Ginni Thomas, a far right activist and wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, admitted in an interview published on Monday that she attended the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building.
Thomas told The Washington Free Beacon that she attended the rally in support of former President Donald Trump, who gave a speech pushing false claims of election fraud briefly before the attack, urging his followers to go to the Capitol to “take back” the country. However, Thomas insisted that she had left early due to cold weather. (The temperatures that afternoon were in the low 40s.)
Although Thomas disputed claims that she had helped organize the rally, her defense goes against what some journalists have documented. “Three separate sources have told me they believe they saw Ginni Thomas at the Willard on Jan. 6,” journalist Hunter Walker tweeted in response to the interview. “That’s the hotel where rally planners had a headquarters and the Trump allies working to overturn the election had a ‘command center.'”
Notably, Clarence Thomas has never recused himself from any case that involved his wife’s far right advocacy.
There is no formal process requiring justices of the Court to recuse themselves. Rather, they are expected to follow the Judicial Code, though doing so is up to the discretion of the justices themselves. That provision of the code reads:
Any justice, judge or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify himself [or herself] in any proceeding in which his [or her] impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
In the interview, Ginni Thomas defended her activism and her husband’s work on the Court, arguing that their work does not intersect.
“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles and aspirations for America. But we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too,” Ginni Thomas said.
However, Justice Thomas recently ruled on a case that now appears to be a possible conflict of interest. When the Supreme Court ruled in January of this year that Trump’s executive privilege claims should be waived — and that documents and material relating to the Capitol attack should be shared with the select committee investigating the day’s events — Thomas was the sole dissenter in the case.
One month prior to that ruling, Ginni Thomas led a disinformation campaign against the January 6 committee, alleging that the mob did “nothing wrong” and saying that the committee’s work was “overtly partisan” — comments that misrepresent the facts of that day, including the violence from far right Trump supporters.
Noah Bookbinder, president of the watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), noted Clarence Thomas’s apparent conflict of interest in the case, especially in light of new revelations that his wife was at the rally on January 6.
“Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone vote to block the House Select Committee from getting January 6th documents from Donald Trump,” Bookbinder observed. “We know now that his wife participated in the Jan. 6 rally. That creates a clear appearance of bias and a possible major conflict of interest.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy