Insider
Clarence Thomas was the lone dissent in the Supreme Court’s January order rejecting Trump’s bid to withhold documents from the January 6 panel
Erin Snodgrass – March 24, 2022
- Text messages reportedly show Ginni Thomas urging Mark Meadows to overturn the 2020 US election.
- The news prompted scrutiny on Clarence Thomas’ lone dissent in a January 6-related case.
- Ginni Thomas has long participated in partisan politics despite her husband’s role on the court.
In January, the Supreme Court rejected former President Donald Trump’s bid to block the release of some presidential records to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot.
Only one of the nine justices dissented: Clarence Thomas.
At the time, Thomas provided no explanation for why he would have approved Trump’s request — a standard omission when the top court addresses emergency motions.
But Thomas’ objection fell under scrutiny Thursday after several outlets reported that the justice’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, sent text messages to Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, urging him to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the aftermath of Trump’s loss to Joe Biden.
The Washington Post reported that in a message from November 6, 2020, Ginni Thomas told Meadows not to concede the election, saying “it takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.” In a message November 10, 2020, Ginni Thomas declared Biden’s win “the greatest Heist of our History.”
In total, Ginni Thomas and Meadows exchanged 29 texts from November 2020 to January 2021, the outlet reported, all of which are now part of the trove of evidence the January 6 panel is investigating.
Meadows and Ginni Thomas didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.
CNN reported Thursday that the committee obtained the texts from Meadows. The former Trump official is believed to have turned over thousands of text messages before he stopped cooperating with the House panel late last year.
Ahead of the Supreme Court’s order on Trump’s White House documents, Meadows filed a supporting brief in favor of blocking the release of documents.
Ginni Thomas has come under scrutiny in recent months over her conservative advocacy given her husband’s position on the nation’s highest court. Earlier this month, she acknowledged attending the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol attack but said she got cold and left before Trump spoke.
She also denied having ties to the organizers of the rally after several news outlets reported that she was connected to January 6 rally organizers and served on the board of a conservative group that promoted overturning the 2020 election results.
Ginni Thomas has long been an active participant in partisan politics. In a recent interview with the Washington Free Beacon, she said she and her husband had their “own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too.”
“Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work,” she said.