Ginni Thomas, Wife of SCOTUS Justice, Also Pressed Wisconsin to Overturn 2020 Election - Report
© AP Photo / Charles Dharapak
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Newly revealed emails show that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of conservative US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, didn’t just press Arizona lawmakers to overturn the results of the November 2020 US presidential election - she did the same thing in Wisconsin, too.
According to The Washington Post, which viewed lawmakers’ emails obtained by the watchdog group Documented under a state public records law, Thomas’ effort in the Badger State was minuscule compared to Arizona, where she emailed 29 Arizona lawmakers in November and December 2020.
By contrast, Thomas reached out to just two Wisconsin lawmakers: state Sen. Kathy Bernier, then head of the Wisconsin Senate elections committee, and state Rep. Gary Tauchen, both of whom received identical emails on November 9.
“Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure,” the emails said. Two days earlier, the Associated Press unofficially called Democratic candidate Joe Biden as the winner of the November 3, having waited for several days to see the results of absentee ballots that trickled in as well as several recounts.
“Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our Constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state,” Thomas’ email added.
Bernier told The Post she had not even realized Thomas had emailed her until Documented identified the message.
Стикеры с надписью о голосовании в США
© BING GUAN
While Tauchen has pushed legislation that would have changed how Wisconsin selected its Electoral College delegates in a way that would have yielded more of the state’s 10 electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden, Bernier took a stand against investigations like those Thomas was pushing.
Speaking about a GOP-backed investigation of Wisconsin’s 2020 election pushed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Bernier said in December 2021 that "It keeps jazzing up the people who think they know what they’re talking about, and they don’t. The longer we keep this up, the more harm we’re going to do for Republicans.”
"There’s been recount after recount, court case after court case and, at some point, I wish he would come out and say, you know, I accept the results," she told Wisconsin Public Radio the following month, when she decided not to seek re-election. "Not only for the greater good of the Republican Party, but the greater good of the United States."
‘Stop the Steal’
Even before the November 3, 2020 election, Trump was already predicting that widespread voter fraud would result from the use of millions of mail-in ballots that many US states adopted in an effort to avoid turning Election Day into a “superspreader event” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which had begun that March and already killed 216,000 Americans, according to health data.
As mail-in ballots trickled in for days after Election Day, they triggered several reversals and recounts that turned the tide of ballots against Trump, who claimed the changes were the result of fraud by Democrats, and he refused to recognize the results of the election. Throughout November and December, Trump and his supporters mounted one challenge after another in battleground states attempting to overturn the results of ballot counts that showed Biden as the victor.
The movement culminated in the January 6, 2021 breach of the US Capitol, which immediately followed a “Stop the Steal” rally hosted by Trump outside the White House. Thousands of Trump’s supporters stormed the national legislature and temporarily dispersed Congress, which had been in the process of certifying the results of the Electoral College vote that legally determines the victor of US presidential elections.
The rioters’ efforts failed and they were soon driven from the building by police and National Guard troops, who garrisoned Washington, DC, for months afterward.
Protesters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
© AP Photo / John Minchillo
After the attack, several US lawmakers who had previously opposed certifying the election results, such as then-US Sen. Kelly Loeffler, were visibly shaken by the events and turned against the president, while others have remained defiantly supportive. Trump has maintained his position that he did not legally lose the election.
The US House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on charges of inciting the insurrection, but in a trial that occurred weeks after he left office, Trump was acquitted by a minority of senators.
‘Help This Great President’
Ginni Thomas’ political activism on behalf of the Republican Party and Trump has raised more than a few eyebrows, given her marriage to a Supreme Court justice who is supposed to remain strictly nonpartisan. She claims they keep their professional lives separate.
That activism has included not just messaging Arizona and Wisconsin lawmakers in Trump’s defense, but also coordinating her efforts with Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Trump's campaign lawyer, John Eastman. Text messages between Meadows and Thomas were obtained by the media in March after he provided them to the House committee investigating the insurrection.
“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” said one text from Thomas sent on November 10, 2020. “You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
However, Justice Thomas has also sided with Trump. In a January 2022 ruling on a request by Trump to block the House committee from gaining access to White House records sought as part of its investigation, Thomas was the lone dissenter on the nine-justice high court, voting to block access.
