Virginia Thomas Agrees to Interview With Jan. 6 Panel
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol requested an interview with Virginia Thomas in June.Credit...Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The wife of Justice Clarence Thomas is a conservative activist who was involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
by Luke Broadwater and Maggie Haberman
WASHINGTON — Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas who as a conservative activist pushed to overturn the 2020 election, has agreed to sit for an interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The development could represent a breakthrough for the committee, which for months has sought to interview Ms. Thomas, who goes by Ginni, about her communications with a conservative lawyer in close contact with former President Donald J. Trump.
“I can confirm that Ginni Thomas has agreed to participate in a voluntary interview with the committee,” her lawyer, Mark Paoletta, said in a statement. “As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas is eager to answer the committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election. She looks forward to that opportunity.”
Her cooperation was reported earlier by CNN. A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.
The committee requested an interview with Ms. Thomas in June, after it emerged that she had exchanged text messages with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in which she urged on efforts to challenge Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 election. She also pressed lawmakers in several states to fight the results of the election.
The panel’s decision to seek an interview with Ms. Thomas came after it obtained a communication between her and the conservative lawyer John Eastman, who pushed Vice President Mike Pence to block or delay the Electoral College certification on Jan. 6, 2021.
Luke Broadwater covers Congress. He was the lead reporter on a series of investigative articles at The Baltimore Sun that won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award in 2020. @lukebroadwater
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent. She joined The Times in 2015 as a campaign correspondent and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on President Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia.