Ginni Thomas to speak with Jan. 6 committee this week
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) announced on Wednesday that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is scheduled to meet with the Jan. 6 select committee this week.
“Our expectation at this point is that we will talk to Ms. Thomas, and we have no indication to the contrary,” Thompson, the chairman of the Jan. 6 panel, told reporters.
Pressed on if the interview will take place on Thursday or Friday, Thompson said “it’s sometime this week.”
“Again, to my knowledge, it’s set, and we look forward to whenever that occurs,” he added.
The interview with Thomas will cap a months-long effort by the select committee to speak with the conservative activist who reportedly exchanged emails with John Eastman, the lawyer who drafted memos for the Trump campaign outlining how Vice President Mike Pence could keep then-President Trump in power.
Thomas also reportedly texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Arizona lawmakers regarding efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Thompson told reporters in June that the committee asked Thomas for an interview, and the conservative activist at the time said she was looking forward to speaking with the panel.
Later that month, Thomas’s attorney, Mark Paoletta, wrote a letter to the committee saying he did “not understand the need to speak with Ms. Thomas,” and requested a “a better justification” for why the her testimony was relevant to the committee.
But nearly three months later, on Sept. 21, Paoletta confirmed that his client would meet with the Jan. 6 committee.
“As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas is eager to answer the Committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election,” Paoletta said in a statement. “She looks forward to that opportunity.”
Thomas’s conversation with the committee comes as the panel is racing the clock to finish its work before the year’s end, when the group will likely be dissolved if Republicans take control of the House this November.
The panel was scheduled to hold a hearing — potentially the last one before its final report is released — on Wednesday, but the presentation got postponed because of Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in Florida that day.
Committee members have not yet announced a new date for the hearing.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the select committee, told CNN in an interview on Sunday that the panel is interviewing Thomas “because of her own activities.”
“It's not because of whose wife she is. And I'm hopeful that we will learn important elements from her testimony to us,” she added.
Pressed on what the committee is hoping to hear from Thomas, Lofgren pointed to her communications with Eastman.
“I don't know what her answers will be, but clearly there were e-mails between her and Dr. Eastman that we'd like to explore with her. And she said publicly that she'll come in and everything will be clear, so we hope that's the case,” she said.