the Justice Department documents were heavily redacted, though new photos of both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton emerged
-
Trump HHS moves to end care for trans youthSpeed Read The administration is making sweeping proposals that would eliminate gender-affirming care for Americans under age 18
-
Jack Smith tells House of ‘proof’ of Trump’s crimesSpeed Read President Donald Trump ‘engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,’ hoarded classified documents and ‘repeatedly tried to obstruct justice’
