In a new interview, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, laid out the panel’s interest in hearing from Ginni Thomas, the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Ginni has come under scrutiny for her role in the push to overturn the 2020 presidential election outcome. She was in touch with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after the election concluded, and she urged him to stick by the fight against Biden’s win. Ginni was also recently revealed to have been in touch with John Eastman, the now former Trump lawyer who prepared schemes by which then-VP Pence could supposedly block the certification in Congress of Biden’s win. (Pence didn’t possess that legally recognized power.) Schiff remarked:
‘We want to know what [Ginni] knows, what her involvement was in this plot to overturn the election. She has said that she is willing to come in and testify voluntarily. We’re glad to hear that. Really, anyone with pertinent information, we want to hear from. And so, we have a range of questions to ask her. Obviously, I think, the committee will be interested in among other things whether this was discussed with Justice Thomas given that he was ruling on cases impacting whether we would get some of this information.’
Ginni has indicated she is willing to appear voluntarily before the committee, although an exact time frame for that actually happening isn’t immediately clear. During a recent appearance on MSNBC, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg questioned whether she’d actually appear, no matter her stated willingness, because of the potential for a perjury charge if she lies while testifying. Aronberg also indicated a personal belief on his part that — in theory — Ginni could eventually be charged with offenses including obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government. A federal judge has already concluded Trump himself is likely guilty of criminal activity along these same lines in connection to the ex-president’s attempts to forcibly obtain another term, so these sorts of remarks aren’t coming out of nowhere.
And Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), another member of the January 6 committee in the House, indicated he apparently believes Trump himself to be deserving of criminal prosecution. The Congressman said as follows on ABC: “I want to be careful in specifically using that language, but I think what we’re presenting before the American people certainly would rise to a level of criminal involvement by a president, and definitely failure of the oath.” Meanwhile, Clarence Thomas is also facing scrutiny in light of issues including the obvious potential for a serious conflict of interest on his part when dealing with proceedings related to the 2020 presidential election, the Capitol riot, or related subjects. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-N.J.) said Clarence should resign from his position on the Supreme Court.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia Commons and available under a Creative Commons license
