Drew Angerer | Getty Images Virginia “Ginni” Thomas runs a little-known consulting firm that some campaign monitoring groups say could spark another conflict of interest for her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Ginny Thomas hit national notoriety when text messages surfaced last month showing her pushing then-President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in late 2020 to try to overturn the results of the presidential election. The messages sparked calls from top Democrats for Clarence Thomas to clear himself of cases pending the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol uprising. It also led to calls by lawmakers on Capitol Hill for the creation of a formal code of conduct for the Supreme Court. The House select committee investigating what happened on January 6 is reportedly seeking an interview with Ginny Thomas. A representative of the Supreme Court did not respond to requests for comment. Attempts to contact Ginny Thomas via an email listed on her website were unsuccessful. The site appears to have been shut down following recent reports of meadows. Very little is known about her company, Liberty Consulting, which is listed as an asset in her husband’s Supreme Court revelations. CNBC was able to find some of its conservative clients by scouring Virginia’s business records, tax forms, Federal Election archives, personal financial disclosure documents, and interviewing people familiar with its work. Even so, security officials say such documents may not fully disclose who he represents and whether these groups have links to cases before the court, raising calls for more transparency.
“Very problematic”
“It’s very problematic,” Richard Payder, the White House’s White House’s ethics lawyer, said in a recent telephone interview about Ginny Thomas’s work. Supreme Court rules do not require spouses to disclose publicly how much they earn or if they work with anyone who could have a stake in a Supreme Court case – something that could provoke a conflict with her husband and force him to retire from certain cases, Painter said. Kendrick Payne, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, also said that any financial interests associated with a judge’s wife that could reach court could lead to a judge being acquitted. “The law is clear that a justice with questionable impartiality must leave a case. Cases involving the financial or other important interests of a judge’s spouse always raise red flags that can trigger the acquittal,” Payne told CNBC. . Clarence Thomas has retired 54 times since the 1990s, 17 of them to avoid a possible conflict of interest perception created by his son, according to the Huffington Post.
Distinguished careers
Ginny Thomas, in a recent interview with the Washington Free Beacon, dismissed any potential conflict of interest from her job. “We have our own distinct careers, and our own ideas and opinions as well. Clarence does not discuss his work with me and I do not involve him in my work,” he said in a recent post. She noted her work for Liberty Consulting in that interview, but did not reveal her clients. However, Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Sumer, have said they want to create a code of conduct for Supreme Court justices that could include more specific disclosure requirements. In the case of Ginny Thomas, the financial statements of the court only show that she receives a salary and benefits from her company, without revealing the details, and notes the book value of the business. Located in an unspecified shopping mall on the outskirts of Virginia, Liberty Consulting’s few known clients range from the Center for Security Policy, a non-profit organization founded by a conservative activist accused of anti-Muslim rhetoric to a political action committee. FedUp PAC, according to a review. of public archives by CNBC and researchers at watchdog Documented. The Political Action Committee has backed the failed Alabama Senate nominee Roy Moore, according to the Center for Employment Policy. Moore was charged with sexual harassment and denied any wrongdoing. The Center for Political Security was set up by Frank Gaffney Jr., a former Reagan administration defense official who has since been labeled by the Anti-Defamation Union for promoting “certain anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.” Both Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy were among a group of supporters who submitted a friendly petition to the Supreme Court in support of Trump’s travel ban. The center paid Liberty Consulting more than $ 200,000 over two years, from 2017 to 2018, according to 990 tax reporting reports from those years. The company’s work for the Civil Security Center was first reported by The New Yorker.
Liberty Central
Thomas is also said to have done previous work for companies affiliated with conservative judicial adviser Leonard Leo, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named to speak freely on the matter. Ginny Thomas considers Leo a mentor, according to the Washington Post. Leo previously served as the director of a conservative non-profit organization led by Ginny Thomas called Liberty Central during the administration of former President Barack Obama, according to tax revelations 990. Ginny Thomas boasted that “Bigger than the tea party” and aimed at Obama’s agenda, including the Affordable Care Act, the Post reported. In 2010, Ginny Thomas earned more than $ 120,000 as president and CEO of Liberty Central that year, according to a 990 tax return. The nonprofit has since closed. Clarence Thomas was among a group of Supreme Court justices who disagreed in 2012 with the majority view that ratified Obama’s health insurance bill, the Affordable Care Act, as constitutional. He later sided with the majority in favor of the bill against a Republican challenge in 2021. Leo has been involved in shaping the Supreme Court as it stands today, including advising Trump on who will be the best choice for the Supreme Court. Trump Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsos, Brett Cavanaugh and Amy Connie Barrett saw support from groups backed by Leo and his allies in the midst of the Senate battles over their candidacies. The Daily Beast reports that CRC Advisors, Leo’s company, has been tasked with promoting a documentary about Clarence Thomas.
Support for Trump
External groups led by Leo’s allies have backed Trump’s candidates and have since targeted President Joe Biden’s judicial options, including Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Like their rival progressive groups, Leo-affiliated organizations are known as “dark money” non-profit organizations that do not disclose their donors to the public. Leo’s newly formed 85 Fund is part of its extensive network of organizations seeking to influence politics, the judiciary and the wider Conservative movement. The FedUp PAC, chaired by conservative political advertising veteran Richard Viguerie, paid Liberty Consulting $ 5,000 during the 2018 election cycle for what it describes in the PAC filing as video production. The name Liberty Consulting and the address mentioned in the Federal Election Commission revelation match that of the company run by Ginni Thomas. The PAC later backed Trump in the 2020 election cycle, spending more than $ 100,000 to support the then leader. Liberty Consulting was not paid for any work by the PAC that cycle, according to federal campaign revelations. Bob Mills, who cites the super PAC director on his website, did not recall the specific work Liberty Consulting did for the organization when it first contacted CNBC and did not respond to emails requesting further details. Ginni Thomas’s LinkedIn profile says she has been working since 2010 as the founder and president of Liberty Consulting with “civic activists, leaders and nonprofits to succeed and impact the principles that have made America a great nation.” – offers strategic advice, builds coalitions, connect people and projects (this is my passion and joy!). Thomas notes on her page that they are not lobbyists, although a Virginia state record shows that the company was once called Liberty Lobby. Beth Rotman, National Director of Money in Politics and Ethics at Watchdog Common Cause, told CNBC that new ethics laws governing Supreme Court justices should require them to disclose more details about their spouses’ counseling contracts. . “Disclosures need to be strong to really make sense in this context, so financial disclosures need to include advisory contracts. As you have already seen, when judges conclude their annual reports, they provide information that does not provide a complete picture of the financial “It’s essential to the substantive disclosure that the rules need to be updated to include the source and amount of the spouse’s contracts above a reasonable threshold.” Leo and representatives of most of the groups mentioned in this story also did not respond to requests for comment. A representative of the Parliamentary Selection Committee on January 6th declined to comment.
Business boom
While it is unclear how much Ginni Thomas has earned from the consulting firm, Liberty Consulting seemed to see a boom in business in the run-up to Trump’s 2016 victory. Clarence Thomas financial disclosure reports show that in 2014, the company had a market capitalization of up to $ 15,000.
CNBC Policy
Read more about CNBC political coverage: However, in 2015 and the following years, the listed book value of the company skyrocketed, according to public disclosures. Thomas’s revelation report from 2015 shows that the value of the company was between $ 15,001 and …
