The messages showed that Ms. Thomas relentlessly urged Mr. Meadows to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which she called a “robbery,” and said she had approached Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, about Mr. Trump’s legal issues. efforts to retain power. He even suggested the lawyer who should undertake this effort. The public revelation of the messages on Thursday focused new attention on an avenue of inquiry and risked creating a rare rift within the committee over how aggressively it should continue, including whether Ms. Thomas, Gini said, would be asked to testify. In Thomas, the committee faces a couple who have deep support networks across the Conservative movement and Washington, including inside the committee. The Republican vice-chairwoman, Liz Cheney, from Wyoming, led the indictment to hold Trump accountable for his efforts to overthrow the election, but she wanted to avoid any offensive that she saw as possible. to unjustly tarnish Judge Thomas, the highest member of the Supreme Court. Thus, although a debate has erupted within the committee over Mrs Thomas’s call to testify, the committee does not intend to do so at this time, leaving some Democrats disappointed. That could change, though: On Friday, despite possible political backlash, Ms Cheney said she had no objection to asking Ms Thomas for a voluntary interview with the panel. A New York Times survey last month looked at the political and personal history of Mrs. Thomas and her husband. This included its role in trying to overthrow the election by the nine-member board of CNP Action, a conservative group that helped promote the “Stop the Steal” movement and mediate between rival factions of the organizers “so that there is no division around January 6 “, as set by an organizer. During that period, the Supreme Court heard a number of election-related cases, with Judge Thomas occasionally taking sympathetic positions in Mr. Trump’s efforts to challenge the outcome. This month, Ms Thomas admitted to attending a rally that preceded the violence in an interview with a conservative media outlet, but otherwise downgraded her role. This was followed by the revelation of the texts to Mr. Meadows, the contents of which were reported earlier by the Washington Post and CBS News. If the committee does not summon Ms Thomas, some legal analysts have said, she runs the risk of appearing to have double standards. The panel has taken an aggressive stance against many other potential witnesses, issuing summonses to the banking and telephone records of both the former president’s high-ranking allies and low-level aides with only a tangent to the January 6 events. “I think it would be an omission not to bring her in and talk to her,” said Kimberly Welle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who has closely followed the committee’s work. “It certainly does not correspond to the neutral way of approaching them, ‘find the facts where they are going’.” The committee’s light contact with Ms. Thomas to date reflects a number of thoughts from both members and researchers, according to those familiar with the research. Some saw the persecution of Mrs. Thomas as a distraction from more important goals. Others worried that Ms Thomas’s pursuit could undermine Judge Thomas’s reputation as an icon at the Republican base. Still others argued that the committee could not have known the full extent of its role without further questions. And some members of the committee saw the text messages for the first time on Thursday. The lack of consent also underscores the extent to which Judge Thomas’s shadow, including his network of supporters and former employees, is reflected in various aspects of the investigation. Three of Judge Thomas’s former employees – a federal judge, a panel investigator and a key adviser to Mr. Trump – play a key role. A key figure in the effort to overthrow the election, lawyer John Eastman, was a former employee of Judge Thomas. John Wood, one of the top investigators on the Jan. 6 commission and another former Thomas employee, leads the so-called gold team that is looking into Mr. Trump’s inner circle. And a federal judge, Carl J. Nichols, who handles Capitol Uprising-related cases, is also a former employee of Judge Thomas. That momentum came during a vote in December by Eastman, who was asked by the committee to talk about his role in helping Trump try to overthrow the election. Mr Wood began his interrogation by noting that Mr Eastman had once served as a clerk for Judge Thomas. “Like you, John,” replied Mr. Eastman. For at least several weeks, committee officials debated whether to invite Ms Thomas to testify and whether to issue calls for any other communication she might have with the White House or the president’s legal team regarding the election. including a message he told Mr. Meadows that he had sent to Mr. Kushner, according to people familiar with the investigation. There are many guides to pursue. The committee could recall Dustin Stockton, a rally organizer who told the Times about a conversation he had with Caroline Wren, a Republican who helped raise money for the Jan. 6 “March for America,” in which he described Mrs. Thomas’s peace role. They could also remember Amy Kremer and Jenny Beth Martin, two rally organizers close to Mrs. Thomas, to ask about her post-election communications with them. It could summon files not only from Mrs Thomas, but also from CNP Action, which was deeply involved in trying to spread election fraud. Investigators could ask her the name of the friend she was referring to when she wrote back to thank Mr Meadows, saying: “He needed it! That’s a conversation with my best friend right now… I’ll try to keep it. ” (Mrs. Thomas and her husband have publicly referred to each other as their best friends.) Eventually, they might ask her if she had discussed with her husband Mr. Trump’s struggle to overturn the election. Judge Thomas declined to comment on the matter through a spokesman. Ms. Thomas’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In particular, some Republicans have acknowledged that Ms Thomas’s texts to Mr Meadows were wrong – especially those in which he urged Mr Meadows to sue Sidney Powell, a lawyer who had argued conspiracy theories against him. legal team. However, Republicans, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were concerned about being criticized by Ms. the Parliament in the November elections.
Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key Developments
Card 1 of 3 The text messages of Virginia Thomas. In the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent several text messages asking Mark Meadows, President Donald Jr.’s chief of staff. Trump, take action to overturn the vote. Possible contempt charges. The House Committee on the Capitol Attack said it would consider defamation by Congress against Peter Navarro, a former White House adviser, and Dan Scavino Jr., a former deputy chief of staff, for refusing to comply. of. Requests for “cancellation” of the elections. Spokesman Mo Brooks, who challenged President Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, claimed that Donald Jay Trump had asked him to “revoke” the election illegally. The statement came after Mr. Trump withdrew his support for Mr. Brooks in the GOP by-elections for the Alabama Senate. Conservatives have long viewed Ms Thomas’s criticism as an attack on Judge Thomas. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. The media “seek to present Ginny Thomas’s public policy work as a threat to the Supreme Court in order to force Thomas to withdraw from any case that Ginny has commented on or any of the groups he has worked with,” he wrote. an article for The Washington Examiner. Judge Thomas could look into a long list of important legal issues around January 6 in the coming months. He may be asked to rule on issues related to the persecution of Congressman Stephen K. Bannon, a former aide to Mr. Trump, or on the House committee’s efforts to receive emails from Mr. Eastman. Judge Nichols, a former employee of Judge Thomas, is overseeing the prosecution of Mr Bannon, who was charged with contempt of Congress in November after refusing to comply with the commission’s summons. The judge is also handling high-profile defamation lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems last year against two lawyers closely associated with Mr. Trump: Rudolf W. Giuliani and Ms. Powell. Most importantly, Judge Nichols is the only federal lawyer in Washington to date who has dismissed the Justice Department’s key obstruction used by the Justice Department against hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants to describe the political consequences of an attack. Trump at the Capitol. Unlike 12 other federal judges, Judge Nichols wrote in a ruling this month that prosecutors had …
