What Does Clarence
Thomas Know?
And when did he know it?
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and |
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What does Clarence Thomas know? And
when did he know it?
“I’ve seen a lot in my
life, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Over the last several
years, I’ve written some form of this line on countless occasions. And each
time it proves to be true. We are in an arms race with absurdity, but this is
not a farce. It is a tragedy.
In what seems like a
lifetime ago, we were talking about the historic nomination of Ketanji Brown
Jackson to the Supreme Court, and the shameful display of the Republican senators
at her confirmation hearing. Now, another story around
the court crowds out the news around Judge Jackson. It concerns Justice
Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni.
I suspect most of you
are up to some sort of speed on this story, although it changes faster than
Superman in a phone booth. Except, sadly, there are no superheroes here.
Instead the backdrop is the violent insurrection of January 6, in which there
are numerous pieces of evidence suggesting Ms. Thomas was deeply involved. Lest
there be any doubt, this was an attempt to overthrow a presidential election,
culminating (but not ending) with that shameful storming of the Capitol by
rioters bent on keeping their dear leader in the White House.
We already knew a lot
about this storyline, but today proved that there still is a potential for
surprise — or more accurately, horror. This is a smoking gun in the form of
text messages between Ms. Thomas and the White House chief of staff at the
time, Mark Meadows.
This is how The
Washington Post reported it:
The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline
between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top
aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme
Court in an effort to negate the election results.
On Nov. 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the
winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: “Help This Great
President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing
for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows
Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
When Meadows wrote to Thomas on Nov. 24, the White House chief
of staff invoked God to describe the effort to overturn the election. “This is
a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote. “Evil always looks like the victor
until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight
continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”
Thomas replied: “Thank you!! Needed that! This plus a
conversation with my best friend just now… I will try to keep holding on.
America is worth it!”
It is unclear to whom
Thomas was referring.
(Many suspect Ms.
Thomas’ reference to “my best friend” refers to her husband.)
Let’s be clear with
what we already know. We had arguably the greatest attempt to undermine the
workings of American democracy since the Civil War. It was stoked by President
Trump and his frenzied cabal of true believers. It was violent, and its one aim
was to prevent Joe Biden, the duly elected winner, from assuming the
presidency.
It was a coup attempt.
It would have sparked a constitutional crisis that would have torn apart this
nation. It continues to cast a shadow over the United States at a moment when
there is no shortage of external peril. And yet the greatest danger may still
be from within.
Here’s a chilling case
in point. In the hearing today for Judge Jackson, the Alabama attorney general
refused to denounce the Big Lie about President Biden’s election; rather, he
embraced it, despite repeated clear and direct questioning:
Scott
MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews
This isn’t fringe.
This is gospel for much of the Republican Party, still beholden to the
disgraced but shamelessly unrepentant instigator in chief.
And this brings us
back to Justice Thomas, who, by the way, has apparently been in the hospital
for several days with a severe infection and very few updates on the status of
his health. Was he trying to protect his wife when he was the lone dissent in a
case about handing over documents to the congressional committee investigating
January 6? What else might he know? Recusal is a bare minimum. The questions go
much deeper.
I think Chris Hayes
frames it about right:
No one is responsible for the views
of family members or spouses, but also it obviously beggars belief that Ginni
Thomas was not discussing this all with her husband who was going to be ruling
on whether to take cases that would overturn a free and fair election!
But here’s the thing
that eats at me, or at least whatever is left of the instincts that guided me
into a life of reporting. You don’t report hunches. You have to be careful
about not seeing ghosts where there are none. The most outrageous explanations
are usually the quickest to be debunked. But...but...but….
How many times in this
sordid saga of the Trump presidency did the story go in directions that would
make a Hollywood scriptwriter blush with shame if they had written something so
preposterous? Truth has regularly galloped past the limits of fiction. The
half-life of outrage can be measured in nanoseconds.
There are so many
questions that remain not only unanswered, but, indeed, unasked. There are
likely many questions that we don’t even know enough to think of
asking.
We have to be careful
not to let our suppositions drift into fantasy. But at the same time, we need
to expand the bounds of our imagination.
The people who
fomented the lies around the election hate America, or at least the America defined
by our Constitution and the arc of our history. That includes the wife of a
Supreme Court justice. It includes an ex-president and his army of enablers. It
is desperately important that we uncover where else this web of shame extends,
and who else it ensnares,
The Constitution of
the United States, to which Justice Thomas swore an oath, demands it. And so do
the health, safety, and security of the country, the rule of law, and the very
continuation of our democracy.
Nothing to see here, just the wife of a Supreme Court justice manically demanding the White House chief of staff overturn the 2020 election
Ginni Thomas reportedly texted former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows more than two dozen times re: stopping Joe Biden from being president. Per The Washington Post:
Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News. The messages—29 in all—reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.
On November 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
The messages were among the thousands Meadows has turned over to the January 6 committee. Meadows’s attorney confirmed their existence but wouldn’t comment on them; Thomas did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
That someone who would claim “the Left” stole the 2020 election has the ear of a Supreme Court justice is extremely disconcerting. But according to Ginni, there’s nothing to worry about re: conflicts of interest. In an interview earlier this month, she revealed she attended the “Stop the Steal” rally and insisted, “Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work.” Okay then!