WASHINGTON — Buried within the 1000’s of paperwork that Mark Meadows, former President Donald J. Trump’s remaining White Home chief of workers, turned over late final 12 months to the Home committee analyzing the Jan. 6 assault have been textual content messages that offered the panel with a political land mine: what to do about Virginia Thomas, the spouse of Justice Clarence Thomas.

The messages confirmed that Ms. Thomas relentlessly urged Mr. Meadows to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which she referred to as a “heist,” and indicated that she reached out to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, about Mr. Trump’s authorized efforts to maintain energy. She even steered the lawyer who needs to be put answerable for that effort.

The general public disclosure of the messages on Thursday centered new consideration on one avenue of the investigation and risked making a uncommon rift inside the committee about how aggressively to pursue it, together with whether or not to hunt testimony from Ms. Thomas, who goes by Ginni.

Within the Thomases, the committee is up in opposition to a pair that has deep networks of help throughout the conservative motion and Washington, together with contained in the committee. The panel’s Republican vice chairwoman, Consultant Liz Cheney of Wyoming, has led the cost in holding Mr. Trump to account for his efforts to overturn the election, however has wished to keep away from any aggressive effort that, in her view, might unfairly tarnish Justice Thomas, the senior member of the Supreme Court docket.

So though a debate has damaged out contained in the committee about summoning Ms. Thomas to testify, the panel at this level has no plans to take action, leaving some Democrats annoyed. That would change, nevertheless: On Friday, regardless of the potential for political backlash, Ms. Cheney indicated she has no objection to the panel asking Ms. Thomas for a voluntary interview.

A New York Instances Journal investigation final month examined the political and private historical past of Ms. Thomas and her husband. That included her function in efforts to overturn the election from her perch on the nine-member board of CNP Motion, a conservative group that helped advance the “Cease the Steal” motion, and in mediating between feuding factions of organizers “in order that there wouldn’t be any division round Jan. 6,” as one organizer put it.

Throughout that interval, the Supreme Court docket was contemplating a lot of instances associated to the election, with Justice Thomas taking positions at occasions sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s efforts to problem the result.

This month, Ms. Thomas acknowledged attending the rally that preceded the violence in an interview with a conservative information outlet, however in any other case downplayed her function. Then got here disclosure of the texts to Mr. Meadows, the contents of which have been earlier reported by The Washington Publish and CBS Information.

If the committee doesn’t summon Ms. Thomas, some authorized analysts stated, it runs the chance of showing to have a double commonplace. The panel has taken an aggressive posture towards many different potential witnesses, issuing subpoenas for financial institution and telephone data of each high-ranking allies of the previous president and low-level aides with solely a tangential connection to the occasions of Jan. 6.

“I feel it will be a dereliction to not convey her in and speak to her,” stated Kimberly Wehle, a College of Baltimore regulation professor who has intently tracked the committee’s work. “It definitely is inconsistent with their impartial, ‘discover the details the place they go’ kind of strategy to this.”

The committee’s gentle contact with Ms. Thomas up to now displays a lot of issues by each members and investigators, in response to folks conversant in the inquiry. Some noticed the pursuit of Ms. Thomas as a distraction from extra essential targets. Others frightened that pursuing Ms. Thomas might by implication sully the popularity of Justice Thomas, an icon among the many Republican base. Nonetheless others argued that the panel couldn’t know the complete extent of her function with out additional questioning. And a few members of the committee noticed the textual content messages for the primary time on Thursday.

The shortage of consensus additionally underscores the extent to which Justice Thomas’s shadow, together with his community of supporters and former clerks, looms over varied points of the investigation. Three of Justice Thomas’s former clerks — a federal choose, a high committee investigator and a key adviser to Mr. Trump — have main roles within the matter.

A principal strategist within the effort to attempt to overturn the election, the lawyer John Eastman, was a former clerk of Justice Thomas’s. John Wooden, one of many Jan. 6 committee’s high investigators and one other former Thomas clerk, is main the so-called gold crew analyzing Mr. Trump’s internal circle. And a federal choose, Carl J. Nichols, who’s listening to instances associated to the Capitol riot, can also be a former clerk of Justice Thomas’s.

This dynamic was on show throughout a deposition in December of Mr. Eastman, who was subpoenaed by the committee to speak about his function in serving to Mr. Trump attempt to overturn the election. Mr. Wooden started the questioning by noting that Mr. Eastman had as soon as served as a clerk to Justice Thomas.

“Such as you, John,” Mr. Eastman shot again.

For at the least a number of weeks, the committee’s senior degree has mentioned whether or not to name Ms. Thomas to testify, in addition to whether or not to subject subpoenas for some other communications she might have had with the White Home or the president’s authorized crew concerning the election, together with a message she instructed Mr. Meadows she despatched to Mr. Kushner, in response to folks with data of the investigation.

There are many results in pursue. The committee might recall Dustin Stockton, a rally organizer who instructed The Instances a couple of dialog he had with Caroline Wren, a Republican who helped increase cash for the Jan. 6 “March for America,” wherein she described Ms. Thomas’s peacemaking function. They may additionally recall Amy Kremer and Jenny Beth Martin, two rally organizers near Ms. Thomas, to ask about her postelection communications with them.

It might subpoena data from not solely Ms. Thomas, but additionally CNP Motion, which was deeply concerned within the effort to unfold falsehoods concerning the election. Investigators might ask her the identify of the buddy she was referring to when she wrote again to thank Mr. Meadows, saying: “Wanted that! This plus a dialog with my greatest buddy simply now…I’ll attempt to hold holding on.” (Ms. Thomas and her husband have publicly referred to one another as their greatest pals.) Finally, they might ask her whether or not she had mentioned Mr. Trump’s struggle to overturn the election along with her husband.

Justice Thomas has declined to touch upon the matter, by a consultant. A lawyer for Ms. Thomas didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Privately, some Republicans conceded that Ms. Thomas’s texts to Mr. Meadows have been a mistake — significantly ones wherein she urged Mr. Meadows to make Sidney Powell, a lawyer who had advocated conspiracy theories about voting machines being hacked, the face of the authorized crew. But the Republicans, who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they frightened about being seen as essential of Ms. Thomas, predicted that if Democrats elevated stress on the Thomases, the precise would counter with extra requires investigations of Democrats if Republicans win again the Home within the November elections.

Conservatives have lengthy seen criticism of Ms. Thomas as an assault on Justice Thomas. Her supporters embrace the lawyer Mark Paoletta, who was Mr. Thomas’s “sherpa,” introducing him to senators for his affirmation hearings.

The information media “seeks to painting Ginni Thomas’s public coverage work as a risk to the Supreme Court docket with the intention to stress Thomas to recuse himself from any case that Ginni, or any of the teams she has labored with, has even commented on,” he wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Examiner.

Justice Thomas might within the coming months contemplate an extended checklist of essential authorized points surrounding Jan. 6. He could also be referred to as upon to rule on questions involving the prosecution for contempt of Congress of Stephen Okay. Bannon, a onetime aide to Mr. Trump, or regarding the Home committee’s efforts to acquire emails from Mr. Eastman.

Decide Nichols, the previous clerk to Justice Thomas, is overseeing the felony prosecution of Mr. Bannon, who was charged with contempt of Congress in November after refusing to adjust to a subpoena from the committee.

The choose can also be dealing with the high-profile defamation lawsuits that Dominion Voting Techniques filed final 12 months in opposition to two attorneys intently related to Mr. Trump: Rudolph W. Giuliani and Ms. Powell.

Maybe most essential, Decide Nichols is the one federal jurist in Washington thus far to have thrown out the important thing obstruction of Congress cost that the Justice Division has used in opposition to tons of of Jan. 6 defendants to explain the political outcomes of a pro-Trump mob storming into the Capitol. Differing from 12 different federal judges, Decide Nichols wrote in a ruling this month that prosecutors had stretched the statute past its unique intent.

The ruling might show essential to the Home committee because it weighs whether or not to make a felony referral to the Justice Division of Mr. Trump.

Ms. Cheney has indicated that she believes Mr. Trump might have violated the obstruction of Congress regulation, going as far as to learn from the textual content of the statute on the Home ground. If prosecutors finally use the regulation to cost Mr. Trump, it might face scrutiny from Decide Nichols — or from one other district choose who might contemplate his opinion.

Such a case, too, might finally be thought-about by the Supreme Court docket and Justice Thomas.

Luke Broadwater reported from Washington, Jo Becker from Los Angeles, Maggie Haberman from New York and Alan Feuer from Albany.