The scrutiny of texts surrounding the Jan 6 Capitol attack has revealed a hail of messages from Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to Mark Meadows, Trump’s Chief of staff, pleading him to take steps to overturn the votes.
According to a source with knowledge of the texts, in one text message Thomas urged Meadows to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down”. Quite over-dramatic. By the way, that’s a slogan of the right referring to the string of conspiracy theories that Trump’s supporters believed would overturn the elections.
In another text message, Thomas wrote, “I can’t see Americans swallowing the obvious fraud. Just going with one more thing with no frickin consequences. We just cave to people wanting Biden to be anointed? Many of us can’t continue the GOP charade.”
These text messages were over the 9,000 pages of documents given by Meadows to the House panel investigating the attack. The contents were revealed by CBS News and The Washington Post.
There were 29 text messages between these two, exchanged between November 4th and 24th and another one on Jan 10th. The text messages were majorly written by Thomas, and indicates that she was directly involved in encouraging the White House to overturn the elections and keep Trump in office. Not only was she communicating with Meadows, but also Connie Hair, Chief of Staff to Louie Gohmert, Texas Congressman who sued Mike Pence in December 2020 to intimidate him to certify Trump as the 2020 election winner. Her husband, Justice Thomas, has been an avid supporter of Trump, writing a dissent in February 2021 after the majority declined a case hearing filed by Pennsylvania Republicans that claimed to disqualify certain mail-in ballots. In addition, this January, he was the only justice who voted in against release of records from the Trump White House related to the attack.
His wife seems to be crazier in this case. Most of her text messages were just her blabbering, without any regards to punctuation, calling the Election Day November 3rd a “heist”, repeating already debunked conspiracy theories, one which included a conspiracy from QAnon, which allegedly claimed to have found voter fraud in Arizona on secretly watermarked ballots. Her text messages also indicate that she was also in touch with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser and Sidney Powell, the advising lawyer to Trump’s campaign, well-known for throwing around wild theories about voter fraud. comes up quite frequently. On November 13th, when Trump included Powell on his list of lawyers, that same day itself Thomas urged Meadows to support Powell and said she had requested Kushner to do the same. She wrote, “Just forwarded to yr gmail an email I sent Jared this am. Sidney Powell & improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved.”
Thomas was seemingly trying to wound a rope around Meadows by warning him to not to “cave” to the “elites” when she saw Trump’s other lawyers distancing themselves from Powell. In fact, in one text message after the elections, she writes to Meadows that he needs to listen to Steve Pieczenik- a one time state department consultant who also appeared on Alex Jones’s infowars to claim that the Sandy Hook school massacre was a framed up operation. More crazy from her side also shows that she quoted false claims circulating around Pro-Trump websites that said, “Biden 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”, to which she added, “I hope this is true.”
An investigation by the New York Times in February showcased Thomas’s post-election activities, which included her role on the board of CNP action- a conservative group that worked to forcibly overturn the elections even during the time she was texting Meadows. In one of the documents, it commanded members to pressurize Republican lawmakers to challenge the 2020 election decision and to appoint alternate slates of electors- “Demand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities during a time such as this.”
Recently published remarks from Thomas, who tried to downplay her role in the group, also admitted that she attended the Jan 6 rally and that she “was disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering.” She also added that she “played no role with those who were planning and leading the Jan. 6 events.”
In one text to Meadows after the attack, she went around the circle of what took place to come to the conclusion that Pence had betrayed Trump’s plan. She said, “we 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.”
Thomas has been a long-time political activist on the far right and her husband had once said, “24/7 every day in defense of liberty. We are equally yoked, and we love being with each other because we love the same things.” That’s true though. They love Trump, conspiracy theories, destroying peace and breaking democracy.
A law professor and judicial ethics expert at New York University, Stephen Gillers said that even though Thomas is free to use her First Amendment rights, her text crossed a boundary. He said, “The consequences of what she’s done is that I don’t 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’s attempts to get information, including the committee’s efforts to get Eastman’s emails,” he said. “He must recuse himself, and should have recused himself in the cases that have been heard up to now.”