(LR) Supreme Court Associate Judge Clarence Thomas and his wife and Conservative activist Virginia Thomas arrive at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images
A Facebook group that appears to be led by Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, could become a new focus in the U.S. House Selective Committee’s investigation into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Congressional investigators say they plan to ask Ginni Thomas to testify before the committee hours after Trump’s attorney, John Eastman, posted an email from Thomas on Thursday, December 4, 2020 asking him to speak at a meeting. which she called “Frontliners,” which she described as “Frontliners.” with “grassroots state leaders.” Ginni Thomas appears as the administrator of a Facebook group with a similar name and description: “FrontLiners for Liberty”.
The private group, which had more than 50 members, was formed in August 2020, just two months before the November elections, according to the description on the page.
The group, which CNBC reviewed before being removed from public view, described itself as “a new, collaborative, freedom-focused, action-oriented group of state leaders representing grassroots armies to CONNECT , GET INFORMED and ACTIVATE WEEKLY to preserve constitutional governance. “Although Thomas’ personal Facebook page is unverified, it contained numerous photos of Judge Thomas.
The group’s pages were removed from public view after CNBC contacted Thomas about the organization. It now displays a Facebook warning that your privacy settings have been deleted or changed.
CNBC also tried to get answers through Facebook messenger to Stephanie Coleman, who is also listed as the group’s administrator and the wife of the late Gregory Coleman, who was Texas attorney general. Greg Coleman was once Secretary Thomas’s secretary.
Coleman and Thomas are repeatedly pictured together on Coleman’s personal Facebook page, including a photo of the two together in December 2016 with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Zoom in on the Arrows icon pointing out
Thomas asked Eastman to speak with his Frontliners group on December 8, according to his email. Eastman said Thomas “invited me to give an update on election litigation to a group he regularly met with,” according to his post on Substack, an email newsletter subscription service. Thomas told Eastman he was “on sabbatical until these elections are resolved.”
At the time, Trump and his allies were filing legal challenges against the results of the 2020 election after President Joe Biden was declared the winner. Trump and his entourage lost most of those lawsuits.
Thomas’ email to Eastman appears to be at issue in his legal dispute with congressional investigators investigating the Jan. 6 attack. A federal judge recently ruled against Eastman, who was trying to claim client-lawyer privilege to withhold emails about the 2020 election. The judge ordered Eastman to hand over ten documents, including four related to a meeting on May December 2020, which was the same date Ginni Thomas asked him to speak to Frontliners. “Two emails are the high-profile leader of the group inviting Dr. Eastman to speak at the meeting, and two contain the agenda of the meeting,” U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote in June. 7 orders.
From the event’s agenda, Eastman discussed “‘State Legislative Actions That Can Reverse the Media-Elected Call for Joe Biden.” Another speaker did an update on [state] legislative actions regarding electoral votes, “Carter wrote.
Eastman, according to the January 6 House select committee investigating the riot that took place about 17 months ago, tried to convince former Vice President Mike Pence that he had virtually unilateral power to overturn the election. However, according to Pence’s former attorney who testified at a committee hearing on Thursday, Jan. 6, Eastman once told him that Trump’s counselor’s own legal theory would be rejected 9-0 if he passed the Supreme Court.
The select committee said it plans to invite Ginni Thomas to testify about his correspondence with Eastman. Thomas told The Daily Caller that she was willing to testify. “I can’t wait to clear up any misconceptions. I’m really looking forward to talking to them,” Thomas said. He reportedly supported efforts to cancel the 2020 election by sending text messages to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who encouraged him to support the then president’s false election claims.
A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, a spokeswoman for the House Select Committee on January 6, Thomas, Eastman and their lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
The Frontliners also worked with a conservative advocacy organization known as FreedomWorks, according to Peter Vicenzi, a spokesman for the nonprofit. He also said Thomas and FreedomWorks activists have been allies for years. FreedomWorks does not publicly disclose its donors.
“Frontliners for Liberty, is another conservative grassroots organization that FreedomWorks partners with to advance our set of issues,” Vicenzi said in an email. “Ginni Thomas, for years, has been an invaluable ally for our community of activists when it comes to participating in shared issues.”
Since Trump lost the election, FreedomWorks has pushed for the idea that electoral reforms are needed. Conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who previously worked with the Trump campaign, now chairs FreedomWorks’ multimillion-dollar National Election Protection Initiative, according to Newsmax.
Merissa Hamilton, who says on her LinkedIn page that she is FreedomWorks’ base director, posted a photo in October in what she described as an event on “FreedomWorks Frontliners for Liberty.” The image showed representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Louie Gohmert, R-Texas and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. attending the event.
After CNBC emailed Hamilton about the tweets, they were removed from his page. He did not return follow-up requests for comment.