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The House Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack has obtained email correspondence between Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas, and attorney John Eastman, who played a key role in efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block certification of Joe Biden’s victory, according to three people involved in the committee’s investigation.
The emails show that Thomas’ efforts to cancel the election were more extensive than previously known, two of the people said. The three refused to give details and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
Committee members and staff are now discussing whether to spend time during their public hearings exploring the role of Ginni Thomas in trying to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, the three said. The Washington Post previously reported that the committee had not requested an interview with Thomas and was reluctant to continue its cooperation with its investigation.
Both people said the emails were among the documents obtained by the committee and recently reviewed. Last week, a federal judge ordered Eastman to hand over more than 100 documents to the committee. Eastman had tried to block the release of these and other documents arguing that they were privileged communications and therefore should be protected.
Thomas also sent messages to President Donald Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Arizona lawmakers urging them to help cancel the election, The Post reported earlier.
Although Thomas has maintained that she and her husband operate in separate professional lanes, her activities as a conservative political activist have distinguished her from other spouses of Supreme Court judges. Any new revelations about Thomas’ actions after the 2020 presidential election are likely to further intensify questions about whether Clarence Thomas should withdraw from election-related cases and attempts to subvert them.
In January, the Supreme Court rejected a request by Trump to block the publication of his White House records to the House committee investigating Jan. 6. Clarence Thomas was the only judge who disagreed, siding with Trump.
Ginni Thomas did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did Eastman or his attorney. A Supreme Court spokeswoman did not answer Clarence Thomas’ questions.
A January 6 committee spokesman declined to comment.
Eastman, who once served as Clarence Thomas’ secretary of the Supreme Court, described scenarios for denying Biden the presidency in legal notes and at a January 4 Oval Office meeting with Trump and Pence. The Post and other media have previously reported. Eastman said Trump was his client at the time.
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ordered Eastman to release numerous documents to the committee, dismissing the privilege claims Eastman had asserted. In April and May, Eastman submitted more than 1,000 documents to the committee.
In a 26-page ruling last week, Carter addressed another 599 documents that Eastman tried to protect. Carter ruled that more than 400 of these documents were protected by attorney-client or other privilege and should not be published.
But he ordered that the rest, including correspondence with state lawmakers and documents related to alleged election fraud and the plan to adjourn the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, be moved to committee last week and earlier this week. .
Carter described some of the documents in more detail than others.
He ordered Eastman to deliver documents on three December 2020 meetings of a group that Eastman described as “civic-minded citizens with a conservative outlook,” including messages from a person Carter described as “high-profile leader” of the group inviting Eastman to speak at a meeting on December 8, 2020. The agenda of the meeting states that Eastman discussed “state legislative actions that could reverse the elections called by the media. for Joe Biden “.
“The select committee has a substantial interest in these three meetings because the presentations pushed a critical goal of the Jan. 6 plan: for the states in dispute to certify alternative voter lists for President Trump,” Carter wrote.
It is unclear who the group is or who their prominent leader is.
Carter also ordered the release of a portion of a Dec. 22 email written by an unidentified attorney. The lawyer encouraged Trump’s legal team not to initiate litigation that could “close the January 6 strategy” by making it clear that Pence did not have the capacity to intervene in the counting of election votes. “Lawyers are free not to file cases; they are not free to evade judicial review to overturn a democratic election, “Carter wrote.
And the judge ordered the publication of several communications that shared news or tweets.
In the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, Ginni Thomas repeatedly pressured Meadows to cancel the result, according to text messages obtained by The Post and CBS News. After Jan. 6, he told Meadows in a text that he was “upset” with Pence, who had refused to help block Biden Electoral College’s certification of victory. He wrote: “We are living what seems like the end of America.”
During that post-election period, Thomas also pressured Arizona Republican lawmakers to help keep Trump in office by setting aside Biden’s popular vote victory and “choosing” his own voters, The Post reported, citing in documents obtained through an audience. registration request. Thomas sent the emails via FreeRoots, an online platform designed to make it easy to send pre-written messages to various elected officials.
In an email on Nov. 9, just days after media outlets called for the race in Arizona and nationwide for Biden, Thomas sent identical emails to 27 lawmakers in the Arizona House and Senate urging them to “stand firm in the face of political and media pressure.” . ” The email stated that the responsibility for choosing voters, which belongs to voters under Arizona state law, was “vote and yours alone,” and that the legislature had the “power to fight fraud.” “and” make sure a clean slate of Voters are chosen. “
In a follow-up email to one of the recipients, State Rep. Shawnna Bolick, Thomas described the email as “part of our campaign to help states feel the eyes of the United States.”
Bolick (R), who provided Thomas with links he could use to report any fraud he had experienced in Arizona, previously told The Post that he received tens of thousands of emails after the election and that he responded to Thomas from the same way he responded. to all others.
On December 13, the day before presidential voters were scheduled to cast their ballots and seal Biden’s victory, Thomas sent an email to 21 of those lawmakers plus two more. “Before choosing the voters of your state … consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you do not stand up and lead,” the email said. It was linked to a video of a man urging lawmakers in the oscillating state to “fix things” and “not give in to cowardice.”
The next day, Arizona Democratic voters voted for Biden. Republican voters met separately and signed a document declaring the state’s “duly elected and qualified voters.” More than a dozen Arizona lawmakers signed a letter to Congress urging the state’s electoral votes to go to Trump or “be annulled completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted.”