By FARNOUSH AMIRI and MICHAEL BALSAMO
WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, appeared on Thursday for a voluntary interview with the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 rebellion.
The committee has for months sought an interview with Thomas in an effort to know extra about her function in attempting to assist former President Donald Trump overturn his election defeat. She texted with White House chief of employees Mark Meadows and contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin within the weeks after the election.
Thomas didn’t reply questions when she arrived on Capitol Hill for the interview or later when she briefly left for a break. But she did inform reporters she was trying ahead to answering questions from the members of the committee.
The testimony from Thomas — referred to as Ginni — was one of many remaining gadgets for the panel because it eyes the completion of its work. The panel has already interviewed greater than 1,000 witnesses and proven a few of that video testimony in its eight hearings over the summer time.
Thomas’ lawyer, Mark Paoletta, mentioned final week that Thomas had agreed to fulfill with the panel and is “eager to answer the committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election.”
The extent of her involvement within the Capitol assault is unclear. In the times after The Associated Press and different information organizations known as the presidential election for Biden, Thomas emailed two lawmakers in Arizona to induce them to decide on “a clean slate of Electors” and “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure.” The AP obtained the emails earlier this 12 months beneath the state’s open information regulation.
She has mentioned in interviews that she attended the preliminary pro-Trump rally the morning of Jan. 6 however left earlier than Trump spoke and the crowds headed for the Capitol.
Thomas, a Trump supporter lengthy energetic in conservative causes, has repeatedly maintained that her political actions posed no battle of curiosity with the work of her husband.
“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America. 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,” Thomas advised the Washington Free Beacon in an interview revealed in March.
Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting voice when the Supreme Court dominated in January to permit a congressional committee entry to presidential diaries, customer logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes regarding the occasions of Jan. 6.
Ginni Thomas has been brazenly important of the committee’s work, together with signing onto a letter to House Republicans calling for the expulsion of Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois from the GOP convention for becoming a member of the Jan. 6 congressional committee.
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Associated Press video journalist Rick Gentilo contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s protection of the Jan. 6 rebellion at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege
Source: www.bostonherald.com”