Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist married to controversial Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, admitted in a deposition taken earlier this year that she had no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, the transcript revealed.
Ginni Thomas spent weeks working behind the scenes around the time of the election to boost then-President Donald Trump. Text messages previously released by the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack show how Thomas raised doubts about the legitimacy of the election in a live conversation with Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff at the time.
The January 6 committee was able to secure testimony from Thomas in September, nearly two years after the last presidential election.
Asked about the strongest evidence he had of the fraud, Thomas replied: “I can’t say I’m familiar with any particular evidence.”
However, he said he relied on “news reports” and “friends in the field” who visited polling stations and “found suspicious things.”
“I’m not an expert on the fraud and irregularities that are beginning to be discussed,” he told Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
Thomas had been part of a crowd that had gathered to hear Trump’s angry speech about the election results before a deadly mass of supporters stormed the Capitol building.
The 136-page transcript of the deposition is part of a cache of documents released by the committee on Friday as it wraps up work before the new Congress in January.
Raskin continued to press Thomas on his current views, but he declined to say whether the outcome of the remaining state elections was a concern. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) also tried to squeeze more information from Thomas by reminding him that the Trump campaign has lost over 60 legal challenges regarding the 2020 election due to failure to provide evidence. Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, also knew there was no evidence of fraud, along with Vice President Mike Pence’s lawyer, Cheney recalled.
While Thomas confirmed that he knew that President Joe Biden was now president, he also said that he had presented the fraud claims because many people around him pushed him, and did not dispute the claims.
Asked by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) whether he would have swayed his position knowing, two years ago, that Barr and Trump’s campaign lawyers saw no truth to the fraud claims, Thomas replied, “I don’t ‘. I don’t know.”
In recent years, Thomas’ conservative activism and ties to Trump’s rigged election claims have cast deep doubt on his running mate’s ability to remain a neutral judge on the nation’s highest court.
But Clarence Thomas was a relatively brief topic of conversation at the deposition.
Ginni Thomas said in her opening statement before the panel that the idea that her husband could be swayed by his political views was “laughable” because he was very “independent and stubborn, with a strong sense of independence and integrity.”
Later, he was asked about several text messages sent to Meadows after the 2020 election. Thomas said at the beginning of his testimony that he regretted the “tone and content” of the messages, and expressed his frustration at the fact they were made public.
In one of the texts, sent during a press conference pushing the allegations of election fraud featuring Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Thomas wrote: “Tears are flowing at what Rudy is doing now.”
In another text, posted on November 24, 2020, Meadows told Thomas that Trump’s post-election legal battle was part of “the war between good and evil.” Thomas replied: “Thank you. It is necessary, this plus a conversation with my current friend. I will try to continue.
Thomas insisted that when he referred to his “best friend,” he was referring to his wife. But when asked what Justice Thomas said, Ginni Thomas said she didn’t know.
“My husband often provides support to his wife who is in distress,” she said. “So I think of it that way. I don’t have any particular memory of it.
Thomas claims her husband was unaware of her friendship with Meadows, and only found out when her text message hit the papers earlier this year.
He told Schiff, “Regarding the 2020 election, I didn’t talk to him about the details of volunteer campaign activities, no.”
Thomas said it was “embarrassing” to be confronted with her old digital communication.
“It’s an emotional time,” he told the committee at some point.
Read Ginni Thomas’ testimony here.