Ginni Thomas Tells J6 Panel She Regrets Post-Election Texts

WASHINGTON — The wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, Virginia Thomas, says she regrets sending texts to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, after the 2020 election, telling the House January 6 committee that “I would take them all back if I could today.”Mrs. Thomas — known as Ginni — is a longtime conservative activist. In a transcript of the interview released by the panel on Friday, she told investigators she was “emotional” after the election when she sent several texts to Mr. Meadows urging him to stand firm with President Trump as he falsely claimed that there was widespread fraud in the election.In the texts, she bemoaned the state of American politics and called the election a “heist.” Mrs. Thomas told the panel she still feels there were election irregularities, but she does believe that the president of the United States is Joseph Biden.“You know, it was an emotional time,” Mrs. Thomas told the committee. “I’m sorry these texts exist.”The nine-member panel sought Mrs. Thomas’s interview, and she appeared voluntarily. While Mrs. Thomas urged Mr. Meadows to act, and she is married to one of nine Supreme Court justices who were at the time reviewing Mr. Trump’s election challenges, investigators did not believe she played a major role in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election or his inaction as the attack unfolded. Her name does not appear once in the committee’s final report released last week.Still, the committee sought to speak to her as it built a comprehensive account of the January 6, 2021, riot and the weeks beforehand. The committee’s chairman and vice chairwoman, Representatives Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, said the panel wanted to speak to her after her name came up in communications with other witnesses.Mrs. Thomas’ lawyer, Mark Paoletta, said in a statement Friday that her absence from the report was a conclusion that “was obvious from the beginning” and that her post-election activities were “minimal and mainstream.”In the interview, Mrs. Thomas characterized herself as an “instigator” of Groundswell and other conservative advocacy groups that have met weekly as a coalition for years. She and her husband are longtime associates of lawyer John Eastman, an architect of the scheme to have several 2020 battleground states send alternative electors for Mr. Trump, rather than Mr. Biden.Mrs. Thomas said that while she was interested in pursuing claims of voter fraud, she had largely stepped aside during the aftermath of the election because she felt her presence as the wife of Justice Thomas often “chilled” the discussion. She insisted she operated separately from her husband.“It’s laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence,” she said. “The man is independent and stubborn.”Mrs. Thomas said throughout the interview that she still had concerns about election fraud, but offered little evidence. Pressed by the investigators about her post-election efforts to challenge the election results, Mrs. Thomas demurred.When the panel told her that Trump-aligned lawyer Cleta Mitchell testified under oath that Mrs. Thomas had asked her about potential fraud in Georgia’s elections, Mrs. Thomas said she could not recall the conversation.“I don’t have any memory of it,” Mrs. Thomas told investigators. “Anything I was doing was looking for fraud and irregularities in the election, not to overturn it.”Multiple times, the lawmakers delved more pointedly into Mrs. Thomas’s responses — and she had few specifics to offer in return.“I think I understood you to say you never saw any list of fraud or irregularities,” Ms. Cheney asked her at one point.“Right,” Mrs. Thomas responded. “I know. I wasn’t very deep.”“But you’re confident there was fraud and irregularities?” Ms. Cheney continued.“I was hearing it, Congresswoman, from a lot of people I trust,” Mrs. Thomas said.Ms. Cheney asked Mrs. Thomas if she was aware that Mr. Trump’s own advisers, attorney general and others had told him there was no fraud that would change the outcome of the election.“That was news to me, Congresswoman,” Mrs. Thomas replied.Ms. Cheney asked when she became aware of that.“I think sometime after this committee started its work,” Mrs. Thomas replied.But Mrs. Thomas said even if she had been aware, it wouldn’t change her views. “I just think there’s still concerns,” Mrs. Thomas said, while also acknowledging that Mr. Biden is the president.Over and again, the panel confronted Mrs. Thomas with her own words, including a text to Mr. Meadows a week after the election in which she suggested lawyer Sidney Powell “will help the cavalry come and fraud exposed and America saved.” Ms. Powell was behind some of the most outrageous claims by Mr. Trump’s allies, including that foreign countries were hacking voting machines.Mrs. Thomas explained to investigators that at the time she didn’t really know Ms. Powell, and as she learned more in the weeks to come, “I kind of got off that train.”She also told investigators she reached out to Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as she tried to encourage the defeated president’s team to investigate potential voter fraud after the 2020 election.“I was trying to buck him up and encourage him to stand firm until all the evidence is in,” Mrs. Thomas told investigators she wrote to Mr. Kushner in an email.At one point, she did elicit sympathy from the investigators.“I think it might be a unanimous view of everyone on this call and in this room that I don’t know how many of you would want your texts to become public on the front page of The Washington Post,” Mrs. Thomas said, referring to the first reports of her communications.“I understand that,” said Representative Adam Schiff, a Democratic member of the committee. “And I’m sure you’re right, no would like to see their personal texts in the newspaper.”__By Mary Clare Jalonick And Lisa Mascaro. Writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

Ginni Thomas Tells J6 Panel She Regrets Post-Election Texts

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