Ginni Thomas confirms she attended Jan. 6 'Stop the Steal' rally but says she left before Capitol riot
Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, says she attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the deadly assault carried out by supporters of then-President Donald Trump on the U.S. Capitol.
In an interview published Monday by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication, Thomas said she attended the rally but got cold and left before the riot took place. She rebutted reporting from the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine about her efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including the claim that she was a key figure in planning the events that led to the storming of the Capitol building.
“I played no role with those who were planning and leading the Jan. 6 events,” Thomas said. “There are stories in the press suggesting I paid or arranged for buses. I did not. There are other stories saying I mediated feuding factions of leaders for that day. I did not.”
Thomas added that she was “disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse on Jan. 6” because she feared it hurt the ability to look into “important and legitimate substantive questions about achieving goals like electoral integrity, racial equality, and political accountability that a democratic system like ours needs to be able to discuss and debate rationally in the political square.”
Despite Thomas’s long history of conservative activism, her husband has never recused himself from a case due to her involvement, according to the Washington Post. Under the rules of the Supreme Court, there is no mechanism to force a recusal, meaning the decision to recuse is left up to each individual justice. Clarence Thomas, who was appointed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, is considered one of if not the most conservative justices on the panel.
In January, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had to turn over materials he was attempting to shield from the House select committee investigating events surrounding the Jan. 6 riot. Of the nine justices, Thomas was the only one who said he would have granted Trump’s request to shield those documents from the committee.
A month earlier, Ginni Thomas signed a letter from conservative leaders calling the Jan. 6 committee an “overtly partisan political persecution that brings disrespect to our country’s rule of law, legal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong, and which demeans the standing of the House.”
In her interview with the Beacon, Thomas said her work was separate from her husband’s.
“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America,” she said. “But we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn't discuss his work with me, and I don't involve him in my work.”
In 2021, Ginni Thomas apologized to her husband’s former clerks for the rift that her support of Trump and the Jan. 6 rally had caused. She had been outspoken in her belief that the 2020 election was marred by fraud, and had regularly promoted the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, posting messages on Facebook such as “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” and “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING” on the morning of the event.
“I owe you all an apology. I have likely imposed on you my lifetime passions,” she said in an email to a Listserv of former staffers who had worked for her husband. “My passions and beliefs are likely shared with the bulk of you, but certainly not all. And sometimes the smallest matters can divide loved ones for too long. Let’s pledge to not let politics divide THIS family, and learn to speak more gently and knowingly across the divide.”
