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see clarence clerks
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see Gini tag
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7 22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas)
virginia "Ginni" Thomas (née (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A9e) Lamp; born February 23, 1957) is an American attorney and conservative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States) activist from Omaha, Nebraska (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha,_Nebraska). In 1987, she married Clarence Thomas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas), who became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associate_Justice_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States) in 1991. Her conservative commentary and activism have made her a controversial figure, especially because spouses of Supreme Court justices typically avoid politics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisanism_in_the_United_States).[2]
Thomas began her career working for Republican (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party%28United_States%29) Hal Daub (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Daub) while he was a member of the United States House of Representatives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives). After Thomas graduated from Creighton University School of Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creighton_University_School_of_Law), she worked for the United States Chamber of Commerce (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Commerce). She later worked for the United States Department of Labor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Labor) and as an aide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_assistant) to Republican Dick Armey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey) while he was a member of the House of Representatives. In 2000, she joined The Heritage Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation), \HARLAN CROW $?]where she was a liaison between the conservative think tank (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tank) and the George W. Bush administration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_George_W.Bush). In 2009, Thomas founded Liberty Central (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Central), a conservative political advocacy nonprofit organization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization) associated with the [Tea Party movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement). She founded Liberty Consulting in 2010.[3]
Thomas supported Donald Trump (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump) during his presidency (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Donald_Trump), offering the administration recommendations on individuals to hire through her work with the conservative Groundswell group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell_group). Following Joe Biden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden)'s victory in the 2020 presidential election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election), she repeatedly urged Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meadows) to take steps to overturn the result (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election).\4] She made an early social media endorsement of the Trump rally that preceded the January 2021 attack on the United States Capitol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack) before the violence took place, and she later apologized for contributing to a rift among her husband's former [Supreme Court clerks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerk_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States) concerning that riot.[5][6]
1Early life and education (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#Early_life_and_education)
2Career (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#Career)
2.11981–1991 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#1981%E2%80%931991)
2.21991–2009 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#1991%E2%80%932009)
2.32009–2016 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#2009%E2%80%932016)
2.42016–present (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#2016%E2%80%93present)
2.4.1Efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#Efforts_to_overturn_the_results_of_the_2020_presidential_election)
2.4.2Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#Select_Committee_to_Investigate_the_January_6th_Attack)
3Personal life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#Personal_life)
3.1Lifespring (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#Lifespring)
4References (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#References)
5Further reading (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#Further_reading)
6External links (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Thomas#External_links)
Early life and education
Thomas grew up in Omaha, Nebraska (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha,Nebraska), the youngest of four children born to Donald Lamp, an engineer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer) who owned his own firm, and Marjorie Lamp, a stay-at-home mother (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay-at-home_mother).\7][8][9] Her parents were [Republicans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party%28United_States%29).[8]
Thomas attended Westside High School (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_High_School%28Omaha%29) in Omaha, where she was a member of student government, the debate club, and the Republican club.\8] While she was in high school, her ambition was to be elected to Congress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress).\9] She enrolled in a women's college in Virginia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia) because of its proximity to Washington, D.C. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,D.C.), subsequently transferred to the University of Nebraska (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Nebraska), and then moved to Creighton University (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creighton_University) to be closer to a boyfriend.\9] She received a [Bachelor of Arts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Arts) in political science and business communication from [Creighton University (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creighton_University) [JESUIT] (1979) and a [Juris Doctor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor) from Creighton University School of Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creighton_University_School_of_Law) (1983), after a hiatus working as a legislative aide for Representative Hal Daub (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Daub).[8][9][10]
[[Daub served for five years on the board of Omaha's Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority (MECA). In 2012, he was elected to the board of regents of the Nebraska University system. In 2018, he was defeated in his reelection bid by Barbara Weitz.
Currently, Daub is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issue_One).[7]
Controversy[
As a University regent, Daub called for football players to be removed from the Nebraska Cornhuskers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Cornhuskers) because they knelt during the national anthem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.national_anthem_kneeling_protests) in 2017 as a protest against police violence. Daub later denied having calling for the players' removal.\8] Coach [Mike Riley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Riley%28American_football%29) said that Daub's view of the protest as unpatriotic was a misinterpretation.[9]
When senator Julie Slama (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Slama) reported in 2022 that she had been sexually assaulted by Charles Herbster (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Herbster), Daub remarked that he wanted to put Slama on a witness stand because "I'd like to ask her what she was wearing."[10] He was publicly criticized for this, and for saying that Slama "was trying to attract Herbster's attention" at the gathering where she says she was assaulted.[11]]]
Career
1981–1991
When Daub took office in 1981, Thomas moved to Washington, D.C., and worked in his office for 18 months.\7]\8][9] After completing her degree at Creighton University School of Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creighton_University_School_of_Law) in 1983, she worked one more year for Daub in Washington as his legislative director.[9] From 1985 to 1989, she was employed as an attorney and labor relations specialist at the [U.S. Chamber of Commerce (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce),[8][11][12] attending congressional hearings where she represented the interests of the business community.[8] Her advocacy included arguing against the passage of the [Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_of_1993).[13] In 1989, she became manager of employee relations at theChamber of Commerce.[14] 2 ^YEARS?
1991–2009
In 1991, Thomas returned to government service in the Legislative Affairs Office of the U.S. Department of Labor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Department_of_Labor),[15][16][17] where she argued against comparable-worth legislation that would have mandated equal pay for women and men in jobs deemed to be comparable.[18]
That year, her husband, Clarence Thomas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas), was nominated by President George H. W. Bush (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H.W.Bush) to fill the open seat on the U.S. Supreme Court (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.Supreme_Court) left by the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall).\18] She attended the contentious U.S. Senate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.Senate) confirmation hearings and stood by her husband as he was accused of [sexual harassment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment).[19]
During the confirmation hearings, several Democratic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party%28United_States%29) senators questioned whether her job with the Labor Department (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.Labor_Department) could create a conflict of interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest) for her husbandif he were to be seated on the Supreme Court.\20] After her husband was confirmed by a vote of 52 to 48,[21] she described the televised scrutiny and confirmation process as a "[trial by fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_fire_%28law%29)".[22][23]
Her next job was as a policy analyst for Representative Dick Armey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey), who was the House Republican Conference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Republican_Conference) chairman.[24]
By 2000, she was working for the Heritage Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Foundation), where she collected résumés for potential presidential appointments in the George W. Bush administration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush_administration) when the Supreme Court was deciding Bush v. Gore (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v.Gore).\25] She continued to work at the Heritage Foundation during the administration of George W. Bush (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush), serving as the White House Liaison for the [think tank (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tank).[26]
2009–2016
In late 2009, Thomas established the nonprofit lobbying group Liberty Central (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Central) to organize conservative activists, issue legislative scorecards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_scorecard) for U.S. Congress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Congress) members, and be involved in elections.\27] The group was aimed at opposing what Thomas called the "leftist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leftist) tyranny'" of President Barack Obama (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama) and congressional Democrats, and "protecting the core founding principles" of the nation.\28] Thomas's lobbying (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States) activities were raised as a potential source of conflict of interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest) for her husband.\28][29] Thomas was interviewed by [Sean Hannity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Hannity) on his [Fox News (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News) show [Hannity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannity) in June 2010. Asked about potential conflicts between her Liberty Central activities and her husband's position, Thomas replied that "there's a lot of judicial wives and husbands out there causing trouble. I'm just one of many."[30] Liberty Central ceased operations in 2012.[31]
In February 2011, Politico (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico) reported that Thomas was the head of a new company, Liberty Consulting, which filed incorporation papers in mid-November 2010. The company's website stated that clients could use Thomas's "experience and connections" to help with "governmental affairs efforts" and political donation strategies.\32] The Washington Post (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post) described Liberty Consulting as "a one-woman shop" whereThomas advised political donors how to direct funds in the post-Citizens United v. FEC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC) landscape.[3] [CLETA AMICA, CLARENCE] Also in 2011, Thomas became a special correspondent for [The Daily Caller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Caller).[33]
2016–present
Thomas endorsed Ted Cruz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz) in the2016Republican Party presidential primaries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries).\3] She supported Donald Trump (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump) after he won the Republican nomination,\31] and has served on the advisory council of Turning Point USA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_Point_USA).[34] Thomas has drawn attention for making controversial social media posts; The Washington Post wrote that she had shared "nakedly partisan, erroneous propaganda".[3] On Facebook, she has shared a [George Soros conspiracy theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros_conspiracy_theories) meme and criticized gun control advocates such as survivors of the 2018 [Stoneman Douglas High School shooting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting).[35]
Thomas is a member of the informal conservative Groundswell group (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundswell_group),\36] which she founded with the support of Steve Bannon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon), a former Trump advisor.\35] According to a February 2020 report by [Jonathan Swan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swan) in [Axios (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axios_%28website%29), Thomas actively urged Trump to change the personnel in his administration. [WACKY MTG PRAYER, LEDEEN?] Swan reported that Thomas had given Trump a memo with names of individuals recommended by the Groundswell network.[37][38]
On May 28, 2020, Trump appointed Thomas as a member of the trust fund board of the Library of Congress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress).[39]
She is a member of the conservative Council for National Policy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_National_Policy),[40] and in 2019, she became part of its board.[35]
Efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election
According to The New York Times, in the days following the 2020 presidential election, the board of the Council for National Policy issued a call to action to its members to keep Trump in power, despite his loss.[35] The call to action instructed members to "pressure Republican lawmakers into challenging the election results and appointing alternate slates of electors."[35] In May 2022, The Washington Post obtained emails Thomas had sent to Arizona legislators beginning days after the November 2020 election, urging them to choose "a clean slate of Electors." Though the emails did not mention either presidential candidate, Biden had been declared the winner in Arizona. She wrote the emails on a platform that allowed pre-written form emails to be sent to multiple elected officials, and she sent them to 29 lawmakers.[41][42]
Prior to January 6, Thomas promoted a Stop the Steal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election) rally on Facebook.\43]\44] Thomas told the [Washington Free Beacon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Free_Beacon) that she attended the [Stop the Steal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_the_Steal) rally that preceded the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack but left before Trump took the stage at noon.[45]
After January 6, baseless claims that Thomas had paid to shuttle demonstrators to Washington D.C. proliferated online.[46] A year after the attack, fact checkers again debunked claims that Thomas was one of the organizers of the events of January 6, 2021.[47]
The Washington Post reported that after the storming of the U.S. Capitol, Thomas, on a private email LISTSERV (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISTSERV) of her husband's former law clerks, expressed her apologies for contributing to a rift among the group.\48] The internal rift reportedly concerned "pro-Trump postings and former Thomas clerk [John Eastman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Eastman), who spoke at the rally and represented Trump in some of his failed lawsuits filed to overturn the 2020 election results."[48]Eastman is a close friend of both Thomases.[49]
An April 2022 Quinnipiac poll (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinnipiac_poll) found that52% of Americans said that, in light of Ginni Thomas's texts to Trump's White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows about overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election),Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases about the 2020 election.[50]
Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack
In March 2022, texts between Thomas and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meadows) from 2020 were handed to the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Select_Committee_on_the_January_6_Attack).\51] The texts show her repeatedly urging Meadows to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election) and repeating conspiracy theories about ballot fraud.\4] She urged that conspiracy theorist attorney Sidney Powell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Powell) be retained by the Trump campaign efforts to overturn the 2020 election.\52] In the quoted texts, Thomas described an unknown number of American citizens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_of_the_United_States) that she hoped would be "living in barges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site) off [GITMO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp)"[53] in accord with the[QAnon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon)-affiliated conspiracy theory that President Biden, his family, and thousands of state and county election officials, administrators, and volunteers successfully orchestrated and performed [a vast conspiracy to rig the 2020 elections (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election#Stop_the_Steal) across thousands of administrative districts or wards.
Public perception of the likelihood of such QAnon-style conspiracy theories influencing a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court was widespread enough[54] that President Biden was asked what he thought about whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from any January 6-related cases.[55] He replied that the answer is for others to determine,[55] mentioning the congressional investigating committee and the Department of Justice.[55] Under U.S. law, each justice of the court is the main and possibly only person who has power over his or her own recusal.
CNN reported in June 2022 that the Select Committee possessed email correspondence between Thomas and John Eastman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eastman).\56] The emails were part of Eastman's correspondence related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.\56] In the wake of revelations regarding her correspondence with Eastman, Thomas was asked to testify before the committee.\57] In an interview with the Daily Caller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Caller), Thomas stated that she "can't wait to clear up misconceptions. I look forward to talking to them."\58] Thomas previously signed on to a letter to House minority leader, [Kevin McCarthy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_McCarthy_%28California_politician%29), calling for the removal of [Rep. Liz Cheney (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Cheney) and [Rep. Adam Kinzinger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Kinzinger) from the Republican conference for their participation on the Select Committee and describing the January 6 investigations as "bringing disrespect to our country's rule of law."[35] [Mark Paoletta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Paoletta), Thomas's attorney, wrote the committee days later that she would not agree to be interviewed unless additional information came to light that might warrant testimony.[59]
Days after it became known Eastman and Thomas had communicated by email, Eastman posted on his new Substack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substack) blog one email that he captioned, "OMG, Mrs. Thomas asked me to give an update about election litigation to her group. Stop the Presses!" In the December 4, 2020 email, Thomas invited Eastman to speak four days later at a gathering of "Frontliners," which she described as a group of "grassroots state leaders." A private Facebook group named "FrontLiners for Liberty," which included over 50 people and was created in August 2020, showed Thomas as an administrator. The group's front page carried a banner stating, "the enemy of America...is the radical fascist left."
After CNBC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNBC) asked Thomas about the group, its public pages were either made private or deleted.CNBC also contacted Stephanie Coleman, who was also listed as a group administrator. She is the widow of former Texas solicitor general Greg Coleman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Coleman%28jurist%29), who had clerked for Clarence Thomas. Numerous photos of her and Thomas are on her personal Facebook page, including one of both of them with former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon) in December 2016. The Thomas email was among those federal judgeDavid Carter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_O.Carter)ordered Eastman to releaseto the January 6 committee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_committee) in June 2022, as Eastman sought to withhold them. Carter found ten documents he ordered released to the committee relating to three December 2020 meetings by a secretive group strategizing about how to overturn the election, which included who he characterized as a "high-profile" leader. Carter noted one email in particular among those he ordered released that contained what he found was likely evidence of a crime. Thomas attended a meeting of FrontLiners for Liberty on March 6, 2021, at which a speaker declared Trump was still the "legitimate president," to enthusiastic applause.[60][61][62] [63]
Personal life
Virginia and Clarence Thomas married in 1987.\64] The couple lives in [Fairfax Station, Virginia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_Station,_Virginia).[65]
Thomas converted from Protestantism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism) to her husband's Catholic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic) faith in 2002.She was inspired by his devotion of praying the Litany of Humility (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litany_of_Humility) and participating in the Mass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_%28liturgy%29). She credits Justice Antonin Scalia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia) and his wife Maureen for helping her husband back into the Church.[66]
On October 9, 2010, Thomas left a voicemail message for Anita Hill (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Hill), whose accusations of sexual harassment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment) against her husband complicated his Supreme Court nomination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas_Supreme_Court_nomination) hearings 19 years earlier.[67][68]In the voicemail, Thomas said that Hill should apologize to her husband.Hill responded that there was nothing to apologize for and said that her 1991 testimony about her interactions with Clarence Thomas was truthful.[67]
In 2011, Clarence Thomas amended 20 years worth of his financial disclosures to include Virginia Thomas's places of employment.[69]
Lifespring
In the 1980s, while a congressional aide, Thomas took training with the self-awareness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness) program Lifespring (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifespring).\70] In 1987, she related to [The Washington Post (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post) that, during her training several years earlier, she had been "confused and troubled" by lessons such as one where trainees were told to disrobe to bikinis and bathing suits then "made fun of fat people's bodies and ridiculed one another with sexual questions".[70] After realizing that membership in her Lifespring group was separating her from her family, friends, and co-workers, Thomas began what proved to be a difficult and months-long process of breaking away.[70] At one point, she hid in another part of the U.S. to avoid a constant barrage of high-pressure phone calls from Lifespring members, who felt they had a duty to keep her in the organization.[8][71][72]
Thomas came to believe that Lifespring was a cult (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult).\8] After leaving the group in 1985, she sought counseling and joined the Cult Awareness Network (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_Awareness_Network).\8][73] She became a critic of controversial religious groups, speaking on panels and organizing [anti-cult workshops (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-cult_movement) for congressional staffers in 1986 and 1988.[8] In a 1991 interview, Thomas remarked, "I was once in a group that used [mind control (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_control) techniques", and she called its members "pretty scary people".[74]
References
...
ref
Jan. 6 Panel Hearings
A lawyer for Virginia Thomas said she would not testify to the House panel for now.
Maggie Haberman
June 28, 2022
A lawyer for Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a supporter of President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election, told the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot that he saw no reason for her to testify before the panel.
The letter from her lawyer, Mark Paoletta, obtained by The New York Times, came after the committee made a fresh request to secure an appearance from Ms. Thomas, who had exchanged text messages with the White House chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, in which she urged on efforts to challenge Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.
...
---
WHITEWATER WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB861917340688900500
clinton jihad:
no lnx
By Edward Felsenthal and David Rogers Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
April 25, 1997
WASHINGTON -- Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had to force herself to be pleasant when she met Hillary Clinton for the first time four years ago.
Mrs. Clinton had been an outspoken supporter of Anita Hill, the woman who had famously accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 confirmation hearings. Ms. Thomas couldn't get the association out of her mind.
"For me, it was, 'Wow, now I have to, in my role, be respectful and cordial and courteous,' " Ms. Thomas recalls thinking as she moved through a receiving line toward the new first lady. Although the brief encounter was awkward for her, Ms. Thomas says she was proud of how she handled it. She gave Mrs. Clinton some verses from the Bible, along with a warning about how tough this city can be.
Today Ms. Thomas feels a kinship with Mrs. Clinton. Like the first lady, she is best known as the spouse of a prominent man. But also like Mrs. Clinton, she has become a controversial political player and has been the subject of vigorous public criticism for her partisan activities.
Although she takes pains to carve out her own identity, Ms. Thomas, 40 years old, is inevitably linked with her husband in much of what she does. "A lot of people treat her a certain way ... because of who she is married to," says radio-host Armstrong Williams, a former close aide and a friend to Justice Thomas.
Awkward Predicament
Ms. Thomas says there are challenges that come with "being a Supreme Court spouse, as opposed to just a lawyer working in Washington." Her dual role highlights an increasingly common political phenomenon: Now that many political partners are professionals themselves, they face an awkward predicament. Many find they have to struggle to avoid being used as political tools or being perceived as benefiting from their spouse's position.
Barbara Olson, an aide to the Senate leadership who has worked in congressional investigations of the Clinton administration, has been a target of Democratic sniping that she is a proxy for her husband, Theodore Olson, a prominent lawyer who has represented one of the president's accusers in the Whitewater affair. Republicans in the last Congress delighted in cutting money for a small anticrime program that paid consulting fees to Sylvia Panetta, wife of then-White House Chief-of-Staff Leon Panetta. That put Mr. Panetta in the uncomfortable position of having to fight to get the money back.
Ms. Thomas had already made a name for herself as an activist in conservative circles before Republicans took over Congress in 1994. But her influence grew after that election when her boss, Rep. Dick Armey of Texas, became House majority leader.
Ms. Thomas operates much as an eager young administrative officer back at the base camp for the Republican infantry. She works behind the scenes, serving as part strategist and part cheerleader for the leadership's effort tobeef-up the GOP's ability to investigate and oversee the White House and executive agencies.[benghazi much later?]
Partisan Battles
It is a role that takes her from dry, detailed General Accounting Office reports to the higher-profile and more partisan-edged investigations of administration scandals. She has assisted with the investigations of White House ethics, Whitewater, the firing of the White House travel staff, and the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's financial dealings. When Republicans approved an expanded budget for House committee investigations last month, the move partly reflected Ms. Thomas's influence.
She has figured in several high-profile fights involving the House Appropriations Committee. Over the objections of some Republicans on the committee, she pressed hard for deep cuts in funding to Legal Services Corp., a provider of legal aid to the poor that she viewed as using federal money to advance liberal causes.
And in a stormy panel meeting in1995, she stood watch on behalf of Mr. Armey as Republicans reluctantly lined up behind a leadership attempt to bar funding for nonprofit organizations that engage in advocacy, in many cases for poor constituencies. The measure ultimately failed because of opposition in the Senate.
During this Congress, Ms. Thomas has stepped back, as the leadership has relaxed its efforts to control committee chairmen. But she is still a force behind continuing investigations, and before last year's election she helped gather information on White House scandals for Republicans to use on the campaign trail. (That project was abandoned after word of its existence leaked, prompting concern that it would make Republicans look like scandalmongers.)
A memo this past January titled "Foreign Money Contributions Scandal" illustrates Ms. Thomas's style. Throwing as wide a net as possible, she addressed it to Republican staff on 19 committees, including the sensitive Intelligence panel. In it, she cited statutes or regulations that might have been violated by overseas contributions to Democrats. She urged staff directors to be "watchful" for administration efforts to dismiss problems as just "campaign finance." Ms. Thomas wrote, "what we don't know is how much was for sale in the Clinton presidency."
Though Ms. Thomas is good-humored and engaging, her writing sometimes gets her into trouble.Much of her job is simply informational: She helps produce a biweekly "Oversight Bulletin" publicizing current investigations. But when she pens strategy, she betrays a partisan edge that makes experienced staff directors blanch.
A case in point is an April 1996 memo she wrote for Republican congressmen Bob Walker and Jim Nussleand sent to House committees, asking for "examples of dishonesty or ethical lapses in the Clinton administration" and "anecdotes that amplify these areas." The memo requested that all such materials be sent to her as quickly as possible and reminded committee chairs that "you are a tremendous resource for this project."
Democratic Backlash
Democrats quickly turned Ms. Thomas's memo on the Republicans, claiming it proved that the investigations were partisan. During one hearing, Democrats blew up the memo and posted it on an easel to suggest that the proceeding was part of a GOP plot to denigrate the administration.
Even some Republican staff members complained that it went too far. "It didn't dawn on her that in Congress, things aren't supposed to appear politically driven,"even if they are, says a senior GOP aide who has worked with her.
In May, two weeks after the memo was distributed, Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia spotted Ms. Thomas in the audience at a hearing on the White House travel-office firings. In a rare public attack on a congressional staffer, he demanded to know why "Mrs. Clarence Thomas in that bright blue dress" was present. "I really smell a political witch hunt," he said.
Ms. Thomas didn't endure the attack silently. Later that day, she confronted Mr. Moran on a House elevator and showed him a copy of a book, "Everything Men Know About Women," in which all the pages are blank. "This book is about you," she said.Justice Thomas later left his wife a voice-mail message in which he teasingly sang verses of the song, "Devil With a Blue Dress On."
Spousal Conflict?
Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, who also questioned Ms. Thomas's role at the travel-office hearing, believes it is a conflict of interest for her to be involved in disputes between Congress and the White House that the Supreme Court might be called on to settle. "We may have a problem here where the marital relationship confuses the constitutional intent" of the separation of powers, Mr. Kanjorski says. Ms. Thomas laughs when told of Mr. Kanjorski's statement, but declines to comment.
Certainly, the role of a Supreme Court spouse is changing. The periodic spouse lunches are still held in the stately "Ladies Dining Room" at the court, but those attending are professional women -- and men -- with their own careers. Martin Ginsburg, a nationally known tax specialist and the husband of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, cooked the main dish, shrimp, at a recent gathering. Ms. Thomas says John O'Connor, a lawyer married to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has helped her sort out how to handle being a professional and a court spouse.
"You really are seeing with Supreme Court spouses or congressional spouses or presidential spouses an evolution in ... the different roles [women and men] are playing," Ms. Thomas says.
Ethical Leeway
Because some of the ethical rules on family conflicts for judges aren't specific, individuals have some leeway.In 1993, seven justices did sign a policy statement agreeing not to participate in cases handled by firms where their relatives might profit because they are partners. Justice Ginsburg signed,and her husband also has an arrangement with his law firm that prevents him from profiting from his firm's Supreme Court work.
Yet even among Supreme Court spouses, Ms. Thomas's high profile sets her apart. And she resents the spotlight. "How many other spouses of Supreme Court justices have you profiled in this way?" she asks. "I just think there is a double standard when it comes to some of the attention and the maliciousness that we've received." Her husband declined through a court spokeswoman to be interviewed for this story.
The daughter of Reagan delegates in the 1960s, Ms. Thomas had bona fide conservative credentials long before her marriage. She helped found a teenage Republican club in her hometown of Omaha, Neb. Later, as a law student at local Creighton University, she worked on Republican Hal Daub's 1980 campaign for Congress. When he won, she followed him to Washington and rose quickly on his staff.
The 'Quick Fix'
She also began experimenting in the early 1980s with a self-help outfit called Lifespring that some critics say has characteristics of a cult. Ms. Thomas says she turned to the group as a "kind of quick fix" after failing the Nebraska bar exam. She ultimately passed, but had difficulty untangling herself from Lifespring, an experience that helped make her an outspoken advocate against such groups. (A lawyer for Lifespring Inc., based in San Raphael, Calif., says it offers "adult experiential education," is registered with the Better Business Bureau, and has "no indicia of a cult.")
With Mr. Daub, she became involved in a debate that would catapult her into the front lines of the conservative movement. The issue was comparable-worth legislation, a proposal to prevent employers from paying lower wages for certain occupations dominated by women. Ms. Thomas found herself appalled by the idea of interfering with the free market in the name of what she considered bad social policy.
She jumped at the chance to take a job in late 1984 lobbying against the proposal for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Although she wasn't yet 30, she soon found herself in the leadership of a coalition of groups working to kill the legislation, making her a national spokeswoman on the issue.
Good Housekeeping
"Ginni was responsible more than any other single person for the demise of the comparable-worth theory," says Clint Bolick, a conservative activist. In 1986, Good Housekeeping magazine named her one of "28 Young Women of Promise."
Through her work on comparable worth, she got invited to an Anti-Defamation League conference in New York on civil rights. There she met Clarence Thomas, then head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Despite their different races and radically different upbringings -- Mr. Thomas was born into a poor family in rural Georgia -- they were ideologically in sync. "I always joke with people and say if they think Justice Thomas is conservative, they ought to meet Ginni" says Stephen Smith, a Washington lawyer and family friend.
Sharing a cab with Mr. Thomas after the ADL conference, she says she found herself "riveted" by him. They married a year later, in 1987.
A Career Eclipsed
Looking back at her Good Housekeeping interview, Ms. Thomas, who had hoped to run for Congress someday, finds her current situation ironic. She told the magazine she was worried about "finding a husband who'll be supportive of a woman in public life." But it soon became clear that Mr. Thomas's career would eclipse hers. Three years after the marriage, Mr. Thomas took a seat on the prestigious federal appeals court in Washington. The next year, President Bush nominated him for the Supreme Court.
The bitter 1991 confirmation battle led to some ugly attacks on Ms. Thomas. A USA Today columnist suggested in an interview that Mr. Thomas had sold out his race by marrying a white woman. Women's groups worried openly about her influencing her husband on issues like comparable worth. Some religious leaders raised concerns about her affiliation with an anticult group they considered hostile to some legitimate expressions of faith.
Ms. Thomas acknowledges that some of her colleagues, knowing how painful the hearings were for her, now view her partisan activities as freighted with revenge. "Maybe I do sound bitter at times, and for that, I'm sorry," she says. "I don't feelin my heart that I'm bitter. I feel that I've gone through a furnace."
Drafted by Armey
Ms. Thomas spent most of the Bush administration as a deputy assistant secretary at the Labor Department, responsible for congressional relations. In 1993, she was hired by Mr. Armey, who had met her during the comparable-worth debate and had since become a fishing buddy of Justice Thomas.
"She's top hand, that's why I wanted her," the majority leader says. "I think that Ginni's her own person. She stands on her own merit."
Ms. Thomas is upbeat about her work, but recognizes that her marriage to a powerful man has complicated her career. "I'm kind of stuck here," she says with a sigh, when asked if she still wants to run for Congress. Despite that, and the sometimes harsh attention to her as a public figure, Ms. Thomas says she struggles to avoid cynicism or disillusionment.
And, though her work often pits her against the Clintons, she has made peace with the first lady, who, through a spokeswoman, describes Ms. Thomas as "gracious and personally supportive."
Ms. Thomas even offered some encouragement to Mrs. Clinton. "Does it ever get better?" the first lady asked Ms. Thomas at another reception a year after their first meeting. "It does," Ms. Thomas replied.
2x?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/lifespring/main.htm
laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 10, 1991; Page F01
who's afraid of Virginia Thomas? She's a soft-spoken, hard-working daughter of the heartland. A brainy Omaha lawyer who has scaled the sheetrock of professional Washington. A churchgoer who invites homeless people out to lunch. A good friend. A good family. Why the fuss over Mrs. Supreme Court Nominee?
Her critics see her as more than just the supportive spouse who'll accompany her husband, Clarence, today as he begins Senate confirmation hearings. They see a woman with strong opinions on issues that are bound to come before the court. They find in her further grounds for opposing him.
Some women's rights activists are upset by her lobbying against such issues as comparable-worth legislation and the Family Leave Act. Some religious rights groups are troubled by her anti-cult activities in light of her involvement with Lifespring, a controversial motivational group.
Even the color of her skin is being used to determine the content of Clarence Thomas's character. The fact that she is white has drawn criticism from some blacks who see the marriage as evidence that Clarence Thomas has rejected his roots.
"My real question is, Why me?" said Virginia Thomas, when asked for an interview. She has declined to talk with reporters until after the hearings. She's not the story, she said. Yet she is a compelling and persuasive figure.
"The one person {Clarence Thomas} really listens to is Virginia," said longtime friend Evan Kemp, chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "He depends on her for advice."
Even the way the two of them came together seems surprising -- at first. Clarence spent his childhood with segregation and bigotry, in a dirt-poor town with no sewers or paved roads. His father abandoned him when he was 2 years old. Virginia grew up in lily-white suburbia; her parents wintered in Florida. Her father, a successful engineer, doted on his children.
But look deeper and you'll find the perfect couple. They both keep five pictures of each other on their desks. Married more than four years, they act "like they're on their honeymoon," one close friend said. "Intellectual soul mates," said another. Ideologically, they are so in sync that they both took stands against comparable worth well before they met.
In their respective careers, the Thomases have embraced the view that women and minorities are hindered, rather than helped, by affirmative action and government programs. True equality is achieved by holding everyone to the same standard, they believe.
"I don't think it's fair to say she's anti-women's rights," saidRicky Silberman, vice chairwoman of the EEOC and a friend of the Thomases. She said Virginia Thomas opposed legislation on comparable worth because it would have involved the government in determining wages, which is "not good for the economy, not good for workers, not good for women."
Virginia Thomas has represented the conservative viewpoint in her jobs as a staffer for a Republican congressman, as spokeswoman at the U.S. Chamber of Congress and as deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Labor.
"Virginia Thomas is not supporting the interests of working women in America by the positions she's taken," said Pat Taylor, president of Business and Professional Women. "She can have only a negative influence on her husband, which is unfortunate because you'd like to believe that women who achieve a position of responsibility and influence would use that position to help women."
"If he is influenced by his wife, a white conservative who lobbied against comparable pay for women, he will be anti-women's issues," wrote USA Today columnist Barbara Reynolds in a July 5 piece. Reynolds, who is black, also is concerned by Thomas's choice of a white wife.
"It may sound bigoted; well, this is a bigoted world and why can't black people be allowed a little Archie Bunker mentality?" Reynolds said later. "Here's a man who's going to decide crucial issues for the country and he has already said no to blacks; he has already said if he can't paint himself white he'll think white and marry a white woman."
Clarence Thomas advocates a colorblind society, and his marriage may well be an example of that philosophy. But others see a different symbolism.
"His marrying a white woman is a sign of his rejection of the black community," said Russell Adams, chairman of Howard University's department of Afro-American studies. "Great justices have had community roots that served as a basis for understanding the Constitution. Clarence's lack of a sense of community makes his nomination troubling."
Some religious leaders are troubled as well. Dean Kelley, the National Council of Churches' counselor on religious liberty, wrote a critique of Clarence Thomas that was used as grounds for his organization's opposition to the Supreme Court nominee. The author did not mention Virginia Thomas in his text, but said in an interview that he was concerned about her involvement in theCult Awareness Network (CAN), a Chicago-based organization that says it educates the public about "destructive" cults. That involvement, he said, might affect her husband's handling of religious liberty cases if he shares her views on the subject.
Clarence Thomas is not a member of CAN, although he has attended at least one CAN event with his wife, who is a member, according to Cynthia Kisser, the group's executive director.
"The mere fact that she is involved in CAN is chilling in terms of free exercise of religion," said Earl Trent, counsel for the American Baptist Churches. Kelley, among others, says members of the anti-cult organization support forcible deprogramming of religious adherents. CAN denies the charges.
Trent said freedom of religion has come under attack in recent Supreme Court decisions and "a Supreme Court justice's wife who is involved in activities which threaten that freedom makes us uneasy."
Prairie Republican
Uneasy? Chilling? Negative influence?
She is a tall woman, with friendly brown curls, clever blue eyes and a smile that makes you smile. How did this amiable 34-year-old wind up churning so many a gut?
Ginni Thomas grew up in Omaha, the youngest of four children. Her parents, Donald and Marjorie Lamp, were upper-middle-class Republican Party insiders who stressed family and religion at home.
Ginni loved visiting her uncle's farm in Iowa, where she could drive the family tractor. But she was no corn husker. In high school she showed her proclivity for politics, wowing teachers and her classmates in student government, the debate club and the teenage Republican club.
("She was a good student and that's all," her father said before affirming his wariness toward the press and hanging up.)
"Mom was the big politician and Ginni wanted to be like her," said her brother Russell Lamp, 16 years her senior. Marjorie Lamp ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature, served on county and state Republican central committees and was a delegate to national conventions, he said.
Ginni went on to the Jesuit-run Creighton University in Omaha and earned a BA in business communications and political science. She attended Creighton's law school in the early 1980s and, as always, excelled.
"She was hungrier to learn than most students I've had in 12 years," said Richard Shagrue, a law school professor. Thomas studied constantly, but managed to find time to help organize several campaigns for local Republicans, among them Hal Daub, a friend of the Lamps. Freshman congressman Daub arrived in Washington in January 1981 with his star volunteer in tow.
Thomas thrived in Daub's office, said her then-office manager, Jack Horner. On Ginni's first day, Horner checked in early, at 8 a.m., to show her that he and his staff were a hard-working crew. But when he arrived at the office, he found Thomas busy at her desk. "She had been there since the crack of dawn," he said.
Thomas worked her way up to legislative director. She had a great rapport with Daub and was "in sync" with the congressman's opinions, including his antiabortion stance, Horner said.
"She was exuberant, enthusiastic and very excited," said Mark Mackee, a fellow staffer. "It was the early Reagan years and she was in the middle of it."
The Lifespring Experience
She also was in the middle of a mess.
During the early '80s, Thomas enrolled in Lifespring, a self-help course that challenges students to take responsibility for their lives. Most of the program's 300,000 graduates have found it be a favorable experience. There are, however, a small percentage of clients who are deeply disturbed by Lifespring's methods, which involve intense emotional self-examination.
Thomas told a Washington Post reporter in 1987 that she was confused and troubled by some of Lifespring's exercises. In one session, trainees listened to "The Stripper" while disrobing to skimpy bikinis and bathing suits. The group stood in a U-shaped line, made fun of fat people's bodies and riddled one another with sexual questions.
"At first Ginni was feeling pretty good and enthusiastic about Lifespring," recalls her minister, the Rev. Rodney Wilmoth of Omaha's St. Paul United Methodist Church, who corresponded with Thomas at the time. "But later she was concerned about its influence and began to sense the organization had a cultlike mentality."
Terry Nelson, vice president of Lifespring, said the group is not a cult and that Virginia Thomas's account of the training exercises has been taken out of context. "Are our people enthusiastic, intense and emotional? Yes," Nelson said.
Bronson Levin, a clinical psychologist in Bailey's Crossroads and a Lifespring graduate who specializes in treating what he calls "casualties," said people who are not prepared for the intense emotional experience of Lifespring or who have hidden traumas tend to become overwhelmed as childhood memories come thundering back to them during training.
"I remember Ginni felt manipulated by the group," Wilmoth said. "She was losing her own freedom of who she was."
It took Thomas months to break fully from Lifespring's "high-pressure tactics," she told The Post in 1987. "I had intellectually and emotionally gotten myself so wrapped up with this group that I was moving away from my family and friends and the people I work with. My best friend came to visit me and I was preaching at her using that rough attitude they teach you."
Finally, Daub, Thomas's boss, confronted her. "We talked about it and ultimately she thought it through and took action to extricate herself," Daub said.
Thomas contacted Kevin Garvey, a Connecticut stockbroker turned counselor, who gets a steady stream of referrals from psychologists and physicians.
"I got a phone call from her asking for help," Garvey recalled. He met with her from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Hamburger Hamlet in Georgetown on a Sunday afternoon in 1984, he said, and left feeling satisfied that the young woman would be all right. "The picture of her as a totally destroyed individual is not true," he said.
Thomas felt guilty about breaking her Lifespring "commitment," she said in the 1987 interview. She hid out in another part of the country to avoid constant phone calls from fellow trainees who felt it was their responsibility to make Thomas keep her commitment to Lifespring.
Her friends describe her as levelheaded, thoughtful, smart. Her involvement with Lifespring baffles them. But at least one close friend had an inkling.
"There's a kind of naivete about her, a kind of innocence you have to be careful with," said Wilmoth, her minister. "Ginni is a very, very trusting person -- she once invited a homeless man out to lunch with her in a fancy Washington restaurant -- I'm sure that's one of the reasons she was very susceptible to this group. She was looking for spiritual growth and trusted those people would do the right thing."
Cult Awareness
Since 1985 Ginni Thomas has been a public advocate against cult activities. She has attended Cult Awareness Network conventions, including the 1990 convention in Chicago, according to Patricia Ryan, who is the organization's president and the daughter of Leo Ryan, the congressman killed at Jonestown, Guyana. Thomas has spoken on panels and organized anti-cult workshops for congressional staffers in 1986 and 1988.
"Ginni feels she has been personally victimized and feels a responsibility to educate others," Ryan said.
CAN, however, has had its own share of trouble. Religious liberty advocates accuse it of supporting deprogrammers who kidnap members of religious groups and coerce them to undergo treatment. CAN's adversaries have included fundamentalist Christian splinter groups, the Church of Scientology and the Unification Church.
CAN officials maintain that cults tried to stifle Thomas's activities while she worked at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a labor relations attorney during the mid-'80s. Fred Krebs, Thomas's supervisor, confirmed receiving letters objecting to her involvement in anti-cult work. He declined to name the group that sent the letters but said, "Ginni was very careful not to identify herself with the Chamber while pursuing her anti-cult activities."
CAN officials said cult groups are trying to use Virginia Thomas's involvement with the network to torpedo her husband's nomination.
"If Ginni is the wife of a Supreme Court justice, it's probably a little scary for the cults," Ryan said.
The year Ginni Lamp married Clarence Thomas, now 43, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began taking an interest in the role of new age groups in the workplace. The EEOC, then headed by Clarence Thomas, started work on a policy statement governing "new age training programs which conflict with employees' religious beliefs," according to Cathleen Courtney, the EEOC staff attorney who drafted the memo in May 1987.
It was the same month the couple were married.
Virginia Thomas was very concerned about such training programs, according to Peter Georgiades, a Pittsburgh lawyer who has filed cases against Lifespring and who met Thomas through their anti-cult activities.
"Ginni was interested in the problem of employers effectively compelling employees to participate in training which was inimical to their religious beliefs," Georgiades said. "She would ask me about it, to think about the problem and possible solutions."
Clarence Thomas signed an EEOC "policy guidance" explaining the legal rights of employees who object to such training in September 1988. Virginia Thomas was thrilled, Georgiades recalls. No one, from top EEOC officials on down, could state with certainty where the initiative for the policy had come from, although Courtney suggested it may have been prompted by press reports or field complaints. Asked about the policy guidance, Ginni Thomas said she was familiar with it, but declined to comment on its genesis.
"Virginia is very smart and a very good lobbyist," said Evan Kemp, current chairman of the EEOC. "She might have discussed it with him, but even though {her husband} is madly in love with her, he is very independent."
Kemp said he did not think Clarence Thomas signed off on the policy because of his wife's anti-cult stance: "He wouldn't even do that for his grandfather."
Comparable Views
Ginni Thomas had plenty of other issues to fight for during those years, from 1985 to 1989, when she served as a labor relations attorney at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She represented the interests of the business community at congressional hearings on such issues as comparable worth, affirmative action and federal child care legislation.
Acting on behalf of the Chamber, Thomas led the opposition to the Family and Medical Leave Act, which would have required companies with 50 employees or more to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave and continued medical benefits to employees at the time of childbirth or a medical emergency. While Thomas's friends call her a firm believer in women's rights, her public activities have antagonized many women's groups.
In June of 1985, at least a year before she met Clarence Thomas, Ginni Lamp found herself allied with the EEOC chairman in his rejection of comparable worth. The fact that women don't receive equal pay for different jobs that require equal training and responsibility doesn't mean they suffer from discrimination, Clarence Thomas said. "We found that sole reliance on a comparison of the intrinsic value of dissimilar jobs -- which command different wages in the market -- does not prove a violation of Title VII" of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Clarence Thomas told a news conference.
Lamp, speaking for the Chamber, praised the EEOC decision.
"Rather than using our civil rights laws to identify and address discrimination as it exists in the workplace," she said, "comparable-worth advocates want to label a social phenomenon -- the fact that women on average make less than men on average -- as 'discrimination' and then use our civil rights laws for purposes for which they were never intended."
A perfect match. All they needed now was a boardroom table across which to set eyes on each other.
Love-Struck
That table materialized at an Anti-Defamation League meeting in New York.
During the spring of 1986, they both turned up at an ADL civil rights colloquium.
"Anybody who followed EEOC policy at the time would have read about Ginni in the papers and thought she was a middle-aged woman in a power suit and Oxfords," said Ricky Silberman, vice chairwoman of the EEOC. "And there she sat -- I was thunderstruck -- this very beautiful young woman."
At the end of the session, Thomas and Lamp slipped away and traveled back to Washington together. Three months later, Thomas took Silberman out to lunch at Clyde's in Georgetown and told her, "'I want you to know that I'm in love,' " Silberman recalled. They were engaged soon after and married by the following summer.
"She's made him a much happier man," Silberman said.
She calms him down. She lights him up. He makes her feel like the most important person on the planet. He jokes. She laughs. The Thomases' friends agree: They are thrilled to have found each other.
In a 1986 Good Housekeeping article that named Virginia Lamp as one of "28 Young Women of Promise," Lamp said that her ultimate goal was to run for Congress. Her biggest obstacle, however, was "finding a husband who'll be supportive of a woman in public life."
"She'd always been plain too busy for romance," said her best friend from law school, Jody Agers. "Clarence was one of her first serious relationships."
Clarence Thomas also seemed plain too busy for romance after he divorced his first wife, Kate Ambush, in 1984. ("It was an amiable divorce," said Ambush's father, Nelson, "no knock-down, drag-out fight.")
"You need to find a wife," Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) teased Thomas, Jet magazine reported in 1987, after Thurmond finished Thomas's confirmation hearings for the EEOC. Jet named Clarence Thomas one of Washington's most eligible bachelors.
When Clarence Thomas found the perfect bachelorette, and the couple announced their engagement, they raised eyebrows and blood pressure. This was, however, primarily among those who hadn't met the love-struck pair.
"I can guarantee you I was surprised when I found out she was going with a black man," Ginni Thomas's uncle Ralph Knop said from his farm in Iowa. "It was unusual for us."
"But he was so nice, we forgot he was black," her aunt Opal added, "and he treated her so well, all of his other qualities made up for his being black."
At the wedding, which was held in a largely white Methodist church in Omaha, "there was some buzz in the congregation because people didn't realize he was black and there was a sort of a 'Huh? Oh,' " recalled the Rev. Wilmoth.
But friends and neighbors said the interracial nature of their marriage is irrelevant. They said Ginni Thomas's family welcomed Clarence Thomas from the beginning.
"If you have any feelings about black color, you forget about it as soon as you start talking to him," her father, Donald Lamp, was quoted as saying in the Omaha World-Herald.
Ginni Thomas's color is an issue to some blacks, however. "There's a lot of controversy about an emergent group of black male conservatives who have exhibited a tendency toward interracial marriage," said Ronald Walters, chairman of the Howard University political science department. He cited author Shelby Steele and economist Thomas Sowell as other examples. "White conservatives are {Clarence Thomas's} ideological bedfellows, and his white conservative wife is literally his bedfellow."
Home, Church and Family
Does that matter? The question of the degree that spouses influence each other's public positions is a long-debated subject in Washington.
"I'm married to a federal judge and he influences me and I influence him," said Silberman, a close friend of the Thomases and the wife of D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. "That's part of being close to someone -- we certainly have discussions about cases."
Silberman said the Thomases are "great intellectual soul mates who talk a lot about ideas and social policy."
The couple live in a gray, three-bedroom house in Alexandria, in a new Everyburb development, with Clarence Thomas's 19-year-old son, Jamal, from his first marriage. "Jamal said at first when they got married he wasn't sure it would work out," said Gabe Bicoy, the Thomases' 17-year-old neighbor. "But now he thinks Ginni's cool and she takes him shopping."
Jamal, a high school football star as his father was, left recently for Fork Union Military Academy, a military prep school in Fork Union, Va., affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
Although Clarence Thomas was raised a Roman Catholic, the couple regularly attend the Truro Episcopal Church, a charismatic congregation in Fairfax. A majority of the congregants oppose abortion, according to Gordon Klooster, the church administrator. A home was established on church grounds for pregnant women who decide against abortion. And the preacher occasionally delivers a antiabortion sermon, Klooster said. On Friday nights, the church holds a "prayer-and-praise service," a casual program that includes community singing, speaking in tongues and prophesying in the spirit of Christ. The Thomases are not Friday night regulars but they have attended within the past two months, Klooster said.
On weekends lately, she has been tending to the garden and mowing the lawn while he has been sitting in the garage wearing a T-shirt and shorts, hunched over a stack of legal books, cramming for the hearings. They prefer to garden together, neighbors say.
They like to drive to work together. She calls him Batman because of his new black Corvette. He sends her flowers when her job at the Labor Department gets stressful. She hauled a four-foot card across the street to the federal courthouse for their anniversary. He pops over to Labor during the day just to say hi.
They go on morning runs. They take after-dinner walks. Neighbors say you can see them in the evening talking, walking up the hill. Hand in hand.
an 3 22
Ginni Thomas confirmed she was present at Donald Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon that she briefly attended the rally but got cold and left before Trump addressed his supporters, some of whom then descended on the U.S. Capitol and stormed inside as Congress certified Joe Biden's election win.
"I was disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse on Jan. 6," Thomas said. "There are 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. I fear we are losing that ability."
Thomas said she did not help organize the rally at the White House Ellipse and insisted that her involvement in the event, which has fallen under investigation by the Department of Justice and the House select committee, had no bearing on her husband's service on the Supreme Court.
"Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America," Thomas 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."
According to a pair of reports earlier this year in the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine, Thomas reportedly acted as an intermediary between event organizers Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots and Amy Kremer of Women for America First, but she and both other women denied those claims.
"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."
https://www.americanoversight.org/ginni-thomas-republican-connections-raise-ethics-concerns-for-scotus
The activism of prominent conservative Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has for years raised questions about partisan influence on the judicial system and ethics in the Supreme Court. American Oversight is actively investigating Ginni Thomas’ connections and influence in right-wing networks and their potential impact on Justice Thomas’ ethics decisions. Records we have obtained through public records requests reveal Ginni Thomas’ ties to the Trump administration as well as evidence of Justice Thomas’ contact with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
As detailed in a recent update (https://www.americanoversight.org/email-suggests-that-supreme-court-justice-thomas-had-been-in-regular-contact-with-florida-gov-desantis), emails between Ginni Thomas and DeSantis, obtained by American Oversight and reported on by Politico (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/florida-playbook/2022/02/04/desantis-supreme-court-connection-00005583), suggest that Justice Thomas may have been in regular contact (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/clarence-thomas-ron-desantis-communication-new-emails-1295354/) with the Republican governor. On June 10, 2021, Ginni Thomas reached out (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p179/a2079095) to DeSantis’ scheduling office to invite him to speak to a “coalition” of “conservative patriots.” Thomas explained (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p178/a2079134) that the governor would know her because her “husband has been in contact with him … on various things of late.”
Ginni Thomas said the “cone of silence coalition” of “about 83 national leaders” was formerly known asGroundswellandincluded former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadowsamong its attendees. The group, now called the Third Century Group (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p184/a2079097) (TC Group), was focused on “the greatest threats and opportunities to constitutional governance,” Thomas wrote (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p179/a2079095) in her email, “and admittedly we are weary about the GOP divisions, lack of courage and lack of leadership.” Thomas also wrote that the group met “through the help of [conservative organization] Judicial Watch.”
DeSantis was eventually scheduled (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p181/a2079096)to present during the group’s July 21 virtual meeting. According to an email (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p180/a2079098) from a vice president at the Heritage Foundation who was planning to introduce the governor at the meeting, DeSantis was invited to speak “about whatever is on his mind in terms of national politics” and the attendees were “very concerned about [critical race theory], election integrity and immigration.”
:{:{The Coalition Formerly Known as Groundswell}:
Formerly known as Groundswell, TC Group is a secretive right-wing strategy group led by Ginni Thomas and others, which has been bringing together conservative activists for nearly a decade (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/). Members have included (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/) former Trump chief strategist Stephen Bannon and former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, among others. The network was well-connected to the Trump administration (https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/trumps-post-impeachment-authoritarian-purges) — in 2019, Thomas and others compiled lists (https://www.axios.com/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3.html) of anti-Trump officials in executive agencies for the administration to dismiss and replace with Trump allies.}:
Public records obtained by American Oversight show the degree of access Thomas and her coalition had in the Trump administration. A calendar entry from March 5, 2020 (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20477798-omb-records-of-senior-staff-calendars-part-3#document/p1574), shows Russ Vought, then the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, was scheduled to have “Breakfast with Ginni Thomas.”
On Dec. 10, 2018 (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p626), Thomas, on behalf of her lobbying firm Liberty Consulting, invited a Department of Health and Human Services official — likely Steven Wagner (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p640), the director of the Administration for Children and Families — to a “Conversation and Strategic Discussion” with conservative commentatorJordan Peterson. The invitation noted that the event would be “closed to press and off the record” and that “a primary goal of this meeting is to determine specific action steps/solutions for winning back the next generation.” The reception was hosted by Thomas along with conservative Christian activist Bill Dallas and the Heritage Foundation’s Bridgett Wagner. The list of participants (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p633) included prominent conservatives.
On Aug. 22, 2018 (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20477798-omb-records-of-senior-staff-calendars-part-3#document/p1116), Neomi Rao, then the administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, was scheduled to have a “Groundswell Mtg.” It is not confirmed whether this is Ginni Thomas’ Groundswell. Early in her career, Rao served as a law clerk for Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court, and in 2019, she was appointed by Trump to serve as federal judge in Washington, D.C.
:{:{Thomas’ Activism Raises Judicial Ethics Questions}:
Ginni Thomas’ career as a prominent conservative activist, more heavily involved in politics than any other spouse (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html) of a Supreme Court justice in history, has for years raised concerns among legal experts (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/31/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-conflict-jan6-committee/) who note that justices typically avoid even being seen as partisan. Through her activism, Ginni Thomas has taken stances on issues that have come before the Supreme Court, such as on abortion, gun rights, and the Affordable Care Act (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/), and recently took on major role in challenging Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Justice Thomas’ repeated failure to recuse himself (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court) on multiple matters relevant to his wife’s advocacy, especially as the court hears increasingly politically polarized cases, has been the subject of scrutiny. }:
Recently, Ginni Thomas was among the conservatives who signed a letter (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/31/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-conflict-jan6-committee/) criticizing the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A month later, Justice Thomas was the only Supreme Court justice to support Trump’s request to block that committee from accessing White House records.
Ginni Thomas also played a role in challenging the 2020 election results as a leader of the conservative Council for National Policy (CNP), according to the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html). Following the November 2020 election, CNP directed its members to spread misinformation about the election (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/briefing/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-russia-ukraine.html) and pressured Republican lawmakers in Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania to challenge the election results by awarding their states’ electoral votes to Trump. In a newsletter, CNP’s political advocacy arm advised (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html), “There is historical, legal precedent for Congress to count a slate of electors different from that certified by the Governor of the state.” Fake electoral certificates (https://www.americanoversight.org/fake-electoral-certificates-obtained-by-american-oversight-draw-renewed-scrutiny) submitted by Trump allies in swing states to Congress to dispute Biden’s victory were obtained by American Oversight last year.
American Oversight continues to investigate Ginni Thomas’ connections and influence. We have filed records requests seeking communications between Thomas and federal agencies during the Trump administration, and in January 2022, we submitted public records requests to attorneys generals and governors across the country for communications with both Ginni Thomas and Justice Thomas.
https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/clarence-thomas/
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' right leaning political views have been obvious for decades in his writings for the Court. A new report in the Daily Beast (https://www.thedailybeast.com/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-strange-pick-to-promote-his-book-says-it-all?ref=home), however, spotlights just how intertwined his financial connections are to an ultra-conservative judicial activist.
When Thomas was looking to promote the release of his memoir last October he chose to hire a public relations firm, CRC Advisors, run by the former chief of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo. Leo is a top fundraiser for right-wing judicial activist groups. The Daily Beast reports that "Leo has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the three decades on behalf of right-wing dark money groups to influence the federal judiciary and Supreme Court. He advised and persuaded Republican presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump in their appointments of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts—and prepped Justice Thomas for his nomination hearings."
The report also says that Leo is the "hub" of dark money groups that stealthily fund and link up with parties who argue cases before the Supreme Court, something that Supreme watchers have dubbed an "amicus flotilla."
Leo’s affiliations with the court - and especially Thomas - are especially pronounced. He made the justice the godfather of one of his children and has hosted him on vacation at his New England retreat.
Paul Collins is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of several books about the high court. He says Thomas’ choice of Leo’s firm is “strange” and “unnecessary.”
“It signals that this world of the Federalist Society is even smaller than we thought,” Collins told The Daily Beast.
---
1 22
a former top FBI official who served as Chief of the Bureau’s Counterespionage Section and led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election says it’s “concerning (https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1483429546204487686)” that Ginni Thomas (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas) signed a letter (http://conservativeactionproject.com/conservative-leaders-remove-cheney-and-kinzinger-from-house-republican-conference/) attacking the House January 6 Select Committee.
Peter Strzok (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Peter+Strzok), who also led the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server and for a short time served on the Mueller Investigation, responded to Tuesday’s social media eruption over the resurfaced letter signed by Thomas, a far right wing conspiracy theorist and lobbyist who happens to be married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
That letter calls for U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to be expelled from the House Republican conference, which would also involve stripping them of their committee assignments.
Strzok was more focused on the current makeup of the Supreme Court, and other points of the letter which was signed in December by Thomas and more than 60 other mostly far right wing conservatives – making it a veritable who’s who of well-known extreme conservative activists including the head of an anti-LGBTQ hate group.
“Which is more concerning: That the spouse of a SC Justice recently signed a letter calling the Jan 6 Cmttee ‘an overtly partisan political persecution that brings disrespect to our country’s rule of law [and] legal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong’ Or,” Strzok wrote (https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1483429547295092736), “The fact that the former President who encouraged those ‘private citizens who have done nothing wrong’ to violently oppose the peaceful transfer of power appointed three of nine Justices to the Supreme Court?”
More than 700 Americans (https://www.usatoday.com/storytelling/capitol-riot-mob-arrests/) have been charged in conjunction with the January 6 attack.
The letter, resurfaced by Charlie Sykes at the never-Trump media outlet The Bulwark (https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/trump-previews-the-gops-future), also claims, falsely, that the January 6 Committee is using “improperly issued subpoenas and other investigatory tactics…for the sake of political harassment and demagoguery.”
On the morning of the January 6 attack Ginni Thomas, as Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern has pointed out, expressed support for the so-called protestors, declaring “LOVE MAGA PEOPLE!!!!”...[twt]
see anti-immigration tanton
omfg
no lnx
lAW SCHOOLS
Law School Student Famous For Saying ‘I HATE BLACK PEOPLE’ Now Has Prestigious Federal Clerkship
Hate doesn't seem to be slowing down her career prospects.
By KATHRYN RUBINO
onOctober 5, 2021
https://abovethelaw.com/2021/10/law-school-student-famous-for-saying-i-hate-black-people-now-has-prestigious-federal-clerkship/
I’d say Crystal Clanton just keeps failing upwards, but given that outrage is currency in right-wing circles, it is more accurate to say that her career is progressing on schedule. Do you remember why Clanton first became a news story? It’s been a minute, so I’ll cover the deets.
In December of 2017, the New Yorker reported that Clanton, who at the time worked at the conservative student group Turning Point USA, texted co-workers with this hateful message:
I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all .?.?. I hate blacks. End of story.
From ABOVE THE LAW
Awful, right? And this was far from a one-off incident, as reported by Mediaite:
Numerous sources who worked with Clanton detailed how she would exchange racist remarks regularly with other TPUSA staffers — including Alana Mastrangelo, who currently works for the group, and Timox Prax, who was allegedly forced out of TPUSA this year over “bigoted” remarks — using Snapchat.
One such message reviewed by Mediaite features a photo of a man who appears to be Arab and a caption written by Clanton that reads, “Just thinking about ways to do another 9/11.” (The source who provided Mediaite with the image requested it not be published to protect their anonymity.)
Well, even though Clanton was forced out of the right-wing nonprofit, her career prospects were far from damaged. Shortly after she left Turning Point USA, Ginni Thomas — yes, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife — hired Clanton to assist with her media ventures. And Clanton lapped up her connection to the powerful jurist.
But that wasn’t the end of Clanton’s ambitions. She was admitted to ASSLaw — that’s George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, for the uninitiated — and is scheduled to graduate this spring. And now we know that her post-graduation plans include an incredibly prestigious clerkship with Eleventh Circuit Judge William Pryor for 2023-24.
who is poster boy ofclarence clerks?
https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/economy-republicans/
stoehr edit bd
I trust the New York Times' David Leonhardt knows what he's talking about when it comes to economics and economic policy. But I feel I have something to contribute to the question he posed Tuesday. Why are Republican presidents so bad for the economy (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/opinion/sunday/democrats-economy.html?referringSource=articleShare)? In addition to considering the Gross Domestic Product and other empirical factors, we ought to consider a moral one, to wit:the reason the United States fails to thrive under GOP presidents is because they so often seek out more and better ways to lie to us.
These lies are intentional. They are ubiquitous. They are huge. And the bigger they are, the more pain they cause, over years and over decades. If the lies are not directly related to the economy, they are certainly related indirectly, as most of them are conceived and motivated by the desire for riches, with the net effect being the crowding out of the many from the center of American democracy for the benefit of the few.
Fortunately, truth now has more in its favor than good people doing what they think is right. It has partisanship on its side.
A very, very short list: Tax decreases pay for themselves. Tax increases hurt job-creators. Regulations hurt business. The minimum wage hurts workers. Redistribution is theft. Welfare is addiction. Abortion is murder. Feminism is reverse sexism. Equality is reverse racism. Iraq had WMDs. Obama wasn't an American. Voter fraud is rampant. All/Blue Lives Matter. Political correctness. Cancel culture. Trump won.
There are more, but let's not forget the most obvious and deadly lie in recent years, to our bodies and our republic—that the covid pandemic is nothing much to worry about, indeed worrying about it means you're on the other side of a president trying to root out a conspiracy against "the people" by Democrats in league with a global (Jewish) cabal of satanists who fornicate with children before eating them, a conspiracy so evil the Democrats in the Congress deserve nothing less than capture and assassination.
Donald Trump was the most conspicuous of all the liars, it goes without saying, but Republican presidents going back to my childhood lied with such frequency, felicity and nuance the inevitable result was four years of hourly nonstop fire-hose lying. The outcome of that has been half a million deaths by the covid by the end of this month, and a national economy that hasn't been this bad since 1946. Leonhardt and others are correct, of course, in looking at interest rates, the unemployment rate, GDP and other empirical factors in order to answer the question of why Republicans fail so badly. But let's not forget that lying causes pain and that suffering often comes in economic form.
The bigger the lie, the bigger the pain inflicted on everyone until the lie and the pain are so nearly total that the distinction between believing and not believing the lie is a distinction without a moral difference. The Post reported Tuesday that Ginni Thomas, wife of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, apologized to her husband's former clerks for her role in supporting the January 6 protest-turned-insurrection. What's astounding isn't that Ginni Thomas admitted obliquely to having some responsibility for the republic's near-death. What's astounding is she seems to continue to believe the lie—Trump won—even after that near-death experience.
Clarence Thomas' former clerks constitute a "blue-ribbon membership," according to the Post, with major influence inside and outside the courts. Yet some of its members appear to believe what Ginni Thomas believes. "Many of my friends and I had been praying our knees off that January 6 would see light and truth being shed on what we believe in our hearts was likely a stolen election," wrote Wendy Stone Long, and that eventually "President Trump would be determined to be the legitimate winner."
What does it mean when a society's cream of the crop continues to believe lies so big they nearly bring down a republic? It means the rest of us, who have nothing like the influence these people have, must spend valuable time and energy sorting through the lies, organizing ourselves and convincing as many people as possible, but especially those at the very top, that lies they espouse or spread or both are causing pain not just to the common people, but to the nation as a whole, including them. In the process, this drains the economy of resources that could be used for something more productive.
---
https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/heres-the-case-for-impeaching-clarence-thomas-the-most-corrupt-supreme-court-justice
With the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, the radical right has completed its long and painstaking project (https://www.vanderbilt.edu/university-press/revisiting-the-federalist-society.php) to seize control of the Supreme Court, and to reshape constitutional law for generations to come. Barrett's elevation will give conservatives a 6-3 majority on the court and usher in a crisis of legitimacy (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/opinion/supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage) for the third branch of government not seen since the 1930s.
The right's triumph has prompted anger and soul-searching among Democrats and progressives, sparking calls to expand the number of Supreme Court justices (https://www.takebackthecourt.today/), echoing Franklin D. Roosevelt's unsuccessful effort (https://www.history.com/news/franklin-roosevelt-tried-packing-supreme-court) to add additional seats to the high tribunal in the midst of the Great Depression.
Enlarging the Supreme Court is entirely within the power of Congress, as the number of justices is not set by the Constitution. The court's composition has, in fact, varied over time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Size_of_the_court), ranging from six justices when the Constitution was ratified to 10 in 1863. The panel was reduced to nine by an act of Congress in 1867 and has remained there since then by statute (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1).
While Democrats should definitely demand court expansion if they retake the White House and the Senate and hold the House, there is at least one additional step they should take to address the court's legitimacy crisis—the impeachment of its most corrupt member—Clarence Thomas.
Thomas should be impeached on charges of perjury for allegedly lying in his annual financial disclosure statements for over a decade and, more fundamentally, for lying in his 1991 confirmation hearing about his disgusting history of sexual harassment.
Although federal judges are appointed for life, their terms are subject to "good behavior." (https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii) Like all civil officers of the United States, they can be removed, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution (https://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A2Sec4.html), "on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
The impeachment process, as we were reminded by the experience of President Trump, consists of two basic steps (https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46013): First, members of the House of Representatives impeach an official by adopting, on a simple majority vote, one or more articles of impeachment, which read very much like a criminal complaint or a grand jury indictment. Step two proceeds with a trial in the Senate, which has the power to convict on a two-thirds ballot. Ouster from office (https://www.oyez.org/cases/1992/91-740) follows conviction automatically, and cannot be appealed.
Only three presidents (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_impeachment)—Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump—have been impeached in our history, and all were exonerated in their Senate trials. A fourth, Richard Nixon, resigned in the face of near-certain impeachment and removal for his role in the Watergate scandal.
The impeachment of federal judges, by contrast, has been far more common. To date, 15 federal judges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States) have been impeached, and eight have been convicted by the Senate. Indeed, the only Senate impeachment trials resulting in convictions have involved judges.
Since 1988, three federal judges have been impeached and removed on charges involving perjury. The last judge to be impeached was G. Thomas Porteous Jr. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Porteous) of the Eastern District of Louisiana, a Clinton appointee who was convicted by the Senate and ejected from office in December 2010 for accepting bribes and, among other derelictions, signing false financial declarations under penalty of perjury.
Thomas, if targeted, would become just the second Supreme Court Justice to be impeached. In 1804, the House charged Associate Justice Samuel Chase (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase#::text=He%20was%20impeached%20by%20the,Senate%20and%20remained%20in%20office.&text=The%20House%20of%20Representatives%20impeached,on%20Chase's%20alleged%20political%20bias.) with eight articles of impeachment for engaging in arbitrary and oppressive conduct and expressing political bias while serving as a trial judge in certain Sedition Act (https://www.fjc.gov/history/docs/seditionacts.pdf) cases during an era when Supreme Court justices also conducted trials. An outspoken Federalist and supporter of John Adams, Chase incurred the ire of Thomas Jefferson and his Republican allies. Chase was acquitted the following year in a Senate trial (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPREC-HINDS-V3/html/GPO-HPREC-HINDS-V3-21.htm) presided over by Vice President Aaron Burr. (The chief justice of the Supreme Court presides only in presidential impeachment trials.)
As the Senate's website instructs (https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/impeachment/impeachment-chase.htm), Chase's exoneration has since been construed to insulate the "judiciary from… congressional attacks based on disapproval of judges' opinions." Guided by the Chase example, an impeachment proceeding against Thomas could not be initiated because of policy differences Democrats may have with him, even though Thomas has demonstrated a flagrant disregard for the constitutional rights (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/03/26/dangerous-and-unrelenting-extremism-clarence-thomas) of minorities, women and criminal defendants during his tenure on the Supreme Court.
Like Porteous, however, Thomas is vulnerable to perjury allegations.
Under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43186.pdf), all high-ranking federal officials are required to file yearly financial disclosure statements for themselves and their spouses to safeguard against conflicts of interest. But for 13 years, Thomas failed to report his wife Virginia's earnings (https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2011-jan-22-la-na-thomas-disclosure-20110122-story.html) on the mandatory annual financial disclosure forms that he signed under penalty of perjury, indicating that his spouse had no non-investment income when in fact she was steadily employed in high-level jobs as a policy analyst and an outspoken conservative activist.
According to Common Cause,Virginia—who is also a lawyer and a one-time aide to former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey—received more than $686,000 (https://www.alternet.org/2011/02/clarence_thomas_gets_away_with_breaking_the_law_ginni_thomas_shills_for_right-wing_interests/) between 2003 and 2007, working for the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, claiming incredulously that he had misunderstood (https://www.thedailybeast.com/clarence-thomas-criminal-behavior-on-financial-disclosure) his reporting responsibilities, Thomas amended his financial disclosures, which can now be examined on the OpenSecrets.org website (https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/clarence-thomas/reports?cid=N99999918&year=2018).
As University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos pointed out in a 2011 Daily Beast (https://www.thedailybeast.com/clarence-thomas-criminal-behavior-on-financial-disclosure) article, "The relevant question on the disclosure form isn't complicated: Even if Justice Thomas wasn't a lawyer, he shouldn't have needed to hire one to explain to him that the box marked NONE next to the phrase 'Spouse's Non-Investment Income' should only be checked if his spouse had no non-investment income." In Campos' view, Thomas' omissions were "criminal."
Thomas' alleged perjury in his testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 was of a far greater magnitude...
moyers 1020
ANNE NELSON: I think that statement would have required someone who could restrain their ambition. And for me, the moment of truth in those hearings came when she was asked if it was against the law to interfere with the vote in a federal election. And she couldn't answer that either. Which to me demonstrated either an ignorance of the law or a disregard for the law that is truly alarming on the eve of an election.
BILL MOYERS: I was noticing in a story in THE WASHINGTON POST that the Council for National Policy had a three-day meeting in Southern California. And one member — a woman named Rachel Bovard — described Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Thomas as a crucial link to the White House. “She is one of the most powerful and fierce women in Washington. She is really the tip of the spear in these efforts." Did you come across Ginni Thomas in your book?
ANNE NELSON: I came across her repeatedly, and she has risen to the rank of the executive committee of CNP Action, which is their lobbying arm. She also is very active with another CNP member named Charlie Kirk who runs something called Turning Point U.S.A. She's also a so-called correspondent for a right-wing media platform called The Daily Caller, which is owned by members of the Council for National Policy. So, Ginni Thomas, who is from Omaha is married to a Supreme Court justice and is both a public and behind-the-scenes radical right-wing activist across the country. I don't know what the protocol is for spouses of Supreme Court justices, but I find it difficult to believe that people think this is appropriate.
BILL MOYERS: But what struck me about that is that so many of the characters that are now on stage in the third and fourth year of Trump's administration are clearly linked by the Council for National Policy, something few Americans have heard of. How did you come upon it?
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voter felon suppression 2020, pal of ginni and jok?
Cash matters, but O’Keefe’s personal connectionsare where the depth and seamlessness of this coordination with the Republican Party become truly apparent. They also offer a glimpse into the vast network that has formed to suppress the vote this fall—a network years in the making, of which Project Veritas is but a humble node.
Take litigator William Consovoy (https://consovoymccarthy.com/team/william-s-consovoy/), the legal point man on many of the conservative-funded election integrity cases pursued during the Trump era. He is, like O’Keefe, a New Jersey native with a long history in local Republican politics (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/us/elections/voting-william-consovoy-trump.html). A former law clerk for Clarence Thomas, Consovoy is also reportedly (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-trump-attacks-voting-by-mail-gop-builds-2020-strategy-around-limiting-its-expansion/2020/05/31/a17ccfa0-a00d-11ea-b5c9-570a91917d8d_story.html) a friend of Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/), whose nephew David Maxham has been a friend of O’Keefe’s since their undergraduate years at Rutgers. (Maxham, naturally, was also invited to O’Keefe’s wedding.)
This year, Leonard Leo has stepped aside from day-to-day management of the Federalist Society to run (https://www.axios.com/leonard-leo-crc-advisors-federalist-society-50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c.html) a new conservative donor group, CRC Advisors (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6889355-The-85-Fund-Fictious-Name-Certificate-Honest.html), that is pouring money into Consovoy’s legal challenges in key battleground states across the country. CRC has been steering money into something called the “Honest Elections Project,” a fictitious name (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6889355-The-85-Fund-Fictious-Name-Certificate-Honest.html) filed in Virginia for Leo’s old group the Judicial Education Project,now officially called the 85 Fund. As The Guardian reported, 99 percent of the Judicial Education Project’s funding in 2018 was a single $7.8 million donation funneled through Donors Trust.guk?
With generous assistance from the Honest Elections Project and the RNC, Consovoy’s firm Consovoy McCarthy PLLC has recently brought cases against the re-enfranchising of felons in Florida and sued (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mailing-of-ballots-to-all-voters-in-las-vegas-area-puts-sharp-focus-on-election-safeguards/2020/05/28/912c099a-9f63-11ea-b5c9-570a91917d8d_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_44) to block California’s plans to deliver absentee ballots to all of the state’s registered voters.Consovoy has contributed to related motions filed in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, and Texas, where Ken Paxton’s victory against mail-in voting in May earned praise from President Trump on Twitter (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265827032707072000).
==
==
an 220
Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly February 25, 2020
You might be wondering why Trump decided to go on the attack against Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor this week.
To understand why Sotomayor has suddenly become a target, it is helpful to talk about the way that this administration is changing how presidential policies are being handled in the courts.
One of the reasons Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is so committed to stacking the courts with extremist conservative judges is that, as I pointed out last week, the Trump administration’s incompetence has led to an abysmal record in the courts. Whereas previous administrations prevailed in the courts 80 percent of the time, this president has failed in over 90 percent of the cases his administration has argued.
What this often means is that lower courts issue injunctions against the implementation of the administration’s policies while the case works its way through the courts. Attorney General William Barr complained about that practice in his speech to the Federalist Society.
First used in 1963, and sparely since then until recently, these court orders enjoin enforcement of a policy not just against the parties to a case, but against everyone. Since President Trump took office, district courts have issued over 40 nationwide injunctions against the government. By comparison, during President Obama’s first two years, district courts issued a total of two nationwide injunctions against the government…
It is no exaggeration to say that virtually every major policy of the Trump Administration has been subjected to immediate freezing by the lower courts. No other President has been subjected to such sustained efforts to debilitate his policy agenda.
Of course, Barr didn’t mention that those major policies have been frozen by the lower courts because the Trump administration failed to make a coherent case in support of them, so the courts have temporarily halted their implementation. As an example, this is what Coral Davenport wrote about their efforts to roll back Obama’s fuel efficiency standards.
In January, administration staff members appointed by President Trump sent a draft of the scaled-back fuel economy standards to the White House, but six people familiar with the documents described them as “Swiss cheese,” sprinkled with glaring numerical and spelling errors (such as “Massachusettes”), with 111 sections marked “text forthcoming.”
The cost-benefit analysis showed that consumers would lose more money than they would gain. And, because the new auto pollution rule lacks the detailed technical analyses required by law, the regulations would be unlikely to withstand court challenges…
More basic issues holding up the regulations point to another problem: the skeleton crew of inexperienced political appointees who are heading the drafting process may not be up to a job that would usually be handled by career federal workers with decades of expertise.
The Trump administration’s response to these failures has been to go directly to the Supreme Court and ask them to expedite emergency relief from the injunctions of the lower courts.
Professor Steve Vladeck, a CNN contributor who has studied the issue of emergency requests, noted in a recent piece for the Harvard Law Review that Solicitor General Noel Francisco has been more aggressive in seeking to “short-circuit” the ordinary course of appellate litigation than his immediate predecessors.
In an interview, Vladeck noted that Francisco has not always prevailed, “but he has done so far more often than his predecessors.”
“This is now the 24th time that the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to put a lower court decision on hold in less than three years compared to a total of eight such requests during the 16 years of the George W. Bush and Obama administration’s combined,” Vladeck said.
That is precisely what sparked Justice Sotomayor’s critique against the conservative justices on the Supreme Court, who have consistently been willing to grant that relief to the Trump administration.
The justice wrote that granting emergency applications often upends “the normal appellate process” while “putting a thumb on the scale in favor of the party that won.” Targeting her conservative colleagues, she said “most troublingly, the Court’s recent behavior” has benefited “one litigant over all others.”…
“Claiming one emergency after another, the Government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases,” Sotomayor said. “It is hard to say what is more troubling,” she said, pointing to the case at hand, “that the Government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it.” She noted that in the case at hand, the lower court order that the Supreme Court lifted was narrow and only impacted one state.
That is what has placed Sotomayor’s name in the news. I seriously doubt, however, that Trump understands or cares about these legal maneuverings, which is why he couldn’t articulate his objections to Sotomayor during a news conference in India today.
The reason Trump is on the attack against liberal Supreme Court justices probably has more to do with a case that is being made against Justice Clarence Thomas. As we’ve seen, the president is in the midst of a purge of federal employees who don’t demonstrate enough loyalty to him. Jonathan Swan reported thatGinni Thomas—the wife of Clarence Thomas—has been deeply involved in lobbying on behalf of a purge, providing the administration with lists of who needs to go as well as potential replacements.
In response, there have been calls for Thomas to recuse himself on matters related to Trump and his administration. Trump’s call for Sotomayor and Ginsberg to recuse themselves is not only a way to further politicize the Supreme Court; it also provides his media enablers with a distraction from the issues surrounding Thomas and the ability to pretend that both sides do it.
As I’ve been suggesting for a while now, the Supreme Court is scheduled to issue rulings in several explosive cases prior to the November election. One of them has to do with whether or not Trump will be required to release his tax returns. From everything we’ve seen, that is the hill that this president is prepared to defend at all costs. And according to CNN, the latest dissent issued by Sotomayor could indicate that tensions are rising as the justices consider these major cases.
The justices are behind schedule in releasing opinions, and court watchers have questioned if the delay is caused in part by Chief Justice John Roberts’ required participation in the impeachment proceedings, or if the justices themselves are fractured over a number of cases. Although Sotomayor wrote alone, her opinion suggests unease behind the scenes.
All of this is probably just the opening salvo in what promises to be a very contentious season for the Supreme Court.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/heres-the-real-reason-trump-is-lashing-out-at-supreme-court-justices-as-his-cronies-try-to-short-circuit-the-judicial-process/
==
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http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/hate-had-a-meeting-in-the-white-house/
President Donald Trump met with two representatives of groups that lobby for bigoted anti-immigrant policies at the White House this month, The New York Times reports (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/trump-ginni-thomas-meeting.html#click=https://t.co/SrTZ8l0tVc).
Frank Gaffney of the anti-Muslim hate group (https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/center-security-policy) Center for Security Policy and Rosemary Jenks of theanti-immigrant group (https://www.splcenter.org/20090131/nativist-lobby-three-faces-intolerance) NumbersUSA joined Rep. Louie Gohmert’s chief of staff Connie Hair in a meeting with Trump and a handful of White House aides. During the meeting, multiple comments were put forward to the president that many Americans would find offensive, including claims that gay marriage was destroying America.
In addition, some members of the group complained to the president that their suggested candidates for administration positions had been ignored. Some reportedly “also accused White House aides of blocking Trump supporters from getting jobs in the administration”—a claim popularized in pro-Trump social media circles.
The meeting was organized by Ginni Thomas, a right-wing activist who is married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas’ political activity has raised concerns about conflicts of interest for her husband, the Times reported, and she once hired (https://www.mediaite.com/online/exclusive-clarence-thomas-wife-hired-ex-tpusa-staffer-known-for-saying-i-hate-blacks/) a young activist who was ousted from the organization Turning Point USA after writing in a text message: “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.”
Thomas founded a conservative advocacy group that would later merge with the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty. She used to write columns for The Daily Caller and was once employed at the Heritage Foundation.
In 2017, Thomas gave awards (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ginni-thomas-gives-awards-to-james-okeefe-sean-hannity-frank-gaffney-other-right-wing-activists/)to right-wing activists including James O’Keefe, Gaffney, and Fox News host Sean Hannity. She has appeared as a speaker alongside her husband at an Eagle Forum conference (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-eagle-forum-event-anti-lgbtq-rhetoric-immigration-restriction-and-a-supreme-court-justice/) in Washington, where anti-LGBTQ rhetoric was a staple in multiple presentations. In 2013, Thomas discussed “cultural Marxism (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/23/1828527/-How-the-cultural-Marxism-hoax-began-and-why-it-s-spreading-into-the-mainstream)” with the late anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly—a conspiracy theory that was originally coined by an anti-Semites and white nationalists in the 1990s that alleged Jews were trying to degrade Western societies for their own benefits.
The White House meeting was scheduled for this month after “months of delay.” From The Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/trump-ginni-thomas-meeting.html#click=https://t.co/SrTZ8l0tVc):
For 60 minutes Mr. Trump sat, saying little but appearing taken aback, the three people said, as the group also accused White House aides of blocking Trump supporters from getting jobs in the administration.
It is unusual for the spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice to have such a meeting with a president, and some close to Mr. Trump said it was inappropriate for Ms. Thomas to have asked to meet with the head of a different branch of government.
A vocal conservative, Ms. Thomas has long been close to what had been the Republican Party’s fringes, and extremely outspoken against Democrats. Her activism has raised concerns of conflicts of interest for her husband, who is perhaps the most conservative member of the Supreme Court.
Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy have enjoyed increased access to government officials in the Trump era and cheered on the Trump administration’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and initiatives, such as the travel ban. NumbersUSA began as a program of a foundation run by John Tanton (https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/john-tanton), who advocated for immigration policies that would maintain United States’ majority-white status. (Tanton has also published, through his The Social Contract Press, white nationalists and anti-Semites.) In 2015, NumbersUSA chided Trump for not being anti-immigrant enough.
jared holt, corrected
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http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ginni-thomas-teams-up-with-james-okeefe-in-dark-money-operation-to-protect-trump/
Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a right-wing political activist, has launched a new set of organizations meant to “protect President Trump” and attack Democrats and left-leaning organizations, according to an article published by The Intercept (https://theintercept.com/2019/06/04/ginni-thomas-trump-conservative-group/) this week.
The well-connected Thomas, a former Heritage Foundation staffer, presented her plans to build a “robust infrastructure” to a meeting of the secretive Council for National Policy (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/council-for-national-policy/) last month. The CNP is a strategy-development-and-sharing network that includes leaders across the U.S. religious and political Right, including people like neo-Confederate Christian Reconstrucionist Michael Peroutka (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/why-has-the-religious-right-embraced-neo-confederate-michael-peroutka/).CNP members pushed Trump to sign an executive order on religious liberty (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/secretive-council-for-national-policy-pushing-trump-to-sign-religious-liberty-order/).
Thomas is planning to build a “robust infrastructure” of affiliated organizations.Among her partners in the new project are longtime right-wing operative Richard Viguerie; undercover videographer and political tricksterJames O’Keefe;Republican campaign lawyer Cleta Mitchell; and Bill Meierling, chief marketing officer for the American Legislative Exchange Council (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/american-legislative-exchange-council/), a matchmaker for corporate lobbyists and conservative legislators willing to do their bidding.
A slide from Thomas’s presentation at Council for National Policy notes, “Long Term teams taking shape will focus on Education, Media, Entertainment/Arts, Faith, Corporate/Economic, Government, Science, and more”—nearly identical to the list of spheres of cultural influence targeted by Religious Right proponents of Seven Mountain (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/seven-mountains/)s Dominionism (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/seven-mountains/).
The Intercept also reported that Thomas had spoken at another CNP event last October, at which she declared, “The hard left is in control of the Democrat Party … And they’re controlling the media and corporations and Hollywood and education.”
This January, Thomas organized a White House meeting (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/hate-had-a-meeting-in-the-white-house/) where she was joined by anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney and others where, among other things, they complained that White House aides were blocking right-wing Trump supporters from getting administration jobs.
Thomas and many of her partners were among conservative activists who mobilized (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-coalition-pushing-freedom-caucus-founder-jim-jordan-to-run-for-house-speaker/) a year ago to try to replace then-House Speaker Paul Ryan with right-wing favorite Rep. Jim Jordan.
Thomas presented United in Purpose “Impact” awards to O’Keefe, Gaffney, and Sean Hannity (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ginni-thomas-gives-awards-to-james-okeefe-sean-hannity-frank-gaffney-other-right-wing-activists/) in 2017. In 2016, TPM reported (https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/virginia-thomas-scotus-christian-adams-voter-fraud-campaign) that Thomas “wanted to ‘target’ the ‘most questionable’ precincts in Virginia with an anti-voter fraud campaign.”
Thomas also interviewed right-wing radio host Jesse Lee Peterson (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ginni-thomas-and-jesse-lee-peterson-discuss-evil-black-lives-matter-illusion-of-racism/) for the Daily Caller in 2016. The two talked about what Thomas called “race hustlers” who she said are “in the business of keeping blacks angry” and about Black Lives Matter, which Peterson called “evil,” “wicked,” and “worse than the KKK.” Last year, Thomas reportedly hired (https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/405437-clarence-thomas-wife-hires-ex-tpusa-staffer-who-once-said-i-hate) a former Turning Point USA staffer who had resigned after The New Yorker published (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity) screenshots of text messages that included a text that said “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE.”
Tags: Bill Meierling (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/bill-meierling/) Cleta Mitchell (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/cleta-mitchell/) Ginni Thomas (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ginni-thomas/) James O'Keefe (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/james-okeefe/) Richard Viguerie (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/richard-viguerie/) Election 2020 (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/election-2020/) Seven Mountains (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/seven-mountains/) ALEC (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/alec/) American Legislative Exchange Council (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/american-legislative-exchange-council/) Council for National Policy (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/council-for-national-policy/)
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ref 2018
wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reportedly hired a former Turning Point USA staffer who left the conservative organization after reports emerged that she once sent a text saying "I hate blacks."
Thomas's wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, has reportedly hired ex-TPUSA staffer Crystal Clanton, Mediaite (https://www.mediaite.com/online/exclusive-clarence-thomas-wife-hired-ex-tpusa-staffer-known-for-saying-i-hate-blacks/) first reported.
Clanton's comments became public last year when The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity) obtained and published screenshots of text messages sent by Clanton to another TPUSA employee. "I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story," Clanton wrote, according to The New Yorker.
Clanton, at the time, told the New Yorker that she had "no recollection" of the messages.
“I have no recollection of these messages and they do not reflect what I believe or who I am and the same was true when I was a teenager," she said in a statement to the magazine.
Thomas has reportedly hired Clanton to assist her with right-wing media projects, Mediaite reported.
Thomas, whose husband is the only African-American Supreme Court justice, is a columnist for The Daily Caller and currently serves on TPUSA’s advisory board. She also founded the conservative advocacy group, Liberty Central, whose mission was to fight the "hard-left agenda," according to the outlet.
Clanton stepped down from her position as second-in-command at TPUSA when her text messages became public. Mediaite reported that Clanton has continued to post culturally insensitive comments on Snapchat, including remarks like “a bacon a day keeps the Islams away” and “Ramadan bombathon,” and recently posted a photo of a man, who appears to be Arab, with the caption, “Just thinking about ways to do another 9/11,” according to a photo obtained by the outlet.
Photos obtained by Mediaite reveal Clanton has accompanied Thomas to numerous conferences and events, even posing for photos at the Thomas's home in Fairfax Station, Virginia.
Clanton, Ginni Thomas and Clarence Thomas declined to comment for Mediaite's report.
TPUSA has long faced accusations of racism within its ranks. A HuffPost report (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/turning-point-usa-racist-tweets_us_5ad65b06e4b029ebe01ed1ac) earlier this year uncovered dozens of controversial social media posts from former and current staffers, which included use of the "n-word" and anti-Semitic and anti-Islam comments.
==
defund the left:
Turning Point USA with big-time cash from GOP donor Foster Friess. Friess and Ginni Thomas (a far right wing activist who happens to be the spouse of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas) sit on TPUSA's board.
==
caravan "invasion" thank god for trump
....
NEWS & POLITICS
Supreme Court Justice's Wife Spreads Fake News About Mexican Police Officer Beaten Up by Migrant 'Caravan'
Once again, the wife of the Supreme Court's most extreme justice shared execrable fake content on social media.
By Matthew Chapman (https://www.alternet.org/authors/matthew-chapman) / AlterNet (https://alternet.org/)
October 23, 2018,
Tuesday, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of far-right Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, posted (https://medium.com/@trevorhughdavis/clarence-thomass-wife-is-sharing-fake-news-about-the-caravan-3e62bee95b81) an image to Facebook purporting to show the violent nature of the so-called migrant "caravan" now making its way through Mexico. The image depicted what is purported to be the severly bloodied face of a Mexican police officer who was assaulted by the migrants.
"The media won't share THIS, will they?" she wrote. "It is an invasion, and thank GOD for President Trump."
The problem: the meme is fake. According to Snopes (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mexican-police-caravan-photos/), the image is actually from a clash between Mexican police and student protestors in Mexico City in 2012, and has nothing to do with migrants. But sharing extremist right-wing content is not a new thing for Thomas, a conservative activist who has made frequent use of social media. Earlier this year, she shared posts attacking the Parkland kids (https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/382311-ginni-thomas-shares-posts-criticizing-parkland-students) and praising (https://nypost.com/2018/07/23/clarence-thomas-wife-shares-fake-news-posts-about-blacks-leaving-democratic-party/) the "#WalkAway" movement, a fake campaign of Russian trolls (https://www.salon.com/2018/07/09/russian-bots-are-back-walkaway-attack-on-democrats-is-a-likely-kremlin-operation/) pretending to be people of color leaving the Democratic Party.
The migrant caravan, which consists of thousands of men, women, and children fleeing civil strife in Central America and heading toward the United States, is not actually anything new or unusual; similar groups of migrants have routinely formed (https://www.salon.com/2018/07/09/russian-bots-are-back-walkaway-attack-on-democrats-is-a-likely-kremlin-operation/) over the last 20 years, and there is no evidence anyone in the group poses a danger. But it has still become the fear du jour in the Republican Party, particularly among those hoping to gin up enough fear (https://www.newsweek.com/newt-gingrich-tells-sean-hannity-two-words-will-define-2018-midterms-1175945)among President Donald Trump's core voters to turn them out to the polls and counteract a blue wave.
Trump has claimed with no evidence that "unknown Middle Easterners (https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/23/politics/donald-trump-proof-unknown-middle-easterners-migrant-caravan/index.html)" are traveling with the caravan. And last week, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) theorized that left-wing Jewish billionaire George Soros (https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/matt-gaetz-honduran-migrant-caravan-george-soros) is secretly funding the caravan, in the hope that it will somehow disrupt the midterm election in favor of Democrats.
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https://www.alternet.org/clarence-thomas-wife-goes-bat-rep-jim-jordan-claims-hes-under-attack-because-he-threatens-elite
wow, way to run into the fire
no lnx twit
Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, on Monday claimed that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is the target of “false accusations” stemming from his time as an assistant coach at Ohio State University because he “threatens elite”—even as a seventh former wrestler on Sunday accused the GOP representative of lying about his knowledge of sex abuse at the school.
“Jim Jordan is under attack, with false accusations, because he threatens the elite,” Thomas wrote, along with a video of Jordan emphatically denying any knowledge of sex abuse while he was a coach.
Mark Joseph Stern
@mjs_DC
Wow: Ginni Thomas—wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—goes to bat for Jim Jordan, claiming that sexual assault victims are bringing "false accusations" that he knew of their abuse "because he threatens the elite." https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/2024191907613651 …
6:59 AM - Jul 9, 2018
113
118 people are talking about this
Last week, three athletes told NBC News Jordan turned a blind eye toward a team doctor who molested them and other students. Mike DiSabato, a former wrestler with the school, accused Jordan of “absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”
As more former students came forward to dispute Jordan’s claim, the Ohio representative on Friday told Fox News’ Bret Baier the abuse was only discussed in “locker room conversations.”[it it worked from trump]
“Conversations in a locker room are a lot different than allegations of abuse, or reported abuse to us,” Jordan claimed. “No one reported any abuse to me, if they had I would have dealt with it."
Jordan also suggested the allegations were the result of DiSabato’s “vendetta” against Ohio State, and floated a connection to his heated exchange with deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last month.
“I think the timing is suspect when you think about how this whole story came together after the Rosenstein hearing and the speaker’s race,” Jordan said last week.
Virginia Thomas, a columnist for the Daily Caller and former employee of the conservative Heritage Foundation, appears to agree. It’s not the first time Thomas has weighed into the political fray. In 2010, she formed the far-right advocacy group Liberty Central to battle what she described as the “tyranny” of the Obama administration. Her lobbying work has raised questions from ethics groups about Clarence Thomas’ impartiality.
Elizabeth Preza is the Managing Editor of AlterNet. Follow her on Twitter @lizacisms.
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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/clarence-thomas-wife-ginni-posts-far-right-meme-mocking-radicalized-parkland
AN 818
Ginni Thomas is once again attacking Parkland High School student survivors, this time David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez. On Monday morning Thomas shared a meme to Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/2096290020403839?xts[0]=68.ARCsLph5l_VvID3cGYIwTVI1AYQPUQM8Cvvb2huBbBkSsU2HFWJIL8pfVXApj-enrlzx6cBweY4ZVjVnah_sVkk6weEeRF91T78PJtW-4lONi-f2fOn3f-B9YWmz-g53g5FBUm_69wn0&tn=-R) calling them "radicalized Democrats" and "dangerous to the survival of our nation." Thomas, a far right-wing political activist, conservative lobbyist, and political commentator, wades into troubling territory by framing her attack as an issue of "the survival of our nation," as she is the spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
For years (https://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-07-09/news/os-ed-bill-press-070810-20100709_1_justice-thomas-tea-party-thomas-organization) many have questioned what appears to be a conflict of interest (https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2013/07/29/groundswell-ginni-thomas-and-continued-conflict/195117), given Thomas' husband sits on the Supreme Court, and at times has appeared to share her views. No one should think she has no right to her opinion or to her activism, but frequently it is paid activism, and at times touches upon issues the Supreme Court is reviewing or might take up.[pix of 2 blk t shirt wanted POSTER terror training camps]
The post includes the statement, "What makes radicalized Democrats like David Hogg and others so dangerous to the survival of our nation is their total, shameless hypocrisy!" as part of the meme.
The pro-Trump group that Thomas shared the meme from, The Great American Movement, says on its Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/GreatAmericanMovement/photos/a.1775340739392883/1868753130051643/?type=1&theater), "The enemy of America is the radical fascist left."
Stern adds that "Thomas has targeted Hogg before, ridiculing him for being 'a special kind of stupid'less than six weeks after the Parkland shooting. (She deleted the post after I wrote about it.)"
At the time of the shooting Hogg was 17 years old.
==
The Chamber's lawyers successfully got the Supreme Court to make it harder for victims of corporate negligence to sue for damages (http://record-eagle.com/business/x2113334878/Court-makes-it-harder-to-sue-businesses), whether they are claimants in the BP oil spill or employees of corporations filing class-action lawsuits in cases of abuse. They recently ruled in favor of agribusiness giant Monsanto (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/13/monsanto-patent-grain-biotechnology-soybeans-supreme-court/2116333/) in a seed patent case against a farmer trying to save his seeds, ruling that Monsanto had the right to claim domain over the farmer's crops, since their genetically-modified seeds had cross-pollinated into the neighboring organic crops on the farmer's plot. Justice Clarence Thomas (http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/02/monsanto.html) once worked as a corporate attorney for Monsanto. He did not recuse himself from the decision. He also didn't recuse himself when ruling against the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, despite his wife's having launched a lobbying group (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/14/nation/la-na-thomas14-2010mar14) opposed to the Affordable Care Act's implementation.
12/17
Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a right-wing activist, presented (https://twitter.com/briantashman/status/938501717511102464) “Impact Awards” to a dozen other right-wing activists on Wednesday. The awards were granted by United in Purpose (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/united-in-purpose/), a group that mobilizes conservative evangelical voters and played a crucial role in turning out white evangelicals to vote for Donald Trump. The ceremony was held—of course—at Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C.
A press release from United in Purpose (http://impactawardsevent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/UIP_Letterhead-120517.pdf) said the Impact Awards were Ginni Thomas’s idea, and were designed to honor “conservative leaders who are making a transformational impact on American culture.” Thomas praised the honorees as “the bravest, most effective, most dedicated, determined warriors defending the values that are the real strength of America. They have shown moral courage in the face of desperate times.”
The top prize—the Outstanding Impact Award—went to Fox pundit and propagandist Sean Hannity, who gave the keynote address:
The fight is greater than ever for truth, and perseverance is necessary in the battle against fake news and the determination to get to the truth. Under President Trump the forgotten man is forgotten no more, and we the people are going to work harder than ever to get the government back into the hands of American citizens; where it belongs.
Richard Viguerie, a founder of the modern right-wing political movement, was given the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Also honored was James O’Keefe (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/james-okeefe/),whose recent Project Veritas attempt to plant fake news stories about Roy Moore in the Washington Post blew up in his face (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/far-right-pundits-defend-project-veritas-after-botched-smear-campaign-exposed/) when the Post’s real journalists did the kind of things real journalists do. Trump-supporting “prophet” Lance Wallnau (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/lance-wallnau/) tweeted a blustery clip from O’Keefe’s remarks (https://twitter.com/lancewallnau/status/938473196038209536), gushing that O’Keefe “takes on the powers of darkness.”
Other honorees included:
Anti-Muslim extremist Frank Gaffney (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/frank-gaffney/), who sees Muslim Brotherhood infiltration happening everywhere (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/frank-gaffney-wonders-if-muslim-brotherhood-agents-are-stopping-trump-from-labeling-them-terrorists/), including within the conservative movement.
Leonard Leo (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/leonard-leo/), the Federalist Society executive who is helping Donald Trump fill the federal judiciary with far-right judges.
Right-wing activist Star Parker (http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/star-parker/), a favorite at Religious Right conferences for her speeches denouncing welfare recipients and “entitlement culture.”
Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, a favorite of far-right activists for refusing to accept any government funding. But they’re apparently happy to get a bit of government help; Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) inserted a provision in the GOP tax plan exempting Hillsdale from a new tax on university endowments (http://www.pressherald.com/2017/12/01/democrats-contest-break-for-small-michigan-college/), but it was knocked out at the last minute.
Thomas Fitton, president of Judicial Watch,the right-wing group that tried desperately “to turn the tragedy in Benghazi into its own public relations and fundraising extravaganza.”
Charlie Kirk, who heads Turning Point USA, a right-wing youth leadership training organization.
Also honored were Dan Bongino, a former cop and secret service agent who unleashed a memorable profanity-laden tirade (https://www.mediaite.com/online/go-fck-yourself-you-piece-of-sht-gop-candidate-goes-on-tirade-against-politico-reporter/) at a reporter during his 2016 run for Congress; Richard Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government; and Chris Plante, host of the Chris Plante Show on WMAL in Washington.
==
TP
While MyBarackObama died a quick death as a functional community, the Right went to work building communities to oppose Obama and his agenda. Republican consultants flocked to Ning, an easy tool to create entire social networks for niche communities. Ning replicates common features of any social network: Users may create online identities, send messages within the network, post links and news articles, and create events for offline activities.
Template Ning networks provided the Right with the ability to quickly assemble Tea Party groups without the appearance of top-heavy Republican partisanship. Eric Odom, the former new media director of Sam Adams Alliance, used his consulting firms Strategic Activism and American Liberty Alliance to create dozens of ready-made Ning web sites to cultivate the early stages of the Tea Party movement. Some Tea Party groups he created, like the Patriot Caucus, were geared toward a national constituency, while others catered to specific localities, such as Lehigh County in Pennsylvania. Although the web sites appeared to be citizen generated, all of Odom’s sites were actually centrally planned and operated. Every major Tea Party organization got in on the act: Smart Girl Politics, working with Odom’s colleagues, created a Ning for Tea Party women; Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, used her Liberty Central group to help local Tea Party groups in Florida build Ning web sites; lee fang
==
February 4, 2011: Wife of Supreme Court Justice Named Head of Lobbying and Political Consulting Firm, Critics Say Position Creates Conflict of Interest (http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a020411ginnilibertyconsult#a020411ginnilibertyconsult)
The media reports that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a former Republican campaign operative and the former head of a tea party organization, has become thehead of a lobbying and political consulting firm, Liberty Consulting.The firm boasts that Thomas’s “experience and connections” will assist clients with “governmental affairs efforts” and political donation strategies. Critics say Thomas is in the midst of an enormous conflict of interest, because her husband, Clarence Thomas, is a Supreme Court justice. She left the tea party group in November 2009 because of questions that her leadership of the group, Liberty Central, which actively worked to defeat Democrats, was not appropriate for the wife of a sitting Court justice.
Thomas has met with almost half of the 99 Republican freshmen in the House and Senate, according to an email she sent out to congressional chiefs of staff last week in which she called herself “a self-appointed ambassador to the freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement.” Ann Pearson of the government watchdog organization Common Cause says that Thomas’s position at a lobbying and consulting firm “show[s] a new level of arrogance of just not caring that the Court is being politicized and how that undermines the historic image of the Supreme Court as being above the political fray.… It raises additional questions about whether Justice Thomas can be unbiased and appear to be unbiased in cases dealing with the repeal of the health care reform law or corporate political spending when his wife is working to elect members of the tea party and also advocating for their policies.”
Some Republican lawmakers are uncomfortable with Thomas’s new position, with one senior House Republican aide criticizing Thomas for attempting to “cash in” on her ties to the tea party movement. Republican House freshman David Schweikert (R-AZ), who won his election in part because of support from tea party groups and was endorsed by Liberty Central, says he has not met Thomas and knows nothing of her background. “This is the spouse of Justice Thomas?” he says when asked about the situation by a reporter. “No, I’ve never met her. It’s not something I’ve heard about. And I hang out with a lot of freshman.” So far, only one Republican freshman will publicly admit to scheduling a meeting with Thomas.
Thomas used to be an aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), who until recently headed the tea party financing organization FreedomWorks (see August 14, 2009 (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=dick_armey_1#a081409armeyleaves)). She has also worked as a staffer at the US Chamber of Commerce, a trade organization that contributes heavily to Republican causes (see January 21-22, 2010 (http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=a01212210ussccuuscoc)), and at the conservative Heritage Foundation. In 2009 she founded Liberty Central, which she described as a group that would bridge the gap between the conservative Republican establishment and the anti-government tea party movement. She eventually stepped down after questions were raised about her position’s impact on her husband’s appearance of impartiality, and the group was merged into another tea party organization (see November 2009 - November 2010 (http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=a011091110ginnilibcent)). She filed incorporation papers for Liberty Consulting within a day of news reports about her departure from Liberty Central. She has told conservative news source Daily Caller that she intends to continue working for the group that bought Liberty Central, the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, and will “help them in any way I can think of, whether it’s lobbying on the Hill or connecting with the grass roots, or helping speak or write or fundraise.”
However, lobbying records show no registration for Thomas, Liberty Consulting, Liberty Central, or the Patrick Henry Center. Liberty Central general counsel Sarah Field refuses to answer questions about whether Thomas is being paid through Liberty Consulting as a consultant. A source familiar with the Thomases and with Capitol Hill Republicans says her sojourn from Liberty Central to Liberty Consulting has damaged her reputation among some conservatives. “Ginni’s reputation around town is now even more of a fake entitled woman who is only here because of her husband,” the source tells a reporter. “Now she has opened her own lobbying shop… not sure how [the] conservative circle will feel when they find that out, or if they’ll care or not.” POLITICO, 2/4/2011 (http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EDCEB005-CDAC-A5BB-73007D76BE8BEEFE)]
Previous Conflicts of Interest - Virginia Thomas has weathered criticisms of conflict of interest before. In late 2000, as a Heritage Foundation staffer, she was helping select key members for the Bush administration even as her husband was engaged in deliberating the Bush v. Gore Court decision that installed George W. Bush as president (see 9:54 p.m. December 12, 2000 (http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=a1210121200bushgoreussc)). At the time she waved off criticisms, saying that she and her husband conducted “separate professional lives.” LOS ANGELES TIMES, 3/14/2010 (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/14/nation/la-na-thomas14-2010mar14)]
'Cloud of Corruption' Surrounding Justice Thomas? - Legal analyst Ian Millhiser of the liberal news Web site Think Progress is far more blunt in his assessment than some more cautious critics, writing: “Now, Ginni Thomas appears to have found a way to earn money off her husband’s actions as a justice. Clarence Thomas released countless amounts of corporate spending on US elections [by voting with the majority in Citizens United], and Ginni Thomas can get rich advising those corporate clients on how to direct that spending. To be sure, it is possible that Ginni is somehow limiting her advice to ‘political investments’ that were legal before Clarence gave businesses like hers so many new potential customers. But if this is the case, Ginni has an obligation to explain just how she is limiting her advice—it’s the only way to remove the obvious cloud of corruption her actions have created around her husband.” THINK PROGRESS, 2/4/2011 (http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/04/142472/thomas-corruption/)]
Entity Tags: Heritage Foundation (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=heritage_foundation), David Schweikert (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=david_schweikert_1), Clarence Thomas (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=clarence_thomas), Ann Pearson (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=ann_pearson_1),Dick Armey (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=dick_armey_1), George W. Bush (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=george_w.bush), Sarah E. Field (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=sarah_efield_1), FreedomWorks (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=freedomworks_1), Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=patrick_henry_center_for_individual_liberty_1), Virginia (“Ginni”) Thomas (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=virginiaginni___thomas_1), Liberty Consulting (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=liberty_consulting_1), Ian Millhiser (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=ian_millhiser_1), Liberty Central (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=liberty_central_1), US Chamber of Commerce (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=us_chamber_of_commerce_1)
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties (http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=civilliberties)
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=dick_armey_1
--
Dick Armey, FreedomWorks, and the Tea Baggers
The crusade to defund the left has not been limited to attempts to discredit progressive organizations. The so-calledK Street Project of the 1990's, which was intended to steer lobbyist contributions more towards Republicans and to shut out Democrats, had the same objective. So did Jack Abramoff'scourting of Indian tribes in order to cut off payments that had previously gone largely to Democrats.
Even calls for "tort reform" -- which are now being raised again in connection with health care -- are intended to prevent trial lawyers, who are often generous Democratic donors, from receiving a share of large settlements in personal injury cases.
Attacks on federal funding of liberal non-profits, however, are particularly attractive as a strategy because most conservative non-profits receive the bulk of their funding from corporations and right-wing foundations and not from the federal government.
In 1995, the new Republican majority in Congress took part in a particularly ambitious -- though ultimately unsuccessful -- attempt to defund the left. According to a May 30, 1995 story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (which does not appear to be available online except through subscription-only sources):
"Congressional Republicans -- with the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas playing a key role -- are preparing a new budget-cutting assault on scores of government-funded nonprofit groups whose liberal views are considered a threat to the conservative agenda. ... The effort, referred to by conservatives as 'defunding the left,' is intended to take aim at what they consider advocacy groups that lobby for liberal social programs from which they receive grants and contracts."
The story went on to say, "Led by Virginia Lamp Thomas, the wife of the Supreme Court justice, a special group of senior House Republican experts and staff members has been quietly working under the auspices of House Majority Leader Dick Armeyof Texas. Their aim is to identify nonprofit organizations whose funding should be cut and to plan a strategy to end their grants or contracts with the government or the programs for which they provide services."
Thomas, who was then a policy analyst for Rep. Armey, later went to work for the Heritage Foundation. Armey himself left Congress in 2003 and became the co-chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy -- one of whose representatives had participated in that same 2001 "Defunding the Left" panel as Morton Blackwell and CRC's Terrence Scanlon. Armey's organization is now known as FreedomWorks and is the principal astroturf backer of the teabagger protests.
--
K street
In early 1995, Jeff Shear wrote in the National Journal and subsequently the Baltimore Sun of a Republican project - later to be dubbed theK Street project (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=K_Street_project&action=edit&redlink=1) - being co-ordinated out of the office of House Majority Leader Dick Armey. Heading the project was Virginia Thomas (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas) (wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas), which also involved Scott Hodges (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Scott_Hodges&action=edit&redlink=1) the Heritage Foundation (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation)'s budget director. One of those involved in the project, conservative activists Grover Norquist (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Grover_Norquist), told Shear "we will hunt [these liberal groups] down one by one and extinguish their funding sources".
Now, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has recast herself yet again, this time as the head of a firm,Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and political donation strategies.
Thomas already has met with nearly half of the 99 GOP freshmen in the House and Senate, according to an e-mail she sent last week to congressional chiefs of staff, in which she branded herself “a self-appointed, ambassador to the freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement.”
...
While Thomas was well-known in conservative circles as an aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, as a midlevel staffer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and at The Heritage Foundation and as the spouse of one of the court's most conservative justices, she did not draw much attention until 2009, when she started speaking at tea party rallies.
http://www.americancrossroadswatch.org/index.php?q=node/235
Liberty Central Inc. is a 501(c)(4) Tea Party-affiliated nonprofit lobbying group who aims to "connect the grassroots to the political class" and whose website is "constantly assessing proposals that would limit liberty in America."[1] The group was launched in January 2010 by Virginia Thomas (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas), wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, raising questions about political impartiality for the nation's highest court. Thomas left the group in December 2010, but appears to have maintained close ties to the group. [2][3] After Thomas' departure, the group merged with the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty (http://www.patrickhenrycenter.com/).[2]
1.1 Common Cause Alleges Justice Thomas Should Have Recused in Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Common_Cause_Alleges_Justice_Thomas_Should_Have_Recused_in_Citizens_United)
1.2 Democrats Ask Justice Thomas for Recusal from Health Care Challenges (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Democrats_Ask_Justice_Thomas_for_Recusal_from_Health_Care_Challenges)
2 Corporate funding increases impartiality concerns (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Corporate_funding_increases_impartiality_concerns)
3 Virginia Thomas, Liberty Central's Founder (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Virginia_Thomas.2C_Liberty_Central.27s_Founder)
4 Contact (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Contact)
5 References (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#References)
Supreme Court Impartiality?
Although Americans generally expect justices to be politically neutral, and judicial rules prohibit judges from participating in political activity, those rules don’t extend to spouses. As the Los Angeles Times reports, "[t]he move by Virginia Thomas, 52, into the front lines of politics stands in marked contrast to the rarefied culture of the nation's highest court, which normally prizes the appearance of nonpartisanship and a distance from the fisticuffs of the politics of the day." ^[4]
At the time the group was formed in January 2010, legal ethicists pointed to the fact that Thomas' husband had sided with the majority in the Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United) decision, in effect making it possible for Liberty Central to operate with unlimited funding from secret donors. Further questions arose in July 2010 when POLITICO revealed that Liberty Central had received an anonymous $550,000 donation while Justice Thomas and the U.S. Supreme Court were deliberating over the case. ^[5]
Common Cause Alleges Justice Thomas Should Have Recused in Citizens United
In January 2011, Common Cause (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Common_Cause) submitted a letter to the Justice Department alleging that Justice Thomas should have recused himself from the Citizens United case and that “the complete lack of transparency of Liberty Central’s finances makes it difficult to assess the full scope of the ethics issues raised by Ms. Thomas’ role in founding and leading the group.”[6] The letter also pointed to possible conflicts of interests arising from the attendance by Justices Thomas and Scalia at events sponsored by the Koch brothers (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_brothers).
"Thomas’s role as a de facto tea party lobbyist and — until recently — as head of a tea party group that worked to defeat Democrats in November 2010 “show a new level of arrogance of just not caring that the court is being politicized and how that undermines the historic image of the Supreme Court as being above the political fray,” Arn Pearson, a lawyer for Common Cause (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Common_Cause), tells Politico. ^[3]
More concerns have arisen since Virginia Thomas announced the formation of her lobbying firm Liberty Consulting (whose website claims it will use Thomas' “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and offer "advice on optimizing political investments for charitable giving in the non-profit world or political causes."). Think Progress has pointed out that Thomas' work advising clients on how to donate money to political causes could have been facilitated by her husband's vote in Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United); the decision enabled corporations to spend unlimited money influencing elections, and she can now make a living advising corporations on how to direct that spending. ^[7]
Democrats Ask Justice Thomas for Recusal from Health Care Challenges
In February 2011, seventy four House Democrats sent a letter to Justice Thomas asking that he recuse himself from hearing any challenge to the Affordable Care Act (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Affordable_Care_Act&action=edit&redlink=1) on grounds that his wife's political and financial interests were tied to overturning healthcare reform. ^[8] The letter stated, in part:
"The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law," the House Democrats wrote. "From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife's financial stake in the overturn of health-care reform is blurred. Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has 'experience and connections' and appeals to clients who want a particular decision -- they want to overturn health-care reform. Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas's receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of health-care reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern."
The entire letter can be read here (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/house-democrats-say-justice-th.html).
Corporate funding increases impartiality concerns
Since the Supreme Court (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Supreme_Court)’s recent Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United) decision permitted corporate dollars to flow into political campaigns, Liberty Central and Liberty Consulting will accept donations from corporations, and be permitted to spend those funds advocating for candidates. In addition to possible conflicts of interest arising from Justice Thomas hearing a case related to the group’s political activities, concerns also exist were he to face a decision involving one of Liberty Central’s donors.
This concern is exacerbated because Liberty Central is organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, allowing the group to raise unlimited amounts of corporate money and largely avoid disclosing its donors. As reported by Slate Magazine's Emily Bazelon:
As a 501(c)(4), the group can raise unlimited money for lobbying without identifying all its donors. So how will we know whether Thomas is taking himself out of every relevant case? Liberty Central should err on the side of disclosure—let's see if it does. This is particularly salient because Justice Thomas, and Justice Thomas alone, will make the decision about whether to sit out a case. Recusal calls by the individual justices aren't reviewed by the court as a whole, or any other body. "That's the real problem," Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode says. "There's no structure for oversight. I'd say most of the time judges do the right thing, but when they don't, there's very little you can do about it. ^[9]
Virginia Thomas, Liberty Central's Founder
The Los Angeles Times reports that "Virginia Thomas has long been a passionate voice for conservative views. She has worked for former Republican Rep. Dick Armey (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dick_Armey) of Texas and for the Heritage Foundation (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation), a conservative think tank with strong ties to the GOP." ^[4] Further, according to the Liberty Central website, Ms. Thomas "is a fan of Rush Limbaugh (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rush_Limbaugh), Mark Levin (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mark_Levin) and Laura Ingraham (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Laura_Ingraham&action=edit&redlink=1) and other talk radio hosts," and "is intrigued by Glenn Beck (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Glenn_Beck)." ^[10] See also the SourceWatch entry on Virginia Thomas (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas).
Contact
Web site: http://www.libertycentral.org/
Liberty Central does not publish its physical address on its Web site.
References
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-website_0-0) News page, (http://libertycentral.org/news.html) Liberty Central website, accessed February, 2011
- ↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Kenneth Vogel, Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginni, reportedly quits Liberty Central (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45142.html), POLITICO, November 15, 2010.
- ↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 Kenneth P. Vogel and Marin Cogan and John Bresnahan, Justice Thomas's wife now lobbyist (http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EDCEB005-CDAC-A5BB-73007D76BE8BEEFE), POLITICO, Feb. 4, 2011.
- ↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Justice's Wife Launches 'Tea Party' Group (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/14/nation/la-na-thomas14-2010mar14), Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2010
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-4) Kenneth Vogel, Secret donors makes Thomas's wife's group a tea party player (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39426.html), POLITICO, July 6, 2010.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-common_cause_letter_5-0) Common Cause letter to the Justice Department re: Conflicts on Interest in Citizens United Case (http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4773617&ct=9039331), accessed February 2011.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-6) Ian Millheiser, Is Ginni Thomas Getting Rich Off Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court Decisions? (http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/04/thomas-corruption/), Think Progress, Feb. 4, 2011.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-dem_letter_7-0) Felicia Sonmez, [House Democrats say Justice Thomas should recuse himself in health-care case http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/house-democrats-say-justice-th.html], Washington Post, Feb. 09, 2011, accessed Feb. 10, 2011.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-8) Ginni Thomas Brings the Tea Party to the Supreme Court, (http://www.slate.com/id/2248017/) Slate Magazine, March 16 2010
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-9) Bio page (http://libertycentral.org/bio.html) Liberty Central website, accessed March 2010
Categories (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories): Front groups portal (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Front_groups_portal) | Front groups (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Front_groups) | Corporate strategy (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Corporate_strategy) | Politics (U.S.) (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Politics_%28U.S.%29)
copied form Va:
Virginia "Ginni" Lamp Thomas
$1.6 m 1997 -2011 from health care co's to lobby, not disclosed by hubby
Attacks on federal funding of liberal non-profits, however, are particularly attractive as a strategy because most conservative non-profits receive the bulk of their funding from corporations and right-wing foundations and not from the federal government.
In 1995, the new Republican majority in Congress took part in a particularly ambitious -- though ultimately unsuccessful -- attempt to defund the left. According to a May 30, 1995 story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (which does not appear to be available online except through subscription-only sources):
"Congressional Republicans -- with the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas playing a key role -- are preparing a new budget-cutting assault on scores of government-funded nonprofit groups whose liberal views are considered a threat to the conservative agenda. ... The effort, referred to by conservatives as 'defunding the left,' is intended to take aim at what they consider advocacy groups that lobby for liberal social programs from which they receive grants and contracts."
The story went on to say, "Led by Virginia Lamp Thomas, the wife of the Supreme Court justice, a special group of senior House Republican experts and staff members has been quietly working under the auspices of House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas. Their aim is to identify nonprofit organizations whose funding should be cut and to plan a strategy to end their grants or contracts with the government or the programs for which they provide services."
See also Liberty Central (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central)
Virginia "Ginni" Lamp Thomas (born February 23, 1957) is a conservative lobbyist and activist and the wife of U.S. Supreme Court (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._Supreme_Court) Justice Clarence Thomas (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Clarence_Thomas). Thomas founded the Tea Party-affiliated group Liberty Central (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central) in January 2010, and after stepping down as President in November 2010, founded the lobbying firm Liberty Consulting, Inc.[1]
Ginni Thomas' political activities have raised questions about political impartiality for the nation's highest court. [2] Common Cause has filed a charge with the Department of Justice (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Department_of_Justice) that Justice Thomas should have recused himself from the Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United) case. [3] In February 2011, seventy four House Democrats sent a letter to Justice Thomas asking that he recuse himself from hearing any challenge to the Affordable Care Act (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Affordable_Care_Act&action=edit&redlink=1) on grounds that his wife's political and financial interests were tied to overturning healthcare reform. [4]
Contents
1 Supreme Court Impartiality? (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#Supreme_Court_Impartiality.3F)
1.1 Common Cause Alleges Justice Thomas Should Have Recused in Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#Common_Cause_Alleges_Justice_Thomas_Should_Have_Recused_in_Citizens_United)
1.2 Democrats Ask Justice Thomas for Recusal from Health Care Challenges (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#Democrats_Ask_Justice_Thomas_for_Recusal_from_Health_Care_Challenges)
2 Corporate funding increases impartiality concerns (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#Corporate_funding_increases_impartiality_concerns)
3 Virginia Thomas (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#Virginia_Thomas)
3.1 Early Life (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#Early_Life)
4 External Links (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#External_Links)
5 References (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#References)
Supreme Court Impartiality?
Although Americans generally expect justices to be politically neutral, and judicial rules prohibit judges from participating in political activity, those rules don’t extend to spouses. As the Los Angeles Times reports, "[t]he move by Virginia Thomas, 52, into the front lines of politics stands in marked contrast to the rarefied culture of the nation's highest court, which normally prizes the appearance of nonpartisanship and a distance from the fisticuffs of the politics of the day."[5 (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_note-LA_Times_Article-4)
At the time the group was formed in January 2010, legal ethicists pointed to the fact that Thomas' husband had sided with the majority in the Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United) decision, in effect making it possible for Liberty Central to operate with unlimited funding from secret donors. Further questions arose in July 2010 when POLITICO revealed that Liberty Central had received an anonymous $550,000 donation while Justice Thomas and the U.S. Supreme Court were deliberating over the case. ^[6]
Common Cause Alleges Justice Thomas Should Have Recused in Citizens United
In January 2011,Common Cause (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Common_Cause) submitted a letter to the Justice Department alleging that Justice Thomas should have recused himself from the Citizens United case and that “the complete lack of transparency of Liberty Central’s finances makes it difficult to assess the full scope of the ethics issues raised by Ms. Thomas’ role in founding and leading the group.”[3] The letter also pointed to possible conflicts of interests arising from the attendance by Justices Thomas and Scalia at events sponsored by the Koch brothers (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_brothers).
"Thomas’s role as a de facto tea party lobbyist and — until recently — as head of a tea party group that worked to defeat Democrats in November 2010 “show a new level of arrogance of just not caring that the court is being politicized and how that undermines the historic image of the Supreme Court as being above the political fray,” Arn Pearson, a lawyer for Common Cause (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Common_Cause), tells Politico. ^[2]
More concerns have arisen since Virginia Thomas announced the formation of her lobbying firm Liberty Consulting (whose website claims it will use Thomas' “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and offer "advice on optimizing political investments for charitable giving in the non-profit world or political causes."). Think Progress has pointed out that Thomas' work advising clients on how to donate money to political causes could have been facilitated by her husband's vote in Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United); the decision enabled corporations to spend unlimited money influencing elections, and she can now make a living advising corporations on how to direct that spending. ^[7]
Democrats Ask Justice Thomas for Recusal from Health Care Challenges
In February 2011, seventy four House Democrats sent a letter to Justice Thomas asking that he recuse himself from hearing any challenge to theAffordable Care Act (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Affordable_Care_Act&action=edit&redlink=1) on grounds that his wife's political and financial interests were tied to overturning healthcare reform. ^[4] The letter stated, in part:
"The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law," the House Democrats wrote. "From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife's financial stake in the overturn of health-care reform is blurred. Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has 'experience and connections' and appeals to clients who want a particular decision -- they want to overturn health-care reform. Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas's receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of health-care reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern."
The entire letter can be read here (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/house-democrats-say-justice-th.html).
Corporate funding increases impartiality concerns
Since theSupreme Court (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Supreme_Court)’s recent Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United) decision permitted corporate dollars to flow into political campaigns, Liberty Central and Liberty Consulting will accept donations from corporations, and be permitted to spend those funds advocating for candidates. In addition to possible conflicts of interest arising from Justice Thomas hearing a case related to the group’s political activities, concerns also exist were he to face a decision involving one of Liberty Central’s donors.
This concern is exacerbated because Liberty Central is organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, allowing the group to raise unlimited amounts of corporate money and largely avoid disclosing its donors. As reported by Slate Magazine's Emily Bazelon:
As a 501(c)(4), the group can raise unlimited money for lobbying without identifying all its donors. So how will we know whether Thomas is taking himself out of every relevant case? Liberty Central should err on the side of disclosure—let's see if it does. This is particularly salient because Justice Thomas, and Justice Thomas alone, will make the decision about whether to sit out a case. Recusal calls by the individual justices aren't reviewed by the court as a whole, or any other body. "That's the real problem," Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode says. "There's no structure for oversight. I'd say most of the time judges do the right thing, but when they don't, there's very little you can do about it. ^[8]
Virginia Thomas
The Los Angeles Times reports that "Virginia Thomas has long been a passionate voice for conservative views. She has worked for former Republican Rep.Dick Armey (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dick_Armey) of Texas and for the Heritage Foundation (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation), a conservative think tank with strong ties to the GOP." ^[5] Further, according to the Liberty Central website, Ms. Thomas "is a fan of Rush Limbaugh (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rush_Limbaugh), Mark Levin (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mark_Levin) and Laura Ingraham (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Laura_Ingraham&action=edit&redlink=1) and other talk radio hosts," and "is intrigued by Glenn Beck (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Glenn_Beck)." ^[9]
Early Life
Thomas grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, the youngest of four children whose father was a successful engineer. Her parents were described by The Washington Post as "upper middle class Republican Party insiders who stressed family and religion at home" and who wintered in Florida.[10 (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_note-Wash_Post_1991-9) Thomas earned her undergraduate degree from University of Nebraska and earned her law degree from Creighton University in 1983.
From 1985 to 1989, Thomas worked as an attorney and labor relations specialist at theU.S. Chamber of Commerce (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._Chamber_of_Commerce), and lobbied on behalf of business interests. She argued against the Family and Medical Leave Act (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act&action=edit&redlink=1) (FMLA), which requires larger employers to give employees leave to care for a new child or during a serious personal or family illness. [11]
In 1991, Thomas entered the Department of Labor, which led some Senators to raise conflict-of-interest questions during her husband's judicial confirmation hearings. Further questions of conflict-of-interest were raised by her subsequent position as Policy Analyst for Congressman Dick Armey, who was then the Republican House Conference Chairman. In 2000, she was working for the Heritage Foundation (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation) and conflict-of-interest was again raised because she was collecting résumés for potential Presidential appointments in the George W. Bush Administration when the Supreme Court was deciding Bush v. Gore.
External Links
Liberty Central web site:http://www.libertycentral.org/ Liberty Consulting, Inc: http://libertyinc.co/site
Virginia "Ginni" Thomas and Liberty Consulting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsx6ot4I1iQ) Fake Astroturf video from ProtectOurElections.Org
References
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_ref-Thomas_quits_0-0) Kenneth Vogel, Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginni, reportedly quits Liberty Central (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45142.html), POLITICO, November 15, 2010.
- ↑ ^2.0 ^2.1
- ↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 Common Cause letter to the Justice Department re: Conflicts on Interest in Citizens United Case (http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4773617&ct=9039331), accessed February 2011.
- ↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Felicia Sonmez, [House Democrats say Justice Thomas should recuse himself in health-care case http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/house-democrats-say-justice-th.html], Washington Post, Feb. 09, 2011, accessed Feb. 10, 2011.
- ↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 Justice's Wife Launches 'Tea Party' Group (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/14/nation/la-na-thomas14-2010mar14), Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2010
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_ref-5) Kenneth Vogel, Secret donors makes Thomas's wife's group a tea party player (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39426.html), POLITICO, July 6, 2010.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_ref-6) Ian Millheiser, Is Ginni Thomas Getting Rich Off Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court Decisions? (http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/04/thomas-corruption/), Think Progress, Feb. 4, 2011.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_ref-7) Ginni Thomas Brings the Tea Party to the Supreme Court, (http://www.slate.com/id/2248017/) Slate Magazine, March 16 2010
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_ref-8) Bio page (http://libertycentral.org/bio.html) Liberty Central website, accessed March 2010
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_ref-Wash_Post_1991_9-0) Laura Blumenfeld, "The Nominee's Soul Mate" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/lifespring/main.htm), Washington Post, Sept. 10, 1991.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas#cite_ref-10) Stanton, Betsy (December 10, 1987). "Big business: Family and Medical Leave Act is a bitter pill". Daily News Record.
Categories (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories): Front groups (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Front_groups) | Corporate strategy (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Corporate_strategy) | Politics (U.S.) (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Politics_%28U.S.%29)
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Virginia "Ginni" Lamp Thomas (born February 23, 1957) is an American attorney who is the founder and president of the conservative advocacy group Liberty Central (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Central); and the head of Liberty Consulting, Inc. Thomas previously worked at The Heritage Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation). She is the wife of U.S. Supreme Court (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States) Associate Justice Clarence Thomas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas).
Contents
February 4, 2011
Justice Thomas's Wife Sets Up a Conservative Lobbying Shop (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/us/politics/05thomas.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24)
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON -- The wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, who has raised her political profile in the last year through her outspoken conservative activism, is rebranding herself as a lobbyist and self-appointed "ambassador to the Tea Party movement."
Virginia Thomas, the justice's wife, said on libertyinc.co, a Web site for her new political consulting business, that she saw herself as an advocate for "liberty-loving citizens" who favored limited government, free enterprise and other core conservative issues. She promised to use her "experience and connections" to help clients raise money and increase their political impact.
Ms. Thomas's effort to take a more operational role on conservative issues could intensify questions about her husband's ability to remain independent on issues like campaign finance and health care, legal ethicists said.
Justice Thomas "should not be sitting on a case or reviewing a statute that his wife has lobbied for," said Monroe H. Freedman, a Hofstra Law School professor specializing in legal ethics. "If the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that creates a perception problem."
Ms. Thomas's founding of her own political consulting shop, Liberty Consulting, was first reported Thursday by Politico, which said she had begun reaching out to freshmen Republicans in Congress.
The move comes a few months after she gave up the top spot at Liberty Central, a conservative Web site that she founded in 2009 and that has strong links to the Tea Party movement.
An anonymous $500,000 donation to start up Liberty Central came from Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate investor and Republican financier, Politico reported.
Mr. Crow, reached by phone Friday, would not say whether he was the source of the money. "I disclose what I'm required by law to disclose," he said, "and I don't disclose what I'm not required to disclose."
Ms. Thomas did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests for an interview on Friday. The Daily Caller reported in December that she had said in an interview that she was looking forward to a new role involving "lobbying on Capitol Hill" and a variety of other hands-on operational duties.
Arn Pearson, a vice president at Common Cause, a liberal group that has been critical of potential conflicts at the Supreme Court caused by Ms. Thomas's work, said her new position, combined with Justice Antonin Scalia's recent address before a closed-door seminar of the Tea Party Caucus, provided further evidence of "the politicization of the court."
"The level of bias we're seeing is really troubling," Mr. Pearson said.
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/02/are-we-just-beginning-to-see-effects-of.html
^
^wife ^ginni ^was ^TP ^now ^lobbyist: ^http://www.americancrossroadswatch.org/index.php?q=node/235
While Thomas was well-known in conservative circles as an aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, as a midlevel staffer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and at The Heritage Foundation and as the spouse of one of the court's most conservative justices, she did not draw much attention until 2009, when she started speaking at tea party rallies.
Liberty Central Inc. is a 501(c)(4) Tea Party-affiliated nonprofit lobbying group who aims to "connect the grassroots to the political class" and whose website is "constantly assessing proposals that would limit liberty in America."[1] The group was launched in January 2010 by Virginia Thomas (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas), wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, raising questions about political impartiality for the nation's highest court. Thomas left the group in December 2010, but appears to have maintained close ties to the group. ^[2][3] After Thomas' departure, the group merged with the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty (http://www.patrickhenrycenter.com/).[2]
Contents[hide]
1 Supreme Court Impartiality? (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Supreme_Court_Impartiality.3F)
1.1 Common Cause Alleges Justice Thomas Should Have Recused in Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Common_Cause_Alleges_Justice_Thomas_Should_Have_Recused_in_Citizens_United)
1.2 Democrats Ask Justice Thomas for Recusal from Health Care Challenges (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Democrats_Ask_Justice_Thomas_for_Recusal_from_Health_Care_Challenges)
2 Corporate funding increases impartiality concerns (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Corporate_funding_increases_impartiality_concerns)
3 Virginia Thomas, Liberty Central's Founder (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Virginia_Thomas.2C_Liberty_Central.27s_Founder)
4 Contact (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#Contact)
5 References (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#References)
Supreme Court Impartiality?
Although Americans generally expect justices to be politically neutral, and judicial rules prohibit judges from participating in political activity, those rules don’t extend to spouses. As the Los Angeles Times reports, "[t]he move by Virginia Thomas, 52, into the front lines of politics stands in marked contrast to the rarefied culture of the nation's highest court, which normally prizes the appearance of nonpartisanship and a distance from the fisticuffs of the politics of the day." ^[4]
At the time the group was formed in January 2010, legal ethicists pointed to the fact that Thomas' husband had sided with the majority in the Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United) decision, in effect making it possible for Liberty Central to operate with unlimited funding from secret donors. Further questions arose in July 2010 when POLITICO revealed that Liberty Central had received an anonymous $550,000 donation while Justice Thomas and the U.S. Supreme Court were deliberating over the case. ^[5]
Common Cause Alleges Justice Thomas Should Have Recused in Citizens United
In January 2011, Common Cause (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Common_Cause) submitted a letter to the Justice Department alleging that Justice Thomas should have recused himself from the Citizens United case and that “the complete lack of transparency of Liberty Central’s finances makes it difficult to assess the full scope of the ethics issues raised by Ms. Thomas’ role in founding and leading the group.”[6] The letter also pointed to possible conflicts of interests arising from the attendance by Justices Thomas and Scalia at events sponsored by the Koch brothers (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_brothers).
"Thomas’s role as a de facto tea party lobbyist and — until recently — as head of a tea party group that worked to defeat Democrats in November 2010 “show a new level of arrogance of just not caring that the court is being politicized and how that undermines the historic image of the Supreme Court as being above the political fray,” Arn Pearson, a lawyer for Common Cause (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Common_Cause), tells Politico. ^[3]
More concerns have arisen since Virginia Thomas announced the formation of her lobbying firm Liberty Consulting (whose website claims it will use Thomas' “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and offer "advice on optimizing political investments for charitable giving in the non-profit world or political causes."). Think Progress has pointed out that Thomas' work advising clients on how to donate money to political causes could have been facilitated by her husband's vote in Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United); the decision enabled corporations to spend unlimited money influencing elections, and she can now make a living advising corporations on how to direct that spending. ^[7]
Democrats Ask Justice Thomas for Recusal from Health Care Challenges
In February 2011, seventy four House Democrats sent a letter to Justice Thomas asking that he recuse himself from hearing any challenge to the Affordable Care Act (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Affordable_Care_Act&action=edit&redlink=1) on grounds that his wife's political and financial interests were tied to overturning healthcare reform. ^[8] The letter stated, in part:
"The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law," the House Democrats wrote. "From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife's financial stake in the overturn of health-care reform is blurred. Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has 'experience and connections' and appeals to clients who want a particular decision -- they want to overturn health-care reform. Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas's receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of health-care reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern."
The entire letter can be read here (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/house-democrats-say-justice-th.html).
Corporate funding increases impartiality concerns
Since the Supreme Court (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Supreme_Court)’s recent Citizens United (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United) decision permitted corporate dollars to flow into political campaigns, Liberty Central and Liberty Consulting will accept donations from corporations, and be permitted to spend those funds advocating for candidates. In addition to possible conflicts of interest arising from Justice Thomas hearing a case related to the group’s political activities, concerns also exist were he to face a decision involving one of Liberty Central’s donors.
This concern is exacerbated because Liberty Central is organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, allowing the group to raise unlimited amounts of corporate money and largely avoid disclosing its donors. As reported by Slate Magazine's Emily Bazelon:
As a 501(c)(4), the group can raise unlimited money for lobbying without identifying all its donors. So how will we know whether Thomas is taking himself out of every relevant case? Liberty Central should err on the side of disclosure—let's see if it does. This is particularly salient because Justice Thomas, and Justice Thomas alone, will make the decision about whether to sit out a case. Recusal calls by the individual justices aren't reviewed by the court as a whole, or any other body. "That's the real problem," Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode says. "There's no structure for oversight. I'd say most of the time judges do the right thing, but when they don't, there's very little you can do about it. ^[9]
Virginia Thomas, Liberty Central's Founder
The Los Angeles Times reports that "Virginia Thomas has long been a passionate voice for conservative views. She has worked for former Republican Rep. Dick Armey (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dick_Armey) of Texas and for the Heritage Foundation (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation), a conservative think tank with strong ties to the GOP." ^[4] Further, according to the Liberty Central website, Ms. Thomas "is a fan of Rush Limbaugh (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rush_Limbaugh), Mark Levin (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mark_Levin) and Laura Ingraham (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Laura_Ingraham&action=edit&redlink=1) and other talk radio hosts," and "is intrigued by Glenn Beck (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Glenn_Beck)." ^[10] See also the SourceWatch entry on Virginia Thomas (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas).
Contact
Web site: http://www.libertycentral.org/
Liberty Central does not publish its physical address on its Web site.
References
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-website_0-0) News page, (http://libertycentral.org/news.html) Liberty Central website, accessed February, 2011
- ↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Kenneth Vogel, Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginni, reportedly quits Liberty Central (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45142.html), POLITICO, November 15, 2010.
- ↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 Kenneth P. Vogel and Marin Cogan and John Bresnahan, Justice Thomas's wife now lobbyist (http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=EDCEB005-CDAC-A5BB-73007D76BE8BEEFE), POLITICO, Feb. 4, 2011.
- ↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 Justice's Wife Launches 'Tea Party' Group (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/14/nation/la-na-thomas14-2010mar14), Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2010
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-4) Kenneth Vogel, Secret donors makes Thomas's wife's group a tea party player (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39426.html), POLITICO, July 6, 2010.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-common_cause_letter_5-0) Common Cause letter to the Justice Department re: Conflicts on Interest in Citizens United Case (http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4773617&ct=9039331), accessed February 2011.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-6) Ian Millheiser, Is Ginni Thomas Getting Rich Off Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court Decisions? (http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/04/thomas-corruption/), Think Progress, Feb. 4, 2011.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-dem_letter_7-0) Felicia Sonmez, [House Democrats say Justice Thomas should recuse himself in health-care case http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/02/house-democrats-say-justice-th.html], Washington Post, Feb. 09, 2011, accessed Feb. 10, 2011.
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-8) Ginni Thomas Brings the Tea Party to the Supreme Court, (http://www.slate.com/id/2248017/) Slate Magazine, March 16 2010
- ↑ (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Central#cite_ref-9) Bio page (http://libertycentral.org/bio.html) Liberty Central website, accessed March 2010
Categories (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories): Front groups portal (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Front_groups_portal) | Front groups (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Front_groups) | Corporate strategy (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Corporate_strategy) | Politics (U.S.) (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Politics_%28U.S.%29)
defund the left:
K street
In early 1995, Jeff Shear wrote in the National Journal and subsequently the Baltimore Sun of a Republican project - later to be dubbed the K Street project (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=K_Street_project&action=edit&redlink=1) - being co-ordinated out of the office of House Majority Leader Dick Armey. Heading the project was Virginia Thomas (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Virginia_Thomas) (wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas), which also involved Scott Hodges (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Scott_Hodges&action=edit&redlink=1) the Heritage Foundation (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation)'s budget director. One of those involved in the project, conservative activists Grover Norquist (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Grover_Norquist), told Shear "we will hunt [these liberal groups] down one by one and extinguish their funding sources".
Now, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has recast herself yet again, this time as the head of a firm, Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and political donation strategies.
Thomas already has met with nearly half of the 99 GOP freshmen in the House and Senate, according to an e-mail she sent last week to congressional chiefs of staff, in which she branded herself “a self-appointed, ambassador to the freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement.”
...
While Thomas was well-known in conservative circles as an aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, as a midlevel staffer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and at The Heritage Foundation and as the spouse of one of the court's most conservative justices, she did not draw much attention until 2009, when she started speaking at tea party rallies.
http://www.americancrossroadswatch.org/index.php?q=node/235
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