A move to seek cooperation from Ginny Thomas, who was revealed to have pressured former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows to overturn the results of the 2020 election, would be one of the most aggressive steps taken by the commission. In private discussions on Friday, several members of the selection committee discussed whether the committee should ask Thomas to appear before the committee voluntarily or to order documents and testimony by summons, sources said. Members also discussed the scope of any formal request for co-operation and whether any information Thomas could be willing to provide would actually help the selection committee determine if January 6 was a criminal conspiracy, the sources said. At least part of Thomas’ reluctance to seek co-operation seemed to focus on concerns that he might not have intended to help the commission and could seek to create a spectacle that could distract from the investigation, sources said. Thomas, for example, remains a close friend of prominent right-wing politicians, including Trump’s former general, Steve Bannon, who openly defied a summons last year as he tried to undermine the select committee’s legitimacy. A panel representative declined to comment. However, some members plan to gather and discuss the issue in person before a business meeting on Monday to scorn Congress aides Trump Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro, sources said. Thomas is under intense scrutiny for working as a Republican activist while her husband sits in the Supreme Court after the Washington Post and CBS reported that he pressured Trump’s top White House adviser to overturn the 2020 election results. In one of Ginny Thomas’s 29 text messages delivered to the select committee, Thomas also pressured the former White House Chief of Staff to appoint conspiracy theorist and attorney Sidney Powell to lead his campaign team. The communications are important as they represent the first evidence that she was advising the White House on how to bring Trump back to power by any means, while her husband ruled on cases that sought to change the outcome of the election. However, Meadows did not send text messages between November 24 and January 10, the Washington Post and CBS reported – a communication loophole that overlaps with the Capitol attack and is almost certain to be of interest to the commission.
