WASHINGTON – The wife of the longest-serving current United States Supreme Court justice has been called to testify about her ties to Donald Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election, lawmakers investigating the scheme said yesterday.
The announcement came amid media reports that Ginni Thomas, whose husband Clarence Thomas has been on the court since 1991, had been in touch with a key architect of Trump’s alleged conspiracy to stay in power.
“We have sent Miss Thomas a letter asking (her) to come and talk to the committee,” Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House committee investigating the 2021 US Capitol assault, told reporters.
Thomas appeared open to an interview, telling right-wing outlet The Daily Caller she was looking forward to the opportunity to “clear up misconceptions”.
Earlier this year, members of the committee said they would not pursue testimony from Thomas, as they did not consider her central to their probe.
But the committee has reportedly obtained email correspondence between Thomas and Trump’s lawyer John Eastman, who devised the discredited legal strategy that Trump’ vice-president Mike Pence could unilaterally invalidate Joe Biden’s victory.
The committee maintains that Trump’s relentless pursuit of this scheme led to the violence at the Capitol, which was linked to at least five deaths.
Thomas, a hard-line conservative activist, sent a series of text messages to Trump’s chief of staff urging White House officials to ignore the will of voters and return the defeated president to power.
The trove of messages, obtained by the investigation, demonstrated that Thomas was completely committed to the campaign to push Trump’s bogus claims of voter fraud.
A federal judge recently ordered Eastman to turn over documents to the committee from the period after the election when he began pushing to have the outcome nullified.
The judge said in March it was “more likely than not” that Trump and Eastman had committed felonies – including conspiracy to defraud the United States – as part of their scheme.
Thomas has admitted she was at Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the violence erupted on January 6, last year, but says she left early.
Justice Thomas has not recused himself from several cases related to 2020 election controversies, sparking criticism from liberal opponents, although his wife says her activism has nothing to do with his work. – AFP, June 17, 2022
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