In the weeks between the 2020 presidential election and the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent a flurry of text messages pleading with President Donald Trump’s chief of staff to take steps to overthrow the vote, according to a person with knowledge of the texts.
In one message, sent days after the election, she called on Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to “unleash the Kraken and save us from the Left destroying America,” referring to a popular right-wing slogan that refers to a web of conspiracy theory that, according to Trump supporters will cancel the election results.
In another, she wrote, “I don’t see Americans swallowing the obvious scam. I’ll just do one more thing with no fucking consequences.” She added, “Are we just giving in to people who want Biden to be the anointed one? Many of us cannot continue the farce of the Republican Party.”
The lyrics were first published by The Washington Post and CBS. They were among about 9,000 documents that Mr. Meadows handed over to a Congressional committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The lyrics detailed Mr. Meadows’ interactions with Republican politicians as they plotted strategies to try to keep Mr. Trump in power in the weeks leading up to the riots.
The Committee received 29 messages between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Meadows: 28 were exchanged between 4 and 24 November and one was written on 10 January. The text messages, most of which were written by Ms. Thomas, provide the first evidence that she directly advised the White House, which was trying to overturn the election results. She spoke not only with Mr. Meadows, but also with Connie Hare, the chief of staff of Louis Gomert, the Republican congressman from Texas who is suing Vice President Mike Pence to force him to recognize Trump as the winner in the 2020 election.
The text traffic also suggests that Ms. Thomas was in contact with Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law and adviser. She texted Mr. Meadows, “Just forwarded to your Gmail an email I sent to Jared this morning,” she wrote. “Sidney Powell and improved coordination will now help the cavalry come in and expose the fraud and save America.”
Throughout the meeting, she urged Mr. Meadows to listen to Sidney Powell, a lawyer who aggressively made unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.
Mr. Meadows is no longer associated with the committee; Mr. Meadows’ attorney, George J. Terwilliger III, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Not Ms. Thomas, not the Supreme Court. Mr. Meadows’ lawyer argued that he cooperated to the best of his ability without violating Mr. Trump’s claims of executive privilege, and Mr. Meadows filed suit against the commission to seek a court order to determine the legality of those claims of executive privilege. . Others challenging the committee’s subpoenas include John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and former clerk to Judge Thomas, who wrote a memorandum arguing that Mr. Pence had the right to reject Electoral College votes for President Biden. Both cases may go to the Supreme Court.
In December, Ms. Thomas signed a letter calling on House Republicans to remove Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from their conference for joining the January 6 committee. Thomas and her co-authors said the investigation “causes contempt for the rule of law in our country” and “legal prosecutions of individuals who have done nothing wrong,” adding that they will launch “a nationwide movement to add citizen voices to this effort.” “.
Capitol Riot Aftermath: Key Events
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Requests to “cancel” elections. Representative Mo Brooks, who contested President Biden’s Jan. 6 victory, said Donald Trump asked him to illegally “cancel” the election. The announcement came after Mr. Trump withdrew his endorsement of Mr. Brooks in the GOP primary for an Alabama Senate seat.
Shelter in Belarus. Evan Neumann, a U.S. citizen wanted by the FBI on charges including assaulting police during the January 6 Capitol riot, has been granted asylum in Belarus, state media in the eastern European country reported.
An investigation published by The New York Times in February highlights Ms. Thomas’ involvement in efforts to reverse the 2020 election results. In recently released comments, Ms. Thomas said she attended the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse, Washington, but was “disappointed and upset that there was violence after the peaceful rally.” She also said that she “played no role with those who planned and directed the events of 6 January.”
But those comments are undermined by her interactions with Mr. Meadows, who was heavily involved in planning the January 6 protests. In her only message to Mr. Meadows after the attack, which the committee was able to get, she only briefly mentions what happened, and only after repeating one of her inspiring ideas – that Mr. Pence had betrayed Mr. Trump’s movement.
She writes of feeling that “we are living in what looks like the end of America. Most of us are disgusted by the VP and are in listening mode to see where to fight our teams. Those who attacked the Capitol are not representatives of our great patriot team for the DJT. Amazing times. End of freedom.
Her husband, Judge Thomas, was Trump’s staunchest defender in court. In January, he was the only judge to vote against permission to release records from the Trump White House related to the January 6 attack. His wife, named Ginny, has long been a far-right political activist, and they often attended party political conferences. This has long led to calls for Mr. Thomas to withdraw from cases in which his wife is interested, but he turned down such offers. He once said that his wife worked “24 hours a day, 7 days a week protecting freedom”, adding: “We are equally yoked and we love being with each other because we love the same things.”