{"id":2007,"date":"2022-03-25T23:46:43","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T23:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/ginni-thomas-pressed-trumps-chief-of-staff-to-overturn-2020-vote-texts-show-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2022-03-25T23:46:43","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T23:46:43","slug":"ginni-thomas-pressed-trumps-chief-of-staff-to-overturn-2020-vote-texts-show-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/25\/ginni-thomas-pressed-trumps-chief-of-staff-to-overturn-2020-vote-texts-show-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Ginni Thomas Pressed Trump's Chief of Staff to Overturn 2020 Vote, Texts Show – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Messages between Justice Clarence Thomas\u2019s wife and Mark Meadows are the first evidence that she directly advised the White House to reverse the election results.
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By <\/span>Danny Hakim<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Luke Broadwater<\/a><\/span> and Jo Becker<\/a><\/span>
In the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent a barrage of text messages imploring President Donald J. Trump\u2019s chief of staff to take steps to overturn the vote, according to a person with knowledge of the texts.
In one message sent in the days after the election, she urged the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to \u201crelease the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down,\u201d invoking a slogan popular on the right that refers to a web of conspiracy theories that Trump supporters believed would overturn the election.
In another, she wrote: \u201cI can\u2019t see Americans swallowing the obvious fraud. Just going with one more thing with no frickin consequences.\u201d She added: \u201cWe just cave to people wanting Biden to be anointed? Many of us can\u2019t continue the GOP charade.\u201d
The contents of the texts were reported earlier by The Washington Post<\/a> and CBS News<\/a>. They were among about 9,000 pages of documents that Mr. Meadows turned over to the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The texts detailed Mr. Meadows\u2019s interactions with Republican politicians as they planned strategies to try to keep Mr. Trump in office in the weeks before the riot.
The committee obtained 29 texts between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Meadows \u2014 28 exchanged between Nov. 4 and Nov. 24, and one written on Jan. 10. The text messages, most of which were written by Ms. Thomas, represent the first evidence that she was directly advising the White House as it sought to overturn the election. In fact, in her efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power, Ms. Thomas effectively toggled between like-minded members of the executive and legislative branches, even as her husband, who sits atop the judiciary branch that is supposed to serve as a check on the other branches of government, heard election-related cases.
Justice Thomas has been Mr. Trump\u2019s most stalwart defender on the court. In February 2021, he wrote a dissent after the majority declined to hear a case filed by Pennsylvania Republicans that sought to disqualify certain mail-in ballots. And this past January, he was the only justice who voted against allowing the release of records from the Trump White House related to the Jan. 6 attack.<\/a>
Ms. Thomas has actively opposed the Jan. 6 committee and its work, co-signing a letter in December calling for House Republicans to expel Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from their conference for joining the committee. Ms. Thomas and her co-authors said the investigation \u201cbrings disrespect to our country\u2019s rule of law\u201d and \u201clegal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong,\u201d adding that they would begin \u201ca nationwide movement to add citizens\u2019 voices to this effort.\u201d
Many of Ms. Thomas\u2019s postelection texts are rambling, with little attention to punctuation, and they run the gamut. She calls Nov. 3, Election Day, a \u201cheist,\u201d and repeats debunked conspiracy theories, including one pushed by QAnon that falsely alleged that voter fraud had been discovered in Arizona on secretly watermarked ballots.
The texts show she was communicating not only with Mr. Meadows, but also with Connie Hair, the chief of staff to Louie Gohmert, the Texas Republican congressman who sued Vice President Mike Pence to force him to certify Mr. Trump as the victor of the 2020 election.
The text traffic also suggests that Ms. Thomas was in contact with Jared Kushner, the former president\u2019s son-in-law and adviser. Sidney Powell, the lawyer advising Trump\u2019s campaign team known for unleashing wild theories about voting fraud, comes up repeatedly. On Nov. 13, for instance, Mr. Trump included Ms. Powell in a tweeted list of his team\u2019s lawyers. That same day, Ms. Thomas urged Mr. Meadows to support Ms. Powell, and said she had also reached out to \u201cJared\u201d to do the same: \u201cJust forwarded to yr gmail an email I sent Jared this am,\u201d she wrote. \u201cSidney Powell & improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved.\u201d
When some of the president\u2019s other lawyers began distancing themselves from Ms. Powell, Ms. Thomas warned Mr. Meadows not to \u201ccave\u201d to the \u201celites.\u201d
In one text exchange right after the election, she tells Mr. Meadows that he needs to listen to Steve Pieczenik, a onetime State Department consultant who has appeared on Alex Jones\u2019s Infowars to claim, among other things, that the Sandy Hook school massacre was a false-flag operation.
She also quoted language circulating on pro-Trump sites that said, \u201cBiden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.\u201d She added: \u201cI hope this is true.\u201d
Ms. Thomas and Mr. Meadows have been like-minded associates for years, and she bestowed an award on him at a 2019 gathering of conservatives. While Ms. Thomas already had access to the president, White House aides said her influence increased after Mr. Trump named Mr. Meadows chief of staff in March 2020<\/a>.
Mr. Meadows is no longer cooperating with the committee; a lawyer for Mr. Meadows, George J. Terwilliger III, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Nor did Ms. Thomas or the Supreme Court. Mr. Terwilliger has argued that Mr. Meadows cooperated as much as he could without violating Mr. Trump\u2019s assertions of executive privilege, and Mr. Meadows has filed suit against the panel to seek a court ruling to determine the validity of those assertions of executive privilege. Others challenging the committee\u2019s subpoenas in court include John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and former clerk to Justice Thomas who wrote a memo arguing that Mr. Pence had the power to reject Electoral College votes for President Biden. Both cases could end up before the Supreme Court.
A New York Times investigation<\/a> published in February highlighted Ms. Thomas\u2019s postelection activities, including her role on the board of CNP Action, a conservative group that worked to advance efforts to overturn the election even as she was texting Mr. Meadows. In one document, it instructed members to pressure Republican lawmakers into challenging the results and appointing alternate slates of electors: \u201cDemand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities during a time such as this.\u201d
Virginia Thomas\u2019 text messages. <\/strong>In the weeks before the Jan. 6 attack, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent several text messages<\/a>\u00a0imploring Mark Meadows, President Donald J. Trump\u2019s chief of staff, to take steps to overturn the vote.<\/span>
Potential contempt charges. <\/strong>The House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol said that it would consider contempt of Congress charges<\/a>\u00a0against Peter Navarro, a former White House adviser, and Dan Scavino Jr., a former deputy chief of staff, for refusing to comply with its subpoenas.<\/span>
Requests to \u201crescind\u201d the election. <\/strong>Representative Mo Brooks, who challenged President Biden\u2019s victory on Jan. 6, claimed that Donald J. Trump had asked him to illegally \u201crescind\u201d the election<\/a>. The statement came after Mr. Trump withdrew his endorsement of Mr. Brooks in the G.O.P. primary for Alabama\u2019s Senate seat.<\/span>
In recently published remarks<\/a>, Ms. Thomas downplayed her role at the group, but also said she had attended the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse in Washington. She added that she \u201cwas disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering.\u201d
She also said she \u201cplayed no role with those who were planning and leading the Jan. 6 events.\u201d But those comments are undercut by her communications with Mr. Meadows, who was deeply<\/a> involved<\/a> in the planning of the Jan. 6 protests.
In her one text to Mr. Meadows after the attack that the committee was able to obtain, she only briefly mentions what took place, and only after reiterating one of its animating ideas \u2014 that Mr. Pence had betrayed Mr. Trump\u2019s movement.
She writes of feeling that \u201cwe are living in what feels like the end of America. Most of us are disgusted with the VP and are in listening mode to see where to fight with our teams. Those who attacked the Capitol are not representative of our great teams of patriots for DJT!! Amazing times. The end of liberty.\u201d
Ms. Thomas has been a longtime political activist on the far right, and she and her husband have been a frequent presence at partisan political conferences. That has long led to calls for Mr. Thomas to recuse himself from cases in which his wife has an interest, but he has rejected such suggestions. He once said<\/a> his wife worked \u201c24\/7 every day in defense of liberty,\u201d adding, \u201cWe are equally yoked, and we love being with each other because we love the same things.\u201d
Stephen Gillers, a law professor and judicial ethics expert at New York University, said that while Ms. Thomas is free to exercise her First Amendment rights, her texts crossed a line.
\u201cThe consequences of what she\u2019s done is that I don\u2019t think that Clarence Thomas can sit on any case involving, even remotely, the conduct of the election, the vote of Congress on Jan. 6, or any cases involving the Jan. 6 committee\u2019s attempts to get information, including the committee\u2019s efforts to get Eastman\u2019s emails,\u201d he said. \u201cHe must recuse himself, and should have recused himself in the cases that have been heard up to now.\u201d
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