Ginni Thomas Says She Attended Jan. 6 Rally

Ginni Thomas, the spouse of Supreme Courtroom Justice Clarence Thomas, stated in an interview printed on Monday that she attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally on the Ellipse in Washington. The interview appeared in The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication, and adopted a New York Occasions Journal article final month that examined the political and private historical past of each Ms. Thomas and her husband, together with her function in efforts to overturn the presidential election.

Ms. Thomas didn’t reply detailed questions from The Occasions about its findings. Her feedback to The Free Beacon had been her first about her participation within the rally. She stated she had attended the rally within the morning however left earlier than President Donald J. Trump addressed the gang.

“I used to be disenchanted and pissed off that there was violence that occurred following a peaceable gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse on Jan. 6,” she stated. “There are vital and legit substantive questions on reaching targets like electoral integrity, racial equality, and political accountability {that a} democratic system like ours wants to have the ability to talk about and debate rationally within the political sq.. I concern we’re dropping that potential.”

Ms. Thomas has beforehand pushed again towards an ongoing congressional investigation into what came about that day. In December, she co-signed a letter calling for Home Republicans to expel Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois from their convention for becoming a member of the congressional committee investigating the assaults. Ms. Thomas and her co-authors stated the investigation “brings disrespect to our nation’s rule of legislation” and “authorized harassment to non-public residents who’ve carried out nothing fallacious,” including that they might start “a nationwide motion so as to add residents’ voices to this effort.”

Ms. Thomas sits on the nine-member board of CNP Motion, a conservative group that helped advance the “Cease the Steal” motion that attempted to maintain Mr. Trump in workplace. The group instructed members to strain Republican lawmakers into difficult the election outcomes and appointing alternate slates of electors. The Occasions additionally reported that it circulated a e-newsletter in December 2020 that included a report focusing on 5 swing states the place Trump and his allies had been urgent litigation, warning that point was operating out for the courts to “declare the elections null and void.”

Ms. Thomas downplayed her function within the group in her newest feedback.

“As a member of their 501(c)(4) board, candidly, I need to admit that I don’t attend lots of these separate conferences, nor do I attend lots of their telephone calls they’ve,” she stated. “At CNP, I’ve moderated a session right here and there. I delivered some remarks there as soon as too.”

Dustin Stockton, one of many organizers concerned within the Jan. 6 rally, advised The Occasions that Ms. Thomas had performed a peacemaking function between feuding factions of rally organizers “in order that there wouldn’t be any division.” Ms. Thomas disputed that, saying there have been “tales saying I mediated feuding factions of leaders for that day. I didn’t.”

She additionally stated she “performed no function with those that had been planning and main the Jan. 6 occasions.”

The work of the committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault continues. Final week, it laid out its principle for potential felony costs towards Mr. Trump, arguing earlier than a federal decide that he and the conservative lawyer John C. Eastman, a good friend of the Thomases and a former clerk of Justice Thomas, had been concerned in a conspiracy to perpetrate a fraud on the American public as a part of a plan to overturn the 2020 election.