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<div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>see GINNI5</b></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see ginni 3 </font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see az fake electors Kern, finchem, fann, shawnna bolick...</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see Gini tag</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see CNP action? c4</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">eastman and meckler big in const convention (santorum --> cleta?]</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bak 8 22 html <span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">endit1</span></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">swalwell mention she funded jan 6?!</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/the-sacred-lies-of-virginia-thomas">https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/the-sacred-lies-of-virginia-thomas</a>
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</font></div><div align="left"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">it's been said that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. Virginia Thomas seemingly did. The <a href="https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/20220929_Virginia%20L.%20Thomas.pdf">transcript</a>
of her appearance before the House January 6 Committee, which was
buried in an avalanche of committee documents released at the end of
December, shows not only that Thomas was well prepared for the
committee: She prevailed over it.</font></span><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The committee had sought, in its
late September interview with the spouse of Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas, to expose the errors of her doctrines and the
crookedness of her path. <b>But Thomas emerged from the roughly 4-hour
meeting triumphant, her faith unshaken. No rack could break her. No fact
could bend her.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas is an arch-conservative activist who has
spent a lifetime advancing right-wing political causes in concert with
other arch-conservative activists. But she does not, she says, much
discuss her political activities with her spouse, the arch-conservative
jurist who has used his lifetime seat on the U.S. Supreme Court to
advance those same right-wing political causes.</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In
her testimony, Thomas claimed household dominion over the “political
lane,” with career stops at ideological outposts such as the Heritage
Foundation, Hillsdale College and the Daily Caller, along with an active
volunteer life in right-wing political networks, such as <b>Frontliners
and Groundswell. The latter, Thomas told the committee, is a
“center-right” response to the “30-front war that the left has on
constitutional governance.”</b></font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas is at home in a netherworld
that others might deride as “fringe.” Her friends are numerous — the
word “friend” appears 40 times in the transcript — and include
right-wing figures such as former Trump White House chief of staff Mark
Meadows and Connie Hair, the longtime chief of staff to recently retired
Representative Louis Gohmert of Texas.<b> Gohmert</b> is a pro-insurrection
Republican known for the “ease with which he was willing to make
unfounded and offensive pronouncements,” <a>according</a> to the Texas Tribune. Thomas told the committee that she talks to Hair frequently. “She comes to my Thanksgiving,” she said.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Justice
Clarence Thomas, by contrast, is “uninterested” in politics, his wife
said. He operates exclusively in the “legal lane.</b>” Thus the couple
navigates the ethical grid of Washington, where the Supreme Court is
across the street from the Congress, which is down the street from the
Justice Department, which is a short walk from the White House, as
easily as a stroll across the Mayberry town square.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Virginia
Thomas — who goes by “Ginni” — occupies a singular place in elite
conservative politics. Yet what’s striking about her testimony is how
generically MAGA it is</b>. She laments election “fraud and irregularities”
for which she can summon no evidence; reveals deep resentment of
political and media elites who are not like-minded conservatives;<b>
resorts to unabashedly opportunistic lapses of memory</b>; and provides warm
reminiscences of a morning spent on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021. A
65-year-old suburban volunteer, Thomas appeared before the committee,
after lengthy negotiations, with nothing to hide.<b> But somewhere along
the way she had obtained the Signal app for encrypting communications
just the same.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over the course of her interview with the
committee, Thomas described her political efforts in 2020 as “minimal
and mainstream.” She was “very active with Trump rallies” in her home
state of Virginia, she said.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After Trump lost the election, her
political enthusiasms evolved. Thomas repeatedly beseeched Mark Meadows,
via text message, to find a way to invalidate the 2020 election and
prevent Trump’s democratically elected successor from assuming office.
She texted Trump’s White House chief of staff about her swooning
appreciation of Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, the axis of a Trump
legal team <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mHdvEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT212&lpg=PT212&dq=wiliam+barr+%22clown+car%22&source=bl&ots=c220LZRV1W&sig=ACfU3U3ooQ69q0wlxpqhf4Eq5xqJMaTMZw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw3dXt98n8AhVzlIkEHSngAIQQ6AF6BAgbEAM#v=onepage&q=wiliam%20barr%20%22clown%20car%22&f=false">described</a> by Attorney General William Barr as a “clown car.” <b>She sent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/">robo-emails</a>
to Republican state legislators who were urged to carry out a plot,
conjured in part by Thomas allies John Eastman and Cleta Mitchell, to
send false electors</b> to Washington to halt the democratic transfer of
power</span>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Make a
plan, release the Kraken, and save us from the left taking America
down,” Thomas implored Meadows on Nov. 19, 2020. If the spouse of
Justice Thomas restricted herself to a particular lane in the days
surrounding the 2020 election, it appears to have been a roadway heavily
trafficked by the former president’s co-conspirators</span>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Thomas’s
texts with Meadows are one of the topics she did not discuss with
Justice Thomas. “I do know,” she told the committee, “he was completely
unaware of the texts that I had with Mark Meadows until this committee
leaked them to the press</b> while my husband was in a hospital bed in March
fighting an infection.” Justice Thomas provided the lone dissent in an
8-1 Supreme Court <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/supreme-court-rejects-trump-clears-disclosure-of-jan-6-papers">ruling</a> against Trump, which gave the January 6 committee access to a trove of White House documents related to the insurrection.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/">published</a> excerpts from 29 texts between Thomas and Meadows. They are mostly not the ambiguous sort.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Help
This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Thomas wrote to Meadows on
Nov. 10, 2020, when Trump’s campaign to sabotage the peaceful transfer
of power was well under way. “The majority knows Biden and the Left is
attempting the greatest Heist of our Hist</b>ory.”</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas’s projection
may read as dark comedy, but, like her testimony, it illuminates a deep
MAGA mindset. Victimhood, denial, whataboutism, resentment, lies — many
of the signposts of Trumpism are vividly displayed.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One quality,
however, appears paramount. Throughout her testimony, Thomas conveys the
abiding arrogance that girds so much fear and flailing on the right.
When facts defy MAGA mythology, to hell with facts. The Justice’s wife
clearly shares the insurrectionists’ animating logic: <b>If American
democracy won’t continue to enshrine white Christian conservative
preeminence, then it is American democracy, not the preeminence, which
must be brought to heel.</b></font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Consider
the date — <b>Nov. 10</b> — of Thomas’s “Heist” message. Fox News had called
the state of Arizona for Joe Biden on Nov. 3, effectively announcing the
Trump campaign’s doom. By Nov. 7, the broadcast networks and the
Associated Press had all declared Joe Biden the president-elect. On Nov.
10, the date of Thomas’s text, the New York Times ran a lead story <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html">reporting</a>
the results of interviews with top election officials in all 50 states.
Every state, red and blue, told the Times there had been no significant
irregularities or fraud in the vote.</font></span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There was also, notably, the
junkyard dog that didn’t bark<b>. William Barr</b> had flagrantly misled the
public, for Trump’s benefit, about the findings of the Mueller report,
and he had <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/68699/three-dozen-questions-for-congress-and-the-news-media-to-ask-attorney-general-barr/">run interference</a> for Trump on corruption investigations. Prior to the 2020 election, Barr had <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/john-kass/ct-attorney-general-william-barr-chicago-kass-20200911-xbpfeq5wj5hybffu5e7aiwuzoq-story.html">spread</a>
additional falsehoods about voting by mail, echoing Trump. But as the
post-election morass deepened, and Trump desperately sought endorsements
of his ever loopier claims, Barr was conspicuously silent.</font></span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Nov. 12, the executive committee of the Trump administration’s Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election">confirmed</a> what Barr surely knew. The 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.”</font></span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thus,
by Nov. 7, you had to be an extraordinary optimist to believe that
Trump had a chance. By Nov. 10, you had to be a fantasist. By Nov. 12,
the task required a good deal more — including perhaps a passing
interest in the termination of republican government. <b>Yet on Nov. 13
here comes Thomas, texting Meadows that “Sidney Powell & improved
coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and
America saved.”</b> </font></span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even Trump, who typically prioritizes quantity
over quality in the matter of lies, found Powell’s sci-fi yarns and
sloppy escapades detrimental to his plans. On Nov. 22, the Trump
campaign officially cut Powell loose. But unlike Trump, Thomas is a
woman of faith. <b>She kept cheering Powell’s improvisational circus until
late November, when Meadows finally convinced Thomas to surrender her
hope in the Kraken. Thomas was loath to let go. “I viewed her as a
trusted person to get at facts,</b>” she told the committee of Powell. She
did not say if she had ever changed that view.</font></span></p><p class="has-drop-cap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/31/ginni-thomas-trump-world-power-00022042">article</a>
in Politico last March weighed whether Virginia Thomas is “one of the
most powerful forces in the MAGA movement,” as the fascist-friendly
podcaster and Trump ally Steve Bannon called her, or a conspiracy
theorizing gadfly drafting off her husband’s lifetime tenure on the
nation’s highest court.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those are hardly mutually exclusive
descriptions. Thomas seems to veer between them herself, alternately
describing herself to the Jan. 6 committee as “an ordinary citizen
activist” and as “a leader in the movement” who is active in “a number
of conservative weekly gatherings.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both versions inform a
portrait of a MAGA everywoman, a super-elite and well-connected fixture
of the conservative movement who is nonetheless as steeped in rage, and
as swaddled in falsehoods,<b> as the most alienated and FOX-addled denizen
of MAGA nation.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In her testimony, Thomas, a law-school graduate,
appears to slide between personas — elite insider or clueless bumpkin —
depending on how much English she wishes to apply to a shot</span>. But in
either guise she remains consistently, adamantly and seemingly genuinely
hostile to the truth at the heart of the inquiry. An exchange between
Representative Liz Cheney and Thomas captures the religious intensity of
Thomas’s animus.</font></p><blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>Ms. Cheney</strong>: And if you had been aware that the
Attorney General Barr, for example, or Pat Cipollone, that if you’d been
aware that they had investigated these claims of fraud and told [Trump]
that there was no evidence to support those claims, would that have
changed your view?
<strong>Mrs. Thomas</strong>: Honestly, I
don’t think it would have, because millions of people still found that
there were irregularities with the COVID changes to mail-in balloting</span>.
And there were so many other things that, you know, I don’t think
there’s a lot of — there’s a lot of people uncomfortable with the 2020
election despite what this<b> committee is pushing</b>. Okay? I just think
there’s still concern. And I wouldn’t have believed that some of those
people you named were able to identify and track down fraud and
irregularity that I was hearing from the grassroots in certain states.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>Ms. Cheney</strong>:
And so are you aware that the President and his allies brought legal
challenges, which was completely their right to do, but that they lost
61 out of 62 of those legal challenges?
<strong>Mrs. Thomas</strong>: I still believed that there was fraud and irregularity, as millions of Americans do, Representative Cheney.</span></font></p>
</blockquote><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cheney can explain to Thomas that the white phantom that
Thomas saw traipsing across the lawn is in fact a sheet hanging from
the clothes line. She can show Thomas the sheet. She can let Thomas run
her fingers over the cotton threads. It doesn’t matter. Thomas needs the
ghost. And, by God, she’ll have it.</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Various committee inquisitors
prodded Thomas to face facts, confront reality, join them in the church
of reason. Thomas made little effort to hide her contempt. Did she
happen to take note of such-and-such fact on such-and-such date, a fact
that exposes her beliefs as so much childish nonsense? Nope. Didn’t see
it. Didn’t hear it. Didn’t know. Didn’t ask. Never will.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Representative
Jamie Raskin, a constitutional lawyer and high priest in the rival
sect, was among those trying to coax Thomas, ever so gently, onto
reality’s cold, alien ground.</font></p><blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Mr. Raskin</strong>: Mrs. Thomas, what was the most significant case of voter fraud that you were concerned with <b>after the election took place?</b>
<strong>Mrs. Thomas</strong>: Thank you for that question, Congressman Raskin. I can’t say that I was familiar <b>at that time with any specific evidence.</b></font></span></p>
</blockquote><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pressed later on the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency,
Thomas opts for a line that is half cowardice, half cleverness, but all
contempt. “I worried that there was fraud and irregularities that
distorted the election but it wasn’t uncovered in a timely manner,” she
said, “so we have President Biden.</span>”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At one point, a committee
investigator (names of committee staff are blacked out in the
transcript) asked Thomas about the false allegation that ballots had
been found in a suitcase in Georgia. Thomas indicates familiarity with
the bogus claim. But the investigator’s follow-up question is vaporized
from the commanding heights of MAGA.</font></p><blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Investigator</strong>: <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There were allegations that there was a suitcase stuffed with fraudulent false ballots.
<strong>Mrs. Thomas</strong>: Right.
<strong>Investigator</strong>:
And there were subsequent law enforcement efforts, both at the State
and Federal level, to investigate whether that actually happened. And so
my question was, did you follow or, kind of, consider those
investigations after — in the allegations of fraud like that?
<strong>Mrs. Thomas</strong>: I did not.</span></font></p>
</blockquote><p class="has-drop-cap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On
January 6, 2021, Thomas awoke early to walk her dogs and post some
messages to Facebook. Then she took the Metro into Washington, D.C.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I
was encouraged that people were coming together for the purpose of
trying to challenge the election fraud and irregularities that were
surfacing,” she told the committee.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the Ellipse, along with
things surfaced and seen were many things unseen. The morning crowd
included Nazis, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, members of the fascist
street gang the Proud Boys and various white supremacists along with
nonviolent and pre-violent elements of the enraged MAGA base.<b> From the
28,000 people who passed through magnetometers, the Secret Service
confiscated 269 knives or blades and 242 cannisters of pepper spray,
along with tasers, “blunt instruments,” brass knuckles and more. The
most heavily armed attendees, however, including those possessing
firearms, hung back, out of the probing reach of the machines.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas
didn’t pass through the magnetometers. She said she waded through the
outer crowd, chatting with other attendees. She made no mention of
having seen fascist street thugs or White nationalists. She did
volunteer to the committee that “a lot of Chinese-Americans were there.”<b>
In retrospect, she said, it had occurred to her that an unusual number
of civilians were dressed in combat gear.</b></font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Asked if she departed
the Ellipse before Trump began his speech, one with no precedent in
American history, Thomas was at first vague. “I think I may have,” she
replied. She subsequently said she had departed for home before Trump
spoke. She was not asked about her earlier uncertainty, or why it had
vanished.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What was she thinking about that day? Thomas had hoped
that a “robust discussion” in Congress on Jan. 6 would somehow lead to a
different political outcome, though she declined several opportunities
to explain by what mechanisms she believed that outcome might arise. A
text that Thomas sent to Meadows four days after Trump’s white riot
might offer a clue: “<b>Most of us are disgusted with the VP,” she wrote on
Jan. 10, in an apparent reference to Vice President Mike Pence’s
refusal to subvert the election.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Near the end of her meeting with
the committee, Thomas was asked if she wanted to add anything to the
record. It turned out that she did.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“At the end,” Thomas told the
committee, “I guess I’d only say one more thing, and that is: <b>Violence
on both sides is abhorrent, and the more you guys focus on just one
side, it can do significant damage to our country, I believe.</b>”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> She
complained that “left-wing activists” hadn’t been subjected to “same
kind of focus that you guys are focusing on the violence in the Capitol
on January 6<sup>th</sup>.</span>”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Thomas was never asked</b> about the
morality of leaping to embrace every conceivable lie, no matter how
cretinous or destructive, while spurning the truth at every juncture.
She was never asked about the 81 million Americans whose democratic
aspirations and civic legitimacy she had sought to annihilate. She was
never asked to locate her beliefs in the chain reaction that led to
death and destruction at the Capitol. She was not asked what she thought
would happen to the world, at home or abroad, if the nuclear-armed
American superpower descended into the banana republicanism of Donald
Trump, Louis Gohmert and Virginia Thomas.</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas didn’t mourn
those killed or brutalized in the attack.<b> Instead, she expressed dismay
at “corruption, the erosion of confidence in equal justice.</b>” Her final
word was a cry of moral offense, recoiling at the unjust treatment of
patriots while the left was free to pursue its 30-front war on all good
things.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When it was over, Thomas departed, unbroken by
inquisition, unfettered by obligation, her lies intact, at the ready,
open carried.
</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an ah 1 23</font></div><div align="left"><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2022 will be remembered as a year in which the U.S. Supreme Court’s reputation continued to deteriorate, from the wildly unpopular overturning of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to the revelation that Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, tried to help former President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/25/1088720571/ginni-thomas-tex-messages-mark-meadows-2020-election" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">overturn the 2020 election results</a>. The January 6 Select Committee discovered that after now-President Joe Biden won the election, Ginni Thomas urged then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to do everything he could to keep Biden from being inaugurated. And in March 2022, her series of text exchanges with Meadows became public knowledge thanks to some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">bombshell reporting</a> in the Washington Post by Robert Costa and Bob Woodward — the veteran journalist/author who is also famous for his bombshell reporting on Watergate with Post colleague Carl Bernstein during the 1970s.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Woodward, like Bernstein and former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks, has said more than once that Nixon’s crimes during the 1970s pale in comparison to Trump’s scandals. And more than a few Trump critics have commented that the January 6, 2021 insurrection and the fact that a U.S. Supreme Court justice’s wife wanted presidential election results overturned was more disturbing than Watergate.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas’ text exchanges with Meadows show her to be an aggressive promoter of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the Big Lie</a>, Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voter fraud. But according to Richard Hall, a reporter for The Independent, Thomas’ interview with the January 6 Select Committee’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/23/1145160544/jan-6-report-committee-donald-trump" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">845-page final report</a> revealed, during questioning by the January 6 Select Committee, that her knowledge “wasn’t very deep” when she bought into Trump’s Big Lie. The Committee recently released its <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/23/1145160544/jan-6-report-committee-donald-trump" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">845-page final report</a>.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://www.alternet.org/ginni-thomas-2658999830/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Conflict of interest? New report sheds light on Ginni Thomas’ contributions to Mike Lee’s election campaign</strong></a></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hall, in an <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ginni-thomas-january-6-election-b2253662.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published on December 30</a>, explains, “Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas, admitted that she was not aware of any specific evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election at the time she personally lobbied senior White House officials to overturn the results. In an interview with the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol, a transcript of which was released on Friday, Ms. Thomas said that she ‘wasn’t very deep’ in her knowledge of specific voter fraud allegations at the time of her lobbying effort, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">but instead, ‘was basing what I believed off of people I trusted and news that I trusted.’”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That transcript, according to Hall, “provides new detail on how” Ginni Thomas “used her access” to “Donald Trump’s inner circle” to “influence the White House to reject the results of the presidential election.</b>”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Text exchanges with Meadows that were obtained by the January 6 Select Committee and reported by Woodward and Costa show the degree to which Ginni Thomas was all in for the Big Lie. In a November 10, 2020 text, for example, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife told Meadows, “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On September 29, 2022, Ginni Thomas was interviewed by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Committee member. Raskin tried to determine what motivated her belief in the Big Lie, and she told him, “I can’t say that I was familiar at the time with any specific evidence. I was just hearing it from news reports and friends on the ground, grassroots activists who were inside of various polling places that found things suspicious.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/ginni-thomas-january-6th-insurrection/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>What about Ginni Thomas?' Social media outraged at lack of accountability for Supreme Court Justice's wife</strong></a></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming also questioned Ginni Thomas to confirm what she had told Raskin. And she replied, “Right. I know. I wasn’t very deep; I admit it.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas has maintained that she doesn’t discuss her work as an activist with Justice Thomas. But Hall reports that the Committee asked her “about an exchange with Mr. Meadows in which she appears to suggest that she spoke with her husband, Justice Thomas, about the election.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one of her <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/12/30/ginni-thomas-2020-election-jan-6-trump" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">text exchanges with Meadows</a>, she mentioned “a conversation with my best friend.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas told the January 6 Committee, “It looks like it was my husband” but said she had “<b>no memory </b>of the specifics” and went on to say, “My husband often administers spousal support to the wife that's upset. So, I assume that that's what it was…. He had no idea that I was texting Mark Meadows about the election.”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/coup-plotters-reunion-ginni-thomas" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>'Coup-plotters reunion': Ginni Thomas and allies call for delay in congressional leadership elections</strong></a></font></p></div><div align="left"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an ah 12 22</font></div><div><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the 1990s, Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia represented the lunatic fringe of the U.S. Supreme Court. Thomas’ far-right social conservatism stood in contrast to the liberalism of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the right-wing libertarianism of Justice Anthony Kennedy and the moderate conservatism of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But with the High Court now dominated by the radical right, Thomas is no longer out of step with most of his fellow justices. These days, Thomas is arguably more influential on the Court than Chief Justice John Roberts. And the activism of his wife, far-right conspiracy theorist Ginni Thomas, has been drawing more and more scrutiny — especially in light of his wife’s efforts to help former President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">overturn the 2020 election results</a>.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many critics of the Thomases have been stressing that it is a major conflict of interest for someone as active on the far right as Ginni Thomas to be married to a Supreme Court justice. Democratic Rep. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/27/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-supreme-court-justices-impeach-kavanaugh-gorsuch-thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> of New York City has even <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/600145-ocasio-cortez-to-clarence-thomas-resign-or-face-impeachment/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">called for Justice Thomas’ impeachment</a>.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/crew-investigation-clarence-ginni-thomas" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>CREW demands 'immediate investigation' of Clarence and Ginni Thomas for possible 'conflicts of interest'</strong></a></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas has insisted that there is no conflict of interest because the Thomases operate in “separate lanes.” But journalist Michael Tomasky, in a <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/169591/clarence-ginni-thomas-new-republic-2022-scoundrels-year" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">scathing article published by The New Republic</a> on December 23, lays out some reasons why the “separate lanes” argument is problematic. <b>The New Republic, in fact, has picked Clarence and Ginni Thomas as their “Scoundrels of the Year” for 2022.</b></span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Clarence Thomas, now concluding his 36th year as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, has spent years flouting the ethics rules to which all federal judges except Supreme Court justices must adhere,” Tomasky explains. “Ginni Thomas has spent those same years in the thick of the right-wing infrastructure that has pushed cause after cause after cause — many of which have eventually made their way to the Supreme Court. She has maintained that the two operate in ‘separate lanes’ professionally. It’s a line that kinda-sorta worked…. It was always murky at best. But in 2022, it became far less so.”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Tomasky continues, “She texted urgently with Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in late 2020 and early 2021 about strategies to overturn the election, as The Washington Post revealed in a blockbuster story back in March. In due course, the matter of Meadows’ e-mails and other White House documents relating to the January 6 insurrection came before the Supreme Court — an extremely conservative Supreme Court, remember, now with three justices appointed by Trump himself. And in January 2022, the only justice to vote against ordering the release of the material was the one whose wife’s scribblings were included within it.”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Big Lie — Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him through widespread voter fraud — has been thoroughly debunked time and time again. But it’s a conspiracy theory that the wife of a U.S. Supreme Court justice aggressively promoted during the late 2020/early 2021 lame duck session.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:</strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/ginni-thomas-january-6th-insurrection/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong> 'What about Ginni Thomas?' Social media outraged at lack of accountability for Supreme Court Justice's wife</strong></a></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one of her text messages to Meadows, Tomasky notes, Ginni Thomas wrote, “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. is in a dangerous place, Tomasky warns, when the wife of an influential U.S. Supreme Court justice holds such views and is very active in her party.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If we are to believe the ‘separate lanes” theory,” Tomasky argues, “then we accept not only that Ginni did not share the content of these messages with her husband, which is plausible, but also, that she never said to him, over dinner or while relaxing with Fox News at night, that she had exchanged texts with Meadows. You can believe that if you want.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tomasky adds that when it comes to conflicts of interest, no one on the Supreme Court is worse than Justice Thomas.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“When Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the D.C. Court of Appeals, her husband quit practicing tax law and returned to teaching,” Tomasky notes. “When John Roberts was nominated for the High Court, his wife left her law practice and resigned from a position at a pro-life group. Not the Thomases. Make no mistake: The entire right-wing bloc has damaged the Court’s credibility. But no one has damaged the Supreme Court’s reputation more than the Thomases.”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/clarence-thomas" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Renewed calls to impeach Clarence Thomas after latest ruling on Jan. 6: 'It’s absurd he did not recuse'</strong></a></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div align="left"><p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> = </font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new report is shedding light on the conflict of interest surrounding <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2022/12/21/ginni-thomas-made-two-donations/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">controversial donations</a> contributed to Sen. Mike Lee's (R-Utah) re-election campaign.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas — the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — donated to Lee's campaign twice in the same election cycle.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Federal campaign disclosures <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=Ginni+Thomas&contributor_name=Virginia+Thomas&contributor_city=Fairfax+Station&max_date=12%2F31%2F2022&contributor_state=VA" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">show Thomas donated $750 to Lee’s 2022 campaign</a> — $500 on Oct. 19 and another $250 on June 30 following his primary election win," the news outlet reported. "According to Federal Election Commission records, Thomas also donated $250 to Lee’s first campaign for Senate in 2010, which was her second-ever donation to an individual campaign."</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/ginni-thomas" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Former top FBI official: 'Concerning' Ginni Thomas signed letter saying Jan. 6 participants 'have done nothing wrong'</a></strong></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Per the news outlet, Thomas' support of the Republican lawmaker surpasses financial contributions to his election campaigns.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Thomas founded the conservative political group Liberty Central in 2009," the outlet wrote. "The following year, Liberty Central endorsed several congressional candidates, the first being Lee."</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The report also offered more insight into the connection between Thomas and Lee. "Lee and Thomas were both involved in the effort to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election," the report reads. "They both texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after the election was called for President Joe Biden."</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; font-size: 17.5px; line-height: 32px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); width: 602.542px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">"Both Thomas and Lee had connections to conservative lawyer John Eastman’s legally dubious scheme to have states won by Biden submit alternate presidential electors to throw the election to Trump. Lee referenced the plan in texts with Meadows, while the <b>House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol reportedly has email correspondence between Thomas and Eastman after the election.</b>"</span></font></blockquote><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/ginni-thomas-january-6th-insurrection/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'What about Ginni Thomas?' Social media outraged at lack of accountability for Supreme Court Justice's wife</a></strong></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In November, Lee was re-elected after defeating his opponent, Evan McMullin, who ran as an independent candidate. Lee won the election 53% to 42%.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/coup-plotters-reunion-ginni-thomas" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Coup-plotters reunion': Ginni Thomas and allies call for delay in congressional leadership elections</a></strong></font></p><p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></p><p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[12 22 anti porn bill? mike lee am taliban</font></p><p style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div align="left"><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 12 22</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Following reports of the Jan. 6 committee’s decision to refer Trump’s criminal charges to the Justice Department, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ginni-thomas-escaping-criminal-referral-over-jan-sixth-sparks-outrage-1768417" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>social media users are asking</u></a> why Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas didn’t get the same treatment</b>, Newsweek reports.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The wife of long-time Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas, Thomas was in the spotlight earlier this year after a texting thread between her and Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows came to light. In the texts, Thomas urged Meadows to use his influence and power <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/ginni-thomas-attempts-influence-overturn" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>to help overturn the 2020 election</u></a>.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Not only was she in cahoots with Meadows, but Alternet previously reported that the conservative activist <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/ginni-thomas-correspondence-john-eastman" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>communicated with John Eastman</u></a> – the Republican lawyer who received criminal referral from the Jan. 6 committee for his attempt to deem Mike Pence powerful enough to discard electoral college votes.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><u><strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/coup-plotters-reunion-ginni-thomas" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Coup-plotters reunion': Ginni Thomas and allies call for delay in congressional leadership elections</a></strong></u></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter users are not happy about the committee’s failure to refer Thomas as well.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jonathan Goldman <a href="https://twitter.com/akjakalope/status/1604998656838356993?s=20&t=vIlf-h0CF-5L44Aaj3XCRQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>tweeted</u></a>, "How do you make a criminal referral for John Eastman but not Ginni Thomas? They literally conspired to overthrow democracy together."</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So Ginni Thomas just gets away with it because she's married to a Supreme Court Justice?" <a href="https://twitter.com/GeronimoBPM/status/1605038621127499776?s=20&t=SlO9O8Dd0ZKxQOv1rwSphw" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>another Twitter user</u></a> asked.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adam Rifkin <a href="https://twitter.com/ifindkarma/status/1604922109431406592?s=20&t=SlO9O8Dd0ZKxQOv1rwSphw" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>tweeted</u></a> "What about Ginni Thomas? <b>#TrumpCoupAttempt" </b>along with a video of a June MSNBC segment on Thomas and Eastman’s communication.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/ginni-thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="self" title="view post: Bombshell emails raise new questions about Ginni Thomas contacts with John Eastman: WaPo reporter" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Bombshell emails raise new questions about Ginni Thomas contacts with John Eastman: WaPo reporter</a></strong></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It is not confirmed that the Justice Department will carry out the recommended charges against Trump and Eastman. And <a href="https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1604850528369917953?s=20&t=vIlf-h0CF-5L44Aaj3XCRQ" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>according to a tweet</u></a> from CBS correspondent Robert Costa, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">it is currently “unclear” whether the “complete transcript” from Thomas’ September meeting with the Jan. 6 committee will be released to the public.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:</strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/ginni-thomas-2658379219" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u><strong> Ginni Thomas has become a 'one-woman constitutional crisis': columnist</strong></u></a></font></p></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;"><a class="tc-tiddlylink-external" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/clarence-thomas-wife-oath-keepers-founder-featured-together-at-event-2022-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Thomas' Wife Was Featured in Same Event As Oath Keepers Leader</a></span> January 23, 2022, Sarah Al-Arshani, <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Business%20Insider" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">Business Insider</a></font></p><hr style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supreme Court <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Justice%20Clarence%20Thomas" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">Justice Clarence Thomas</a>' wife co-hosted a banquet as part of a symposium that featured the founder of the <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Oath%20Keepers" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">Oath Keepers</a>, the <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#New%20Yorker" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">New Yorker</a> reported.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a story published Friday, <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Jane%20Mayer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">Jane Mayer</a> detailed <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Virginia" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">Virginia</a> "Ginni" Thomas' ties to conservative groups.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among her connections is <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Stewart%20Rhodes" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">Stewart Rhodes</a>, who founded the extremist militia group in <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#2009" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">2009</a>. Prosecutors previously said the Oath Keepers planned out attacks on the Capitol and held trainings in the weeks before <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#January%206" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">January 6</a>, <a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#2021" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;">2021</a>.</font></p></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><ul style="box-sizing: border-box;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Clarence%20Thomas'%20Wife%20Was%20Featured%20in%20Same%20Event%20As%20Oath%20Keepers%20Leader%20-%202022-01-23" style="box-sizing: border-box; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">larence Thomas' Wife Was Featured in Same Event As Oath Keepers Leader - 2022-01-23</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#The%20%22spiritual%20child%20of%20the%20Great%20Barrington%20Declaration%22%20promotes%20antivaccine%20misinformation%20-%202022-01-24" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The "spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration" promotes antivaccine misinformation - 2022-01-24</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#The%2059%20Republicans%20Who%20Joined%20In%20Electoral%20Voter%20Fraud%20Scheme%20For%20Trump%20Could%20Face%20Prison%20-%202022-01-27" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The 59 Republicans Who Joined In Electoral Voter Fraud Scheme For Trump Could Face Prison - 2022-01-27</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Who%20has%20more%20influence%20on%20supreme%20court%3A%20Clarence%20Thomas%20or%20his%20activist%20wife%3F%20-%202022-01-28" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife? - 2022-01-28</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#We%20can%20stop%20the%20white-collar%20insurrectionists%20from%20doing%20it%20again%3A%20Here's%20how%20-%202022-02-03" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We can stop the white-collar insurrectionists from doing it again: Here's how - 2022-02-03</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Donald%20Trump%20and%20Jim%20Jordan%20spoke%20for%2010%20minutes%20on%20the%20morning%20of%20January%206%20-%202022-02-04" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donald Trump and Jim Jordan spoke for 10 minutes on the morning of January 6 - 2022-02-04</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#New%20Emails%20Suggest%20Supreme%20Court%20Justice%20Clarence%20Thomas%20Was%20Communicating%20With%20Ron%20DeSantis%20%20--%20%20For%20Some%20Strange%20Reason%20-%202022-02-04" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">New Emails Suggest Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Was Communicating With Ron DeSantis -- For Some Strange Reason - 2022-02-04</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Republican%20party%20calls%20January%206%20attack%20'legitimate%20political%20discourse'%20-%202022-02-04" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Republican party calls January 6 attack 'legitimate political discourse' - 2022-02-04</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#US%20'freedom%20convoy'%20inspired%20by%20Canada%20bids%20to%20organize%20for%20Washington%20trip%20-%202022-02-14" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">US 'freedom convoy' inspired by Canada bids to organize for Washington trip - 2022-02-14</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Investigating%20Canadian%20YouTube%20rival%20Rumble%20and%20its%20growing%20popularity%20among%20the%20world's%20far%20right%20-%202022-02-19" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Investigating Canadian YouTube rival Rumble and its growing popularity among the world's far right - 2022-02-19</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Trump%20SPAC%20Investor%20Rep.%20Marjorie%20Taylor%20Greene%20Is%20Plugging%20Truth%20Social%20-%202022-02-23" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump SPAC Investor Rep. 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text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A battle over schools rages in Michigan - and Betsy DeVos is at the center of it - 2022-03-26</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Ginni%20Thomas'%20Election%20Fraud%20Guru%20Claims%20He%20Arrested%20Pope%20-%202022-03-26" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ginni Thomas' Election Fraud Guru Claims He Arrested Pope - 2022-03-26</font></a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="tc-tiddlylink tc-tiddlylink-resolves" href="https://trashpanda-x.github.io/darklantern/#Bolton%20says%20he%20recalls%20Trump%20using%20the%20term%20%22burner%20phones%22%20-%202022-03-29" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; user-select: inherit;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bolton says he recalls Trump using the term "burner phones" - 2022-03-29</font></a></font></li></ul></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/clarence-thomas-wife-oath-keepers-founder-featured-together-at-event-2022-1">https://www.businessinsider.com/clarence-thomas-wife-oath-keepers-founder-featured-together-at-event-2022-1</a></div><div>
</div><div>Clarence Thomas' wife spoke at a conservative conference featuring the founder of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group involved in the Capitol riot</div><div>Sarah Al-Arshani Mar 19, 2022, 5:32 PM</div><div>Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sits with his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas while he waits to speak at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.</div><div>Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sits with his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas while he waits to speak at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images</div><div>Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife has ties to right-wing groups, the New Yorker reported. </div><div>The founder of the Oath Keepers was featured in an event where Virginia Thomas co-hosted a banquet.</div><div>In January, Stewart Rhodes was charged with sedition in connection to the Capitol riot.</div><div>Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife co-hosted a banquet as part of a symposium that featured the founder of the Oath Keepers, the New Yorker reported. </div><div>
</div><div>In a story published in January, Jane Mayer detailed Virginia "Ginni" Thomas' ties to conservative groups. </div><div>
</div><div>Among her connections is Stewart Rhodes, who founded the extremist militia group in 2009. Prosecutors previously said the Oath Keepers planned out attacks on the Capitol and held trainings in the weeks before January 6, 2021.</div><div>
</div><div>Thomas, a conservative activist and attorney, co-hosted a Remember the Ladies Banquet at the 2010 Liberty XPO & Symposium, which has been described as the "largest conservative training event in history," alongside Moms for America president Kimberly Fletcher.</div><div>
</div><div>The symposium also featured Rhodes, who earlier this month was arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy in connection to the Capitol riot. His arrest and charges marked the first time federal prosecutors brought sedition charges against anyone in the investigation into the Capitol siege. He has pleaded not guilty. </div><div>
</div><div>Rhodes is just one of many connections Thomas has to right-wing extremists and the January 6 insurrection, Mayer reported. </div><div>
</div><div>Fletcher, for instance, who co-hosted the banquet with Thomas, gave two speeches the day before the riot in which she spread the false claim that the 2020 election had been stolen from former President Donald Trump. </div><div>
</div><div>The New Yorker report on Thomas' connections to right-wing groups and those involved in the Capitol riot comes on the heels of the Supreme Court denying Trump's request to block the January 6 house select committee from obtaining presidential records for their investigation.</div><div>
</div><div>Thomas' husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, issued the lone dissenting vote. According to the New Yorker, Thomas is also involved with parties whose cases are presented before her husband in the Supreme Court. </div><div>
</div><div>Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham specializing in legal ethics, told Mayer that the appearance of Thomas's political activism has an impact on the perception of justice and is "awful." </div><div>
</div><div>"They look like a mom-and-pop political-hack group, where she does the political stuff and he does the judging," Green said. </div><div>
</div><div>In March, Thomas said she attended the Ellipse rally that preceded the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021\, but said she left early before Trump took the stage and denied having any ties to organizers of the riot. </div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>"I played no role with those who were planning and leading the Jan. 6 events," Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon. </div><div>
</div><div>Insider has reached out to Thomas, the Supreme Court, Fletcher, and an attorney for Rhodes for comment.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>NEWS</div><div>Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes slipped and testified he supports the 'right to riot' at his January 6 trial</div><div>
</div><div>Supreme Court</div><div>Virginia Thomas</div><div>Clarence Thomas</div><div>More...</div><div>---</div><div>some lnx</div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.15rem 0px; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px;">preme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife co-hosted a banquet as part of a symposium that featured the founder of the Oath Keepers, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" data-analytics-module="body_link" rel=" nofollow" data-analytics-post-depth="40" data-uri="602871eff57b88d3b3c5d477159d321d" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-decoration-color: rgb(17, 17, 17); text-underline-offset: 2px; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s;">the New Yorker</a> reported. </p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.15rem 0px; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px;">In a story published in January, Jane Mayer detailed Virginia "Ginni" Thomas' ties to conservative groups. is threAT? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.15rem 0px; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px;">Among her connections is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oath-keepers-leaders-wife-says-he-is-a-complete-sociopath-cnn-2022-1" data-analytics-module="body_link" rel="" data-analytics-post-depth="40" data-uri="e3d82d059e3d46dc79b4486c89c1e10a" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-decoration-color: rgb(17, 17, 17); text-underline-offset: 2px; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s;">Stewart Rhodes</a>, who founded the extremist militia group in 2009. Prosecutors previously said <a href="https://www.insider.com/oath-keepers-capitol-attack-plans-trump-direction-court-filings-2021-2" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="40" data-uri="9b5e16c9283ee2c3b9fa3a30f3866acf" rel="" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-decoration-color: rgb(17, 17, 17); text-underline-offset: 2px; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s;">the Oath Keepers planned out attacks on the Capitol and held trainings in the weeks before January 6, 2021.</a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2.15rem 0px; font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px;">Thomas, a conservative activist and attorney, co-hosted a Remember the Ladies Banquet at the 2010 Liberty XPO & Symposium, which has been <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/tea-party-liberty-xpo-fail/" target="blank" rel="nofollow noopener" data-offer-url="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/tea-party-liberty-xpo-fail/" data-event-click="{" element="element" externallink="ExternalLink" outgoingurl="outgoingURL" https="https" www.motherjones.com="www.motherjones.com" politics="politics" tea-party-liberty-xpo-fail="tea-party-liberty-xpo-fail" data-analytics-module="body_link" data-analytics-post-depth="40" data-uri="216372c6efed516901ae4282a43a1905" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-decoration-color: rgb(17, 17, 17); text-underline-offset: 2px; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s;">described</a> as the "largest conservative training event in history," alongside Moms for America president Kimberly Fletcher.</p></div><div>..<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scotus-justice-clarence-thomas-wife-denies-ties-to-january-6-report-2022-3">.https://www.businessinsider.com/scotus-justice-clarence-thomas-wife-denies-ties-to-january-6-report-2022-3</a></div></div></div><div align="left"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11 22 an raw</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," former Republican congressman and House January 6 Committee adviser Denver Riggleman weighed in on the efforts to gain communications by key allies of former President Donald Trump.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This comes after the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/kelli-ward-2658644562/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">shut down</a> a request by Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, who is suspected of working with Trump's allies to create a list of fraudulent presidential electors, to shut down a subpoena of her phone records — a subpoena which, according to Riggleman, could produce valuable information.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Let me tell you, metadata and data is very powerful," said Riggleman. "When you talk about Kelli Ward, you're talking about someone who could be in the political side and the legal and the militant side. So when you have individuals fighting their phone records, you wonder why. And there could be one or two calls that go to people that are rally or right extremist groups and there are White House numbers and who was she talking to in the White House around January 6."</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"As far as the Secret Service texts, I would like to see what is policing," said Riggleman. "But the before and after could be very powerful. On the Secret Service texts, if they could put that thread together it is very interesting to see who thought Trump was doing the right thing and who was supporting him and things of that nature. As far as Kelli Ward, I think you have a factor for people whose data out there, whether they realize, that the technical teams have a millions of lines of data and there is a link system to see the connections very quickly. And it is very, very robust. So I think you see that is why people are fighting."</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Furthermore, continued Riggleman, when it comes to<b> Clarence Thomas — whose wife</b> was heavily involved in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/us/politics/ginni-thomas-election-trump.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">pressuring Arizona lawmakers</a> to throw out the 2020 election results, and who was one of only two justices to vote in favor of Ward's request, it is "not a surprise that he voted against this."</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"I have a special place in my heart with the Thomases, and it is to a point that if there is not more investigation into Ginni Thomas, I don't know what to say," said Riggleman. "I think she's key. I was one of the first to see the text messages, I think we need to do a much deeper drive into Ginni Thomas and some of the people around her."</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch below or at this link.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div align="left"><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">no lnx twt</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><b>A long-standing call for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to face impeachment proceedings was renewed Monday after the right-wing judge indicated in an unsigned dissent that he would have blocked enforcement of the House January 6 panel's subpoena for the communications records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">The House committee investigating the deadly January 6 insurrection "is seeking Ward's records related to her role in former President Donald Trump's effort to steal the 2020 election as a fake elector casting ballots in the Electoral College for Trump," HuffPost reported.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div align="left"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court on Monday paved the way for the panel to obtain Ward's phone records, rejecting the Arizona GOP chair's appeal. Right-wing Justice Samuel Alito joined Thomas in dissenting.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">This marked the second time Thomas has tried to hinder the committee's probe of the Trump-led effort to remain in office despite his 2020 election loss—a plot in which Thomas' wife, right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, played a major role.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><b>Thomas in January was the only justice to vote against the release of White House records to the panel. </b>Two months later, text messages between former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Ginni Thomas showed that she had been in communication with Trump's team about efforts to overturn President Joe Biden's electoral victory.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">Weeks later, it was revealed that Ginni Thomas had lobbied Republican lawmakers in Arizona and other states to reject Biden's electors and appoint fake ones who would support Trump. Since late March, congressional Democrats have called on Clarence Thomas to recuse himself, resign, or be impeached for apparently trying to shield his wife's anti-democratic political activities from scrutiny.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">"His wife, Ginni Thomas, pressured Arizona officials to illegally overturn Trump's loss<b>," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW</b>), a D.C.-based watchdog, noted Monday. "It's absurd that Thomas did not recuse."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">"Justice Thomas must face an impeachment inquiry," the pro-democracy advocacy group <b>Free Speech for People tweeted.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">A petition calling for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas has garnered more than 1.2 million signatures since details about Ginni Thomas' direct participation in Trump's failed coup were first made publi</div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 11 22 badash</font></div><div align="left"><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Political experts are warning about a group of nearly 60 far-right wing politicos including <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Ginni Thomas</strong></a>, <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Matt+Schlapp" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Matt Schlapp</strong></a>, and <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Cleta+Mitchell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Cleta Mitchell</strong></a> who reportedly will issue a letter calling for the House and Senate to delay votes on leadership positions including Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Axios’ Jonathan first reported the news, posting at least part of the letter and the <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1592132077184782337" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">list of signatories</a> (below).</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some of the other more recognizable names on the letter include <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Mark+Meadows" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Mark Meadows</strong></a>, the former Trump White House chief of staff; <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Cleta+Mitchell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Cleta Mitchell</strong></a>, the attorney who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/30/us/politics/republican-poll-monitors-election-activists.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The New York Times</a> calls the “architect of Donald J. Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election”; former Trump attorney <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Jenna+Ellis" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Jenna Ellis</strong></a>; former U.S. Senator and former Heritage Foundation president <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Jim+DeMint" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Jim DeMint</strong></a> (R-SC); former Trump deputy campaign manager <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22David+Bossie%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>David Bossie</strong></a>, the right wing activist and head of the organization responsible for the <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Citizens+United%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Citizens United</strong></a> Supreme Court lawsuit that made countless billions of dark money in political elections legal.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/09/heist-ginni-thomas-tells-j6-committee-election-was-stolen-says-she-never-discussed-efforts-to-overturn-with-spouse/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">‘Heist’: Ginni Thomas Tells J6 Committee Election Was Stolen, Says She Never Discussed Efforts to Overturn With Spouse</a></strong></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Also, white supremacist and disgraced former U.S. Congressman <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Steve+King" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Steve King</strong></a> (R-IA); convicted felon and disgraced former U.S. Congressman <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Steve+Stockman%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Steve Stockman</strong></a> (R-TX), right-wing religious extremist <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Kenneth+Blackwell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Kenneth Blackwell</strong></a> of the <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Family+Research+Council" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Family Research Council</strong></a>, which is on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups, and others.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Republican Party needs leaders who will confidently and skillfully present a persuasive coherent vision of who we are, what we stand for, and what we will do,” the letter reads. “Many current elections are still undecided. There should be no rushed leadership elections.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Conservative Members of the House and Senate have called for the leadership elections to be delayed,” it adds, not naming which ones. “We strongly urge both Houses of Congress to postpone the formal Leadership elections until after the December 6 runoff in Georgia and all election results are fully decided.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/09/ginni-thomas-intertwined-with-vast-campaign-pressuring-supreme-court-to-overturn-roe-report/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ginni Thomas ‘Intertwined’ With ‘Vast’ Campaign Pressuring Supreme Court to Overturn Roe: Report</a></strong></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Experts are weighing in and issuing warnings.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Note at least 3 people on this letter–Mark Meadows, Jenna Ellis, and Cleta Mitchell–are almost certainly subjects of the Jan6 investigation,” <a href="https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1592167042907447296" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">observed</a> civil rights and national security journalist <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Marcy+Wheeler" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Marcy Wheeler</strong></a>. “So this is partly a crime-protection racket, signed by Clarence Thomas’ spouse.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HuffPost’s White House correspondent <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22S.V.+D%C3%A1te%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>S.V. Dáte</strong></a>, who once in a press conference asked Donald Trump if he regretted “<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/08/watch-trump-asked-if-he-regrets-all-the-lying-youve-done-to-the-american-people-at-his-news-conference/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">all the lying</a>,” likened the list to “<a href="https://twitter.com/svdate/status/1592145723147321344" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a coup-plotters reunion</a>.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Politico Senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney, who has done extensive reporting on the January 6 insurrection, <a href="https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1592136726985818113" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">commented</a>, “some of these people are experts at seeking delays of elections.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/11/fraud-legal-expert-stunned-after-trump-appears-to-admit-he-used-doj-to-interfere-in-floridas-2018-election/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">‘Fraud’: Legal Expert Stunned After Trump Appears to Admit He Used DOJ to Interfere in Florida’s 2018 Election</a></strong></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Investigative journalist and columnist Dave Troy, who has done extensive reporting on Vladimir Putin, <a href="https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1592161456187133954" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">noted</a>: “All this makes me ask is what these clowns (Ginni Thomas, Cleta Mitchell, Mark Meadows et al) are planning between now and December 6, and how to stop whatever it is. Are they planning to poison someone? What is it this time?”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Why aren’t these people in jail, anyway?” he also asked.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The American Independent’s senior political reporter Emily C. Singer simply <a href="https://twitter.com/CahnEmily/status/1592138617811599362" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">called it</a> a “who’s who of insurrection supporting Republicans.”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So you’re telling me that Ginni Thomas, Mark Meadows and Matt Schlapp want to interfere in an ANOTHER election,” <a href="https://twitter.com/axidentaliberal/status/1592162521917669376" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wrote</a> Attorney Adam Cohen of Lawyers for Good Government. “Folks, even if the Democrats retain the House, we cannot rest. Because these people won’t.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read the letter below or <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/11/coup-plotters-reunion-experts-warn-after-group-including-ginni-thomas-calls-for-house-senate-leadership-elections-delay/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">at this link</a>.</font></p></div><div align="left"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 11 22</font></div><div><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another batch of emails <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/02/trump-lawyers-saw-justice-thomas-as-only-chance-to-stop-2020-election-certification-00064592" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">obtained</a> from <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/john-eastman-hiding-emails-appeal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">John Eastman</a> shows <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/trump-complains-to-florida-court-about-war-of-intimidation-from-ny-attorney-general/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Donald Trump's</a> lawyers were counting on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to help them disrupt Joe Biden's election win, and their certainty raises new questions about his wife's role in the scheme.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote Dec. 31, 2020, that Thomas would be "our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6" on a challenge to election results in Georgia, whose circuit court he oversees, and <em>Washington Post</em> reporter Jacqueline Alemany wondered on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" why he and Eastman felt so confident about the justice's willingness to assist.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">"The fringy lawyers that were surrounding Trump and helping him in his efforts to overturn the results of the election in the last few months of his presidency had reason to believe, at least publicly, that justice Clarence Thomas was going to be sympathetic to their cause. Remember in December of 2020, Thomas along with [Justice Samuel] Alito issued a brief statement after the audacious Texas lawsuit was filed, calling to ultimately throw out the results of the 2020 election in four battleground states. The majority dismissed it, but Alito and Thomas expressed a statement that was sympathetic to the lawsuit, and said that the majority threw it out too quickly."</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Now the question is, I think, privately, what reasons did John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro have to believe that Thomas would be sympathetic to them if he got a lawsuit in front of them?"</b> she added.v</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/15/ginni-thomas-john-eastman-emails/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">corresponding</a> with Eastman during that same period, along with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Republican legislatures in key states won by Biden, and Alemany said the newly revealed emails place her under additional scrutiny</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"It's a very small world here," Alemany said. "There was no indication in the correspondence that either of the Thomases were [copied] on the e-mails, but you can clearly see why John Eastman was fighting hard to prevent the release of these e-mails.</b>"</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Host Joe Scarborough said the revelations were scandalous.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It's shocking, the behavior between John Eastman, Ginni Thomas, and the efforts to overthrow, throw out democratic election for the presidency," Scarborough said. "<b>Also, their misreading of what Clarence Thomas and Alito did when they went along with an opinion in a Pennsylvania case, the only time the court wrote anything of substance on the election challenges</b>, they said about the Pennsylvania case, which involved the court in Pennsylvania overruling the state legislature. That race is a constitutional question, and I think they rightly said, this race has questions we probably should address now, but even if we did address them now, it wouldn't change the outcome of the election, so there you have even the two most conservative justices saying even if we take this question up, which we think we should, there aren't going to be enough votes to change the fact that Joe Biden's the next president of the United States."</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch the video below or <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/ginni-thomas-john-eastman-2658591959" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">at this link</a>.</font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 11 22</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">badash</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/02/trump-clarence-thomas-emails/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Washington Post</a> bombshell revealing Trump attorneys saw <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Clarence+Thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Justice Clarence Thomas</strong></a> as the key to getting the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election is leaving several legal experts stunned.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Post reports eight emails “ordered released by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of California, include </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">correspondence between Trump lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman and others discussing various legal strategies to convince Republican members of Congress to object to the official certification of electoral votes in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.”</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In one email “from Chesebro to Eastman and several others sent on Dec. 31, 2020, Chesebro argued that [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence] Thomas would ‘end up being key’ to asking the high court to overturn then-President-elect Joe Biden’s win in contested states.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/wp-admin/post-new.php" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">‘Heist’: Ginni Thomas Tells J6 Committee Election Was Stolen, Says She Never Discussed Efforts to Overturn With Spouse</a></strong></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Post states the email also says, “they should ‘frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt.'”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Politico’s Kyle Cheney <a href="https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1587828119255252995" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">sums up the scheme</a>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“Chesebro made the plan explicit: Get any remotely favorable ruling from a federal judge — not to win outright but to embolden GOP state legislatures, Congress or Pence to reverse the results.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/02/trump-lawyers-saw-justice-thomas-as-only-chance-to-stop-2020-election-certification-00064592" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Politico</a>‘s reporting includes copies of the redacted emails, and adds: “Chesebro contended that Thomas would be ‘our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress.'”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think I agree with this,” Eastman replied.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Eastman,” Politico notes, “an architect of Trump’s last-ditch bid to subvert the 2020 election, once clerked for Thomas and had corresponded with his wife, Virginia, in the weeks before Jan. 6.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/09/ginni-thomas-attempts-to-influence-overturn-of-election-even-wider-than-previously-known/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ginni Thomas Attempts to Influence Overturn of Election Even Wider Than Previously Known</a></strong></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“[I]f we can just get this case pending before the Supreme Court by Jan. 5,” Chesebro wrote in one email, “ideally with something positive written by a judge or justice, hopefully Thomas, I think it’s our best shot at holding up the count of a state in Congress.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Signorelli, a former Asst. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) blasted both the Supreme Court Justice and his far right-wing activist wife, <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Ginni Thomas</strong></a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They had a damn insider on SCOTUS who they thought would help them overthrow our democracy,” Signorelli <a href="https://twitter.com/richsignorelli/status/1587844613762560001" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tweeted</a>. “He’s married to a deranged MAGA cult member. He won’t even recuse himself.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Former Harvard Constitutional Law professor Laurence Tribe blasted Chesebro.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We now learn that Ken Chesebro saw Justice Thomas as Trump’s ‘only chance’ to stop the 2020 election from being duly certified. Such abhorrent abuse of an attorney’s license to practice law should be strictly disciplined and perhaps criminally prosecuted,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1587822976896061443" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tweeted</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Attorney and writer Rachel Solar, pointing to the Politico article <a href="https://twitter.com/rachelsklar/status/1587814360633712641" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">asks</a>: “When is it enough???? His wife is an insurrectionist He refuses to recuse He’s the Trump election-denial go-to? Come on.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/11/suicide-mission-pelosi-attacker-named-prominent-state-and-federal-politicians-he-wanted-to-target/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">‘Suicide Mission’: Pelosi Attacker Named ‘Prominent State and Federal Politicians’ He Wanted to Target</a></strong></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Journalist Helen Kennedy <a href="https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/1587816741706825731" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">goes one step further</a>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Hey look! It wasn’t just critics of the Supreme Court who thought Clarence Thomas was corrupted – Trump’s lawyers said so too in secret emails just revealed.”</span></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 1-0 22</font></div><div align="left"><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas, a far-right Republican activist and the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has been a consistent promoter of the Big Lie — falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. And when she recently spoke to the <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/heist-ginni-thomas-january-6th/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">January 6 select committee</a>, Ginni Thomas didn’t back down from that claim even though it has been repeatedly debunked.</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) <a href="https://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-action/legal-complaints/congressional-investigation-needed-into-clarence-and-ginni-thomas/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">voiced its concerns about Ginni Thomas</a> and Justice Thomas in a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, October 24.</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">CREW President Noah Bookbinder told those committees, “It is critical that those responsible for the attack on the Capitol be held accountable and that the integrity of the Supreme Court not be tainted by conflicts of interest. The Judiciary Committees have responsibility for the oversight of our judiciary and law enforcement agencies, and investigating Ginni Thomas’ conduct and Justice Thomas’ failure to recuse is an essential exercise of that oversight responsibility.”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/ginni-thomas-2658379219/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ginni Thomas has become a 'one-woman constitutional crisis': columnist</a></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">CREW, in an October 24 announcement, noted that Justice Thomas “has recused himself from 54 cases since joining the Supreme Court” in 1991 “in order to avoid the perception of potential conflicts of interest, including 17 cases involving his son.” But according to CREW, Justice Thomas “has never recused because of a potential conflict involving his wife.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bookbinder, in the letter, warned, “It is hard to imagine something more damaging to the public trust in the Supreme Court than a Justice ruling on cases that could relate to their spouses’ attempts to overturn American democracy. An immediate investigation is needed.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The letter was addressed to two Democrats (Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York) and two Republicans (Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio).</span></font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bookbinder told the members of Congress, “Ms. Thomas also contacted state officials in key states to encourage them to set aside the results of statewide elections and thereby alter the results of the presidential election. Soon after the 2020 election, Ginni Thomas e-mailed legislators in Arizona asking them to appoint a so-called ‘clean slate of electors’ rather than those legitimately chosen by the people of Arizona. She also contacted legislators in Wisconsin urging them to appoint their own set of electors rather than those chosen by the people of Wisconsin.”</font></p><p style="font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/conflict-of-interest-ginni-thomas-linked-to-anti-abortion-groups-that-lobbied-to-overturn-roe-report/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Conflict of interest': Ginni Thomas linked to anti-abortion groups that lobbied to overturn Roe</a></strong></font></p></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">raw 9 22</font></div><div align="left"><article id="article-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.9em;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has agreed to be interviewed by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Citing a "source close" to the select committee, CNN's Jamie Gangel <a href="https://twitter.com/jamiegangel/status/1572722846752976896" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">reports</a> "the committee has reached an agreement with Ginni Thomas and will be conducting an interview in the coming weeks."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The reporting was confirmed by Maggie Haberman of <span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>The New York Times</b></span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">, </em>who received a statement from Thomas lawyer Mark Paoletta.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I can confirm that Ginni Thomas has agreed to participate in a voluntary interview with the Committee," Paoletta <a href="https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1572727167208886273" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas is eager to answer the Committee's questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election," Paoletta <a href="https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1572727248981053441" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">continued</a>. "She looks forward to that opportunity."</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paoletta had previously <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/ginni-thomas-stressful-time/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">complained</a>, "this has been a particularly stressful time as the Thomases have been subjected to an avalanche of death threats and other abuse by the unprecedented assault on the conservative Supreme Court Justices and their families."</font></p></article></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx newsweek</font></font></font></font></div><div align="left"><b>Five Questions For Ginni Thomas When She Faces Jan. 6 Probe</b></div><div align="left">BY EWAN PALMER ON 9/22/22 </div><div align="left">00:55Justice Clarence Thomas And Wife Ginni Under Fire For Alleged Jan. 6 Link</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">U.S.</div><div align="left">CLARENCE THOMAS</div><div align="left">JANUARY 6</div><div align="left">2020 ELECTION</div><div align="left">DONALD TRUMP</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is set to be questioned by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Ginni Thomas' lawyer, Mark Paoletta, confirmed in a statement to several news outlets that she will attend the voluntary interview following months of calls for her to testify under oath about what she knew about attempts to overturn the 2020 Election results.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">"As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas is eager to answer the Committee's questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election," Paoletta said. "She looks forward to that opportunity."</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Ginni Thomas has faced scrutiny for a series of texts she sent to Donald Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, urging him to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president while calling the 2020 election the "greatest Heist of our History."</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">ginni thomas jan 6 </div><div align="left">Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sits with his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas while he waits to speak at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">There have also been calls for Thomas to reveal her communications with Trump lawyer John Eastman, who is said to have allegedly orchestrated the plot to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the 2020 election results in Congress on January 6, despite knowing such a tactic would be illegal.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">She also emailed more than two dozen Arizona lawmakers in November and December 2020 urging them to "choose" presidential electors who would declare Trump the winner in the state over Biden.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>Below, Newsweek has compiled some questions which the January 6 panel may ask Thomas as part of its probe into the events which led up to the Capitol riot.</b></div><div align="left"><b>
</b></div><div align="left"><b>What Do You Know of Trump/John Eastman's Jan 6 Plans?</b></div><div align="left">The House select committee investigating January 6 tried to seek testimony from Thomas after it emerged she was in communications with Eastman, one of the central figures in Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 Election.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">It is unclear what the pair were talking about, but the panel were concerned that it showed how central Ginni Thomas was to the plan to stop Joe Biden becoming president.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Eastman is alleged to have also been part of the plan to install an alternate slate of electors who would dispute the election results, which Pence could cite to send the election to the House of Representatives or delay the certification of Biden.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Thomas has admitted to being part of the "stop the steal" protests in Washington, D.C. on January 6 2021, but left before the violence at the Capitol broke out.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>Did You Tell Eastman About A 'Heated Fight' At The Supreme Court?</b></div><div align="left">In one email to fellow Trump-supporting attorney Kenneth Chesebro in the weeks after the election, Eastman described how there was a "heated fight underway" among the Supreme Court justices on whether to hear arguments disputing the 2020 Election results.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">There have been questions as to whether Eastman may have heard about the apparent dispute between SCOTUS judges from Ginni Thomas, due to her relationship with Clarence Thomas.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">The panel may look to determine how Eastman, who once served as clerk for Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court, knew about the apparent "heated" debate in their questioning of Ginni Thomas.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">[READ MORE</div><div align="left">What Is Next for Jan. 6 Panel—'Far More Evidence'</div><div align="left">Ginni Thomas Pressured Multiple Swing States to Overturn Biden Win: Emails</div><div align="left">As Ginni Thomas Prepares to Interview, Here's What She's Accused Of]</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>Did Your Husband Share Your Election Concerns?</b></div><div align="left">One of the reasons there were calls for Ginni Thomas to be subpoenaed to give testimony to the January 6 panel was due to her relationship with the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">It is unclear if Ginni spoke of her desire to overturn the 2020 Election with her husband, who would have influence over election-related decisions by the court.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Judge Thomas was the sole dissenting vote when the Supreme Court rejected Trump's attempt to block the release of some presidential documents to the January 6 panel.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>What Did Your 'Release the Kraken' Text to Mark Meadows Mean?</b></div><div align="left">Included in the text messages and emails from Ginni Thomas to Trump's inner circle and election officials were phrases and conspiracy theories linked to QAnon.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">In one text to Meadows, Ginni Thomas urges "release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down" in an apparent reference to a phrase used by QAnon-supporting attorney Sidney Powell in her attempts to overturn the 2020 Election.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">In the weeks after the election, Powell promised to "release the Kraken" in reference to lawsuits which would expose how Trump lost the election due to widespread voter fraud.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">The phrase was then frequently used by the far-right and conspiracy theorists who eagerly awaited the release of the lawsuits Powell claimed would prove Trump won the 2020 Election.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Instead, the highly anticipated lawsuits contained no meaningful evidence of voter fraud, and were widely mocked for containing a slew of grammatical and spelling mistakes, as well as basic legal errors.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>Can You Explain Your Emails To Lawmakers?</b></div><div align="left">It was previously reported that Ginni Thomas sent an email to Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and congresswoman Shawnna Bolick telling them it was their "Constitutional duty" to install a "clean slate of Electors" who would be willing to falsely declare Trump the winner in 2020.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">It later emerged that Thomas had sent identical emails to more than two dozen Arizona lawmakers urging them to "stand strong in the face of political and media pressure" and choose Electors who would not declare Biden the winner of the election, as well as at least two more in Wisconsin.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">The emails were sent days after Biden was declared the winner of the election.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">The panel may ask who else was involved in writing the messages, and just how much Trump was aware of the demands.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">The House Select Committee has been contacted for comment.</div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 922</font></div><div align="left"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/600145-ocasio-cortez-to-clarence-thomas-resign-or-face-impeachment/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; outline: 0px;">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> of New York City hasn’t been shy about calling for U.S. Supreme Court Justice <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/impeach-supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-ginni-mark-meadows-2022-3" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Clarence Thomas</a> to either <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/27/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-supreme-court-justices-impeach-kavanaugh-gorsuch-thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">be impeached or resign</a>, arguing that the activism of his wife — far-right MAGA Republican and conspiracy theorist Ginni Thomas — presents a major conflict of interest. After the 2020 presidential election, Ginni Thomas was heavily involved in MAGA efforts to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">get the election results overturned</a> and promoted the Big Lie in a series of <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ginni-thomas-texts-mark-meadows-explained-1691740" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">text exchanges with Mark Meadows</a> (who served as White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump). Justice Thomas, AOC has argued, has no business serving on the High Court in light of his wife’s unwillingness to accept democratic election results.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another conflict of interest for Justice Thomas, according to abortion rights activists, is his wife’s extensive involvement in the anti-abortion movement. That involvement goes way beyond attending or helping to organize anti-abortion rallies. In an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/09/ginni-thomas-abortion-roe-v-wade-supreme-court" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published by The Guardian</a> on September 9, journalist Ed Pilkington reports that Ginni Thomas was extensively involved in lobbying efforts to get the High Court to overturn <em style="">Roe v. Wade</em>.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On June 24, those lobbyists got their way when the High Court’s radical-right majority overturned <em>Roe v. Wad</em>e with its ruling in <em>Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</em>. Clarence Thomas was one of the Republican-appointed justices who voted to overturn <em>Roe</em>, along with Samuel Alito and all three of Trump’s High Court appointees: Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/ginni-thomas-2657538725/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Ginni Thomas continued to associate with Big Lie promoters even after Trump left office: report</strong></a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“Ginni Thomas, the self-styled ‘culture warrior’ and extreme right-wing activist, has links to more than half of the anti-abortion groups and individuals who lobbied her husband Clarence Thomas and his fellow U.S. Supreme Court justices</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> ahead of their historic decision to eradicate a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy,” Pilkington reports. “A new analysis of the written legal arguments, or ‘amicus briefs,’ used to lobby the justices as they deliberated over abortion underlines the extent to which Clarence Thomas’ wife was intertwined with this vast pressure campaign. <b>The survey found that 51 percent of the parties who filed amicus briefs calling for an end to a federal abortion right have political connections to Ginni Thomas, raising concerns about a possible conflict of interest at the highest levels of the U.S. judiciary.”</b></span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pilkington notes that <em style="">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</em> “attracted an almost unprecedented 130 amicus briefs from both sides of the legal argument.” The analysis of those amicus briefs was carried out by the group Advance Democracy, Inc. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and shared with The Guardian.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Of those, 74 were filed in favor of overturning the right to an abortion, enshrined in 1973 in <em>Roe v Wade</em>,” according to Pilkington. “In turn, the new analysis shows that 38 of the 74 anti-abortion amicus briefs — 51 percent — were produced by entities and individuals with links to Ginni Thomas</b>. They included right-wing groups, religious interests, prominent conservative individuals and lawyers…. The revelation that there is substantial overlap between Ginni Thomas and the anti-abortion lobbying effort focused on her husband and the other conservative justices will intensify the growing sense of unease surrounding her hyper-energetic conservative activism.”</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Pilkington continues, “In recent years, she has placed herself in the thick of some of the most bitterly contested political controversies that have come — or could come — before the Court</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">…. Thomas has been dubbed a ‘radical insurrectionist’ for her role in backing Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 presidential election. Yet her husband has refused to recuse himself from cases relating to the insurrection, including one in January in which he became the only justice to dissent in an 8-1 decision over allowing hundreds of documents held by the National Archives to be reviewed by the House committee investigating the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/ginni-thomas-full-fledged-coconspirator/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>'Layers of a rotten onion': Experts say Ginni Thomas looks like 'a full-fledged potential co-conspirator'</strong></a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Melissa Murray, a New York law University law professor and co-host of the Supreme Court-related podcast <a href="https://strict-scrutiny.simplecast.com/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">“Strict Scrutiny,”</a> believes that there is a major conflict of interest where the Thomases are concerned.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Murray told The Guardian, “The Thomases are normalizing the prospect of too close an association between the Supreme Court and those who litigate before it. This isn’t the first time that Mrs. Thomas has had dealings with those who come before the Court and seek her husband’s vote.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the <em>Dobbs</em> ruling was handed down, Justice Thomas urged the High Court to “reconsider” rulings that offered protections for <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/with-roe-overturned-clarence-thomas-is-now-preparing-for-a-full-frontal-on-contraception-gay-rights/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">contraception and gay rights</a> — and the cases he specifically mentioned were 1965’s <em>Griswold v. Connecticut</em>, 2003’s <em>Lawrence v. Tex</em>as and 2015’s <em>Obergefell v. Hodges</em>.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Ginni Thomas’ ties with groups responsible for the whirlwind lobbying campaign over abortion could have serious ramifications in future cases that come before the Court,” Pilkington notes. “Clarence Thomas made it clear, in his concurring opinion in <em>Dobbs,</em> that he intends to use exactly the same arguments that were deployed in overthrowing <em>Roe v. Wade</em> to <b>challenge the constitutional right to same-sex marriage, same-sex relations and contraception</b>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Many of the interests to which Ginni Thomas was connected who filed anti-abortion amicus briefs have a parallel track record of anti-LGBT agitating.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/ginni-thomas-john-eastman/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Emails raise ‘obvious suggestion’ Ginni Thomas was feeding John Eastman inside information: Carl Bernstein</strong></a></font></p></div><div align="left"><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 9 22</font></div><div><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/27/us/aoc-roe-abortion-scotus.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> of New York City has been <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/600145-ocasio-cortez-to-clarence-thomas-resign-or-face-impeachment/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">calling for the impeachment</a> of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, arguing that in light of his wife Ginni Thomas’ efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, he has no business taking part in cases that are related, in any way, to the <a href="https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/in-the-news/aoc-we-must-very-seriously-consider-impeachment-supreme-court-justices-who-lied" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">January 6, 2021 insurrection</a>. But fellow House Democrats, for the most part, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/29/clarence-thomas-congress-fallout-00021167" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">haven’t been receptive</a> to AOC’s recommendation — although they agree that Thomas should recuse himself from any January 6-related cases.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like presidents, U.S. Supreme Court justices <b>can </b>be impeached in the United States. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have the power to impeach a Supreme Court justice and give members of the U.S. Senate articles of impeachment to be considered in an impeachment trial. But impeaching High Court justices is even more of a rarity in U.S. history than impeaching presidents.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Four U.S. presidents have been targets of articles of impeachment: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump — although, in Nixon’s case, there was never a trial in the Senate. Nixon, during the Watergate scandal in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_DrUaJEBtE&t=118s" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">August 1974</a>, resigned before the impeachment process got that far. But as presidential </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">historian/author Lindsay M. Chervinsky explains in an <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/why-the-first-supreme-court-impeachment-was-the-last-so-far/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published by the conservative website The Bulwark</a> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">on September 2, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice has faced impeachment in the country’s 246-year history: Samuel Chase. And that was back in 1804/1805 when Thomas Jefferson was president.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:</strong> <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/why-clarence-thomas-has-grown-increasingly-influential-on-the-supreme-court-report/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>How Clarence Thomas went from a 'fringe figure with extremist views' to the Court’s 'center of gravity': report</strong></a></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“On February 4, 1805, Vice President Aaron Burr gaveled into session the impeachment trial of Justice Samuel Chase for high crimes and misdemeanors,” Chervinsky explains. “The stakes were impossibly high. No Supreme Court justice had ever been impeached. Every decision would establish precedent and shape future proceedings — so that the aftermath of the trial lasted far longer than the participants could have possibly imagined, down to the present day. Our ideas about impeachment and its role in the justice system can be directly traced to Chase’s trial, over 200 years ago.”</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Chervinsky continues, “Chase certainly made an excellent target.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Outside of his family, no one liked him. When George Washington nominated Chase to the High Court in 1796, many Federalists questioned whether he had the temperament to serve as a justice, even though he belonged to their party…. His cantankerous and querulous nature was so extreme that it earned him the<b> nickname ‘Old Bacon Face</b>.’ </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bad humor was one thing, but Chase’s behavior on the bench was also highly partisan. He had campaigned openly for John Adams in 1800 and relished handing down extreme sentences to defendants accused of sedition against the Adams Administration.”</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1804, Chervinsky notes, the U.S. House of Representatives voted, 73-32, to impeach Chase — and in 1805, Chase was “acquitted on every charge” in his Senate trial. Chase remained on the High Court until his death in 1811 at the age of 70.</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“All told, the House has impeached 14 federal judges since 1789, and the Senate has removed 8 of them,” Chervinsky observes.<b> “The charges have included waging war on the U.S. government during the Civil War,</b> improper business relationships with litigants, favoritism, tax evasion and criminal conviction, perjury, and solicitation of a bribe. Among the acquitted judges, the articles of impeachment cited charges of favoritism and abuse of power. The Senate has never removed a Supreme Court justice.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/samuel-alito-militant-christianity-problem/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Why Samuel Alito’s 'militant Christianity' is a 'problem for the rest of us': journalist</strong></a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chervinsky goes on to explain what this history means for Justice Thomas in 2022.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Let’s say, hypothetically, that evidence continues to emerge implicating Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, in the efforts by Trump supporters to overturn the 2020 election,” the presidential historian writes. “And let’s further suppose that a case involving some aspect of those efforts or the January 6th insurrection comes before the Supreme Court. Under these circumstances, most judicial ethics experts and reasonable observers would likely agree that Justice Thomas should recuse himself, but he has shown no interest in doing so thus far.”</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Chervinsky adds, “He has already been involved in several Supreme Court actions that have in some way touched on the 2020 election. Most strikingly, when the Court in January rejected Trump’s attempt to keep various White House records from being sent to the House January 6th Committee, Thomas was the only justice who disagreed; he would have sided with Trump.”</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Chervinsky has two recommendations: (1) “Congress could pass legislation mandating that the code of conduct for federal judges applies to the Supreme Court,” and (2) “Congress can start to treat impeachment as a suitable response to wildly inappropriate, if not outright illegal, behavior.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“To reconceive of judicial impeachment in this way would force us to revisit the precedents set by Samuel Chase’s impeachment,” Chervinsky writes. “Two years after Chase’s acquittal, Jefferson wrote that the whole debacle was ‘a farce which will not be tried again.’ He was right — so far.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: </strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/a-gop-talking-point-suggests-birth-control-is-not-at-risk-but-evidence-suggests-otherwise/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>A GOP talking point suggests birth control is not at risk — but evidence suggests otherwise</strong></a></font></p></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/ginni-thomas-attempts-influence-overturn/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/ginni-thomas-attempts-influence-overturn/</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">david b ncrm</font></div><div align="left"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Ginni Thomas</strong></a>‘ efforts to influence the overturning of the 2020 presidential election are even wider than previously known. Thomas, a far-right activist and lobby who happens to also be the spouse of the most right-wing U.S. Supreme Court justice, not only engaged in a months-long pressure campaign to influence then-Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to help overturn the results of the election, and pressured <b>29 GOP lawmakers in Arizona to overturn the election, but also pressured lawmakers in another critical battleground state, Wisconsin, to do so as well.</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/09/01/ginni-thomas-wisconsin-bernier-tauchen/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Washington Post</a> Thursday reports “new emails show that Thomas also messaged two Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin: state Sen. Kathy Bernier, then chair of the Senate elections committee, and state Rep. Gary Tauchen. Bernier and Tauchen received the email at 10:47 a.m. on Nov. 9, virtually the same time the Arizona lawmakers received a verbatim copy of the message from Thomas. The Bernier email was obtained by The Post, and the Tauchen email was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and provided to The Post.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Post published the text of the emails sent by Thomas.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/06/legal-experts-urge-committee-to-subpoena-ginni-thomas-after-she-backs-away-from-testifying/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Legal Experts Urge Committee to Subpoena Ginni Thomas After She Backs Away From Testifying</a></strong></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure,” the emails read. The Post notes they were sent “just days after major media organizations called the presidency for Biden.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our Constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state,” they also say.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas has promoted vile conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and other events.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/06/emails-raise-obvious-suggestion-ginni-thomas-was-feeding-john-eastman-inside-information-carl-bernstein/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Emails Raise ‘Obvious Suggestion’ Ginni Thomas Was Feeding John Eastman Inside Information: Carl Bernstein</a></strong></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“In posts on Facebook, she shared a George Soros conspiracy-theory meme and criticized the teenage survivors of the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., for supporting gun control,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The New York Times Magazine</a> reported in February. “She complained when a town near her Virginia home put up a banner in support of Black Lives Matter, saying the group was filled with extremists ‘seeking to foment a cultural revolution,’ and traded barbs on her public Facebook page.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas sits on the board of the highly-influential and highly-secretive religious right wing <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Council+for+National+Policy%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Council for National Policy</strong></a>, which also includes more prominent members like <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Turning+Point+USA%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Turning Point USA</strong></a>‘s Charlie Kirk, where Thomas has also served.</font></p></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">jane mayer on anita HILL book</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Justice-Selling-Clarence-Thomas/dp/0395633184">
</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Justice-Selling-Clarence-Thomas/dp/0395633184">https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Justice-Selling-Clarence-Thomas/dp/0395633184</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thedemlabs.org/2022/03/25/ginni-thomas-map-of-connections-attempt-to-overthrow-election-results/">https://thedemlabs.org/2022/03/25/ginni-thomas-map-of-connections-attempt-to-overthrow-election-results/</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">get freeroots list of names?</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">finchem?</font></div><div align="left"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">foia virginia kay coles james UIP CPI ziklag... no response? 8 22</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/document/records-request-to-virginias-secretary-of-the-commonwealth-office-for-communications-with-ginni-thomas">https://www.americanoversight.org/document/records-request-to-virginias-secretary-of-the-commonwealth-office-for-communications-with-ginni-thomas</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/email-suggests-that-supreme-court-justice-thomas-had-been-in-regular-contact-with-florida-gov-desantis">https://www.americanoversight.org/email-suggests-that-supreme-court-justice-thomas-had-been-in-regular-contact-with-florida-gov-desantis</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">e<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">mails obtained</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> by American Oversight and </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/florida-playbook/2022/02/04/desantis-supreme-court-connection-00005583" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">reported on by </span><i style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Politico</span></i></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> suggest that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has communicated regularly with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The records </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/clarence-thomas-ron-desantis-communication-new-emails-1295354/" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">raise further questions</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> about Justice Thomas’ ethics decisions, including regarding the work of his wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas.</span></font></div><div style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">On June 10, 2021, Ginni Thomas </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p178/a2079094" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">reached out</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> to DeSantis’ scheduling office to invite him to speak to a “coalition” of “conservative patriots.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” Thomas </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p179/a2079095" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">explained</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> that the governor would know her because she had interviewed him for the </span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Daily Caller</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> years before and saw him at a Trump White House state dinner. She also added that her “husband has been in contact with him too on various things of late.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Ginni Thomas said the “cone of silence coalition” of “about 83 national leaders” was formerly known as Groundswell and included former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows among its attendees. The group, now called the </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p180/a2079098" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Third Century Group</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, was focused on “the greatest threats and opportunities to constitutional governance,” Thomas </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p179/a2079095" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">wrote</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, “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.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">DeSantis was eventually </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p181/a2079096" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">scheduled</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> to present during the group’s July 21 virtual meeting.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> According to an </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p180/a2079098" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">email</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> from Thomas Binion, 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.”</span></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Ginni Thomas has recently been the subject of intense scrutiny regarding her work on behalf of conservative issues that have come before the Supreme Court. A recent report by </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">the</span><i style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> New Yorker</span></i><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">’s Jane Mayer</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> highlighted concerns about her political activism and Justice Thomas’ failure to recuse himself on certain matters, especially as the court hears increasingly politically polarized cases. Ginni Thomas, who runs a political lobbying firm and is involved in numerous right-wing advocacy efforts, has warned of the threat of the “fascist left” and was among the conservatives who </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/31/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-conflict-jan6-committee/" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">signed a letter</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> criticizing the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Justice Thomas was also the only Supreme Court justice to support Trump’s request to block that committee from accessing White House records. </span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Ginni Thomas’s email does not indicate </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/clarence-thomas-ron-desantis-communication-new-emails-1295354/" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">what topics</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> had been discussed by Justice Thomas and DeSantis.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><b>Politico</b></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> reached out to DeSantis’ office about the emails, but did not receive a response. The executive director of the Republican Party of Florida </span><a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/florida-playbook/2022/02/04/desantis-supreme-court-connection-00005583" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">said</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, “</span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">I can’t speak about any private conversations Governor DeSantis may or may not have had with anyone but both he and Justice Thomas believe in the separation of powers and defend individual liberty, the law and the Constitution as written.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">American Oversight is investigating the influence of far-right networks on the government. For more information, visit our </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/areas_of_investigation/threats-to-democracy" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">investigation page</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> on threats to democracy.</span></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> june 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/ginni-thomas-john-eastman/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/ginni-thomas-john-eastman/</a></font></div><div><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legendary Watergate journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were interviewed by CNN’s Jake Tapper after bombshell revelations that she was in contact with “coup memo” author John Eastman during Donald Trump’s attempted coup.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think you have got the very tricky situation where the wife of a Supreme Court justice is very obviously involved in some way in a conspiracy in which there really is a conspiracy to overturn, try to attempt a coup to overturn the election results. I think the committee feels they have to go very carefully when you have the wife of a Supreme Court justice who may be involved,” Bernstein said.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I mean, let’s look at what happened in Watergate where you have a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court to compel Richard Nixon to turn over his tapes, and now you have this whole question of Donald Trump trying to subvert the Constitution, prevent the lawful transition of power to his successor, and now you have a record of correspondence in which Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court justice, his wife, is obviously involved through documentary evidence that we know already that Bob Woodward wrote about.”</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In some way, her handprints are in this conspiracy, whether benign or not,” he explained. “So we’re going in to an area we have never been before in history of the United States that might involve conversations between the Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife involving a conspiracy to defraud the government and perhaps seditious conduct such as the Proud Boys have been charged with.”</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tapper also asked about reports that Eastman appeared to have inside information.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Eastman seems to have insight of what was going on at the Supreme Court, insight that it was not common knowledge at all,” Tapper noted.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The obvious suggestion, but we don’t know if the suggestion is true or not, is that there was a discussion between Clarence Thomas about what the court may be doing and his wife. So what did the justice know, and what did his wife know? And when did each of them know it? That’s a really relevant question,” Bernstein said.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch:</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/04/04/ron-desantis-getting-cozy-with-the-wingnut-alliance-comprising-clarence-ginny-thomas/">https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/04/04/ron-desantis-getting-cozy-with-the-wingnut-alliance-comprising-clarence-ginny-thomas/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It must be love.</font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ron DeSantis has a major man-crush on Clarence Thomas, </b>calling him our “greatest living justice and one of the <a target="blank" href="https://floridapolitics.com/archives/512330-gov-desantis-extols-greatest-living-justice-clarence-thomas-amid-jan-6-controversy/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">greatest</a> public servants in America.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We haven’t yet heard the famously reticent justice pour his heart out regarding Our Dear Governor but, according to Thomas’s wife, we know the two of them have been emailing back and forth “on <a target="blank" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/26/us/politics/ginni-thomas-donald-trump-html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">various things </a>of late.”</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And Virginia Thomas obviously digs Ron’s show, so much that last year she invited him to speak at Groundswell, a group of unglued rightwingers convinced that America is being destroyed by the nonwhite, the unchristian, feminists, socialists, environmentalists, book-readers, and what she called “transsexual fascists.”</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We start and end each meeting with prayer,” she said, and <b>hoped DeSantis would “pick us up and refocus us.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ron and Mrs. T. clearly got a thing going on, too.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If we lived in a nation in which integrity and decency mattered half as much as we claim they do, Clarence Thomas would have resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court and retired to Florida.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I’m sure the local heterosexual fascists would be thrilled.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead, he shows no sign of even <a target="blank" href="https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/03/29/u-s-supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-pressed-to-recuse-himself-from-jan-6-cases/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">recusing </a>himself from cases in which he has a conflict of interest, such as anything to do with the attempted coup on Jan. 6.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As we now know from all the texts she fired off at Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas is up to her pearls in cheerleading the insurrection.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yes, the spouse of a justice is allowed her or his own views, career, and political persuasion, but given how the Thomases constantly insist they are actually <a target="blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MUiJ5_akJM" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">one being</a>, each calling the other “my best friend,” it’s pretty reasonable to assume that he knew she was promoting “Stop the Steal.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She joined the mob on the Ellipse, but insists she “got cold” and went home before Donald Trump took to urging his white nationalist rabble to “fight like hell” at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.</font></p><h4 class="editorialSubhed" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deranged texts</font></h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She didn’t go kick in windows at the Capitol (that kind of thing can be injurious to one’s pantyhose), but she did her part by sending that slew of incendiary and increasingly deranged texts about magically “watermarked” ballots, castigating Republican congressmen for not taking to the streets, and exhorting Meadows to “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!…You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Meadows may have dabbled in a little heisting himself: The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations is looking into why he’s registered to <a target="blank" href="http://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/17/mark-meadows-investigation-voter-registration-00018358" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">vote</a> in Virginia but also in the Tarheel State, where he listed a house trailer he never owned or lived in as his address.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet Justice Thomas not only failed to recuse himself from the Supreme Court case dealing with the release of Trump White House records, he was the lone dissenter.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Worse, Thomas is under no obligation to recuse himself from future Jan. 6 cases, even though his wife texted out delusional stuff assuring Meadows that Democrats, Deep Staters, and journalists would soon be rounded up by the Forces of Righteousness:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc.) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the White House could just hold on, she suggested, a vast Trumpist army would appear and keep Hairpiece Hitler in power. “Do not concede,” she told Meadows.</font></p><h4 class="editorialSubhed" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not rational</font></h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OK, your average MAGA is crazy as an outhouse rat and has all the impulse control of a teenager at an open-bar party. But Ginni Thomas, Washington insider, lawyer, wife of a Supreme Court justice, surely understands that you should at least look like you have a nodding acquaintance with rational behavior.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Except she ain’t rational..</font></p><figure id="attachment_209381" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 22px 1rem 0px; float: left; line-height: 14px; max-width: 100%; width: 150px;"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 8px;" /></figure><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Remember that time she called law professor Anita Hill and demanded Hill <a target="blank" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/us/politics/20thomas.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">apologize </a>for “what you did with my husband”?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What Hill “did” was testify — <a target="blank" href="http://www.npr.org/2018/09/23/650138049/a-timeline-of-clarence-thomas-anita-hill-controversy-as-kavanaugh-to-face-accuse" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">reluctantly</a> — to how Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her, refused to take “no” for an answer, and tried to discuss his porn-watching habit with her, name-checking his favorite star, Long Dong Silver.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More recently, Mrs. T. acted as an <a target="blank" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-ginni-thomas-insane-hiring-memos-for-former-president-donald-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">unsolicited employment adviser </a>for Donald Trump, constantly showing up at the White House to demand Trump fire those she deemed insufficiently loyal and hire people she favored, including a suspected spy, a guy who worries credit card companies are in league with socialists, and <a target="blank" href="http://www.adl.org/resources/profiles/frank-gaffney-jr-and-the-center-for-security-policy" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">Frank Gaffney</a>, a professional Islamophobe who thinks the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the United States government. <span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">This lady needs help.</span></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This lady needs help. And her husband needs to have a little chat with a legal ethicist, a kindly priest, or anybody who could make him see that, while he doesn’t have to recuse himself from cases in which his wife’s eruptions might figure, he ought to.</font><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He should do it if for no other reason than to prove the justices aren’t all “<a target="blank" href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/15/amy-barrett-supreme-court-partisan-hacks" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;">partisan hacks</a>,” as that partisan hack Amy Coney Barrett put it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He won’t.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He doesn’t have to.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s no mechanism to make him. He knows he won’t be impeached. His fan club will continue to support him. And his whack-job wife will carry on undermining American democracy.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div class="MjjYud"><div class="g Ww4FFb vt6azd tF2Cxc" data-hveid="CAwQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFSgAegQIDBAA" style="line-height: 1.58; width: 600px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; border: 0px; border-radius: 0px;" lang="en"><div class="kvH3mc BToiNc UK95Uc" data-sokoban-container="ih6Jnb_Egdmsf" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; justify-content: flex-start; position: relative; contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden;"><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc uUuwM jGGQ5e" data-header-feature="0" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 1 1 100%; min-width: 0px;"><div class="yuRUbf" style="line-height: 1.58;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div class="yuRUbf" style="line-height: 1.58;"><h3 class="LC20lb MBeuO DKV0Md" style="font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.3; display: inline-block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://twitter.com/janemayernyer/status/1489650866772754436?lang=en" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAsQAQ" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://twitter.com/janemayernyer/status/1489650866772754436%3Flang%3Den&ved=2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAsQAQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;">Jane Mayer on Twitter: "New: Ginni Thomas invited DeSantis ...</a></font></h3><div class="TbwUpd NJjxre" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; text-size-adjust: none; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 qLRx3b tjvcx" role="text" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 1.3; padding-top: 1px;">https://twitter.com<span class="dyjrff qzEoUe" role="text"> › janemayernyer › status</span></cite></font></div><div class="B6fmyf" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; height: 0px; visibility: hidden; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; text-size-adjust: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 qLRx3b tjvcx" role="text" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 1.3; padding-top: 1px;"><span class="dyjrff qzEoUe" role="text" /></cite></font></font></font></font></div><div class="eFM0qc" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; padding-left: 2px; visibility: visible;"><div class="csDOgf" style="display: inline; visibility: visible; position: absolute;"><div jscontroller="exgaYe" data-isdesktop="true" jsdata="l7Bhpb;;AhnTnM cECq7c;;AhnTnQ" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQ2esEegQICxAE"><div jsaction="KyPa0e:RvIhPd;wjOG7e:edHC5b;al5F3e:edHC5b;"><div role="button" tabindex="0" jsaction="RvIhPd" jsname="I3kE2c" class="iTPLzd GUHazd lUn2nc eY4mx" aria-label="About this Result" style="cursor: pointer; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 28px; z-index: 1; line-height: 16px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 5px; outline: 0px; position: absolute;"><span jsname="czHhOd" class="D6lY4c" style="height: 22px; width: 22px; position: absolute; border-radius: 11px; top: -1px;"><span jsname="Bil8Ae" class="xTFaxe IjabWd z1asCe SaPW2b" style="display: inline-block; fill: rgb(112, 117, 122); height: 18px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 18px; margin-left: 2px; top: 2px;"><svg focusable="false" viewbox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M12 8c1.1 0 2-.9 2-2s-.9-2-2-2-2 .9-2 2 .9 2 2 2zm0 2c-1.1 0-2 .9-2 2s.9 2 2 2 2-.9 2-2-.9-2-2-2zm0 6c-1.1 0-2 .9-2 2s.9 2 2 2 2-.9 2-2-.9-2-2-2z" /></svg></span></span></div><span jsname="zOVa8" jsmodel="QaFSEb" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQh-4GegQICxAF" /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc uUuwM" data-content-feature="1" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 1 1 100%; min-width: 0px;"><div class="VwiC3b yXK7lf MUxGbd yDYNvb lyLwlc lEBKkf" style="padding-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; display: -webkit-box; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; overflow: hidden; -webkit-line-clamp: 2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="MUxGbd wuQ4Ob WZ8Tjf" style="padding-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">Feb 4, 2022 — </span>Emails we obtained, reported on by @politico, suggest that Florida Gov. Ron <span style="font-weight: bold;">DeSantis</span> is in regular contact with Supreme Court Justice <span style="font-weight: bold;">Clarence</span> ...</font></div></div><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 0 0 auto;"><div jscontroller="K6HGfd" id="eob_5" jsdata="fxg5tf;;AhnTmo" jsaction="rcuQ6b:npT2md" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQ2Z0BegQICRAA"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="z9PoV" /></font></div><div class="MjjYud"><div class="g Ww4FFb vt6azd tF2Cxc" data-hveid="CBMQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFSgAegQIExAA" style="line-height: 1.58; width: 600px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; border: 0px; border-radius: 0px;" lang="en"><div class="kvH3mc BToiNc UK95Uc" data-sokoban-container="ih6Jnb_dS3Qtc" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; justify-content: flex-start; position: relative; contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden;"><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc uUuwM jGGQ5e" data-header-feature="0" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 1 1 100%; min-width: 0px;"><div class="yuRUbf" style="line-height: 1.58;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/04/04/ron-desantis-getting-cozy-with-the-wingnut-alliance-comprising-clarence-ginny-thomas/" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAoQAQ" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/04/04/ron-desantis-getting-cozy-with-the-wingnut-alliance-comprising-clarence-ginny-thomas/&ved=2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAoQAQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;">
</a></font><h3 class="LC20lb MBeuO DKV0Md" style="font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.3; display: inline-block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/04/04/ron-desantis-getting-cozy-with-the-wingnut-alliance-comprising-clarence-ginny-thomas/" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAoQAQ" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/04/04/ron-desantis-getting-cozy-with-the-wingnut-alliance-comprising-clarence-ginny-thomas/&ved=2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAoQAQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;">Ron DeSantis getting cozy with the wingnut alliance ...</a></font></h3><div class="TbwUpd NJjxre" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; text-size-adjust: none; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 qLRx3b tjvcx" role="text" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 1.3; padding-top: 1px;">https://floridaphoenix.com<span class="dyjrff qzEoUe" role="text"> › 2022/04/04 › ron-desantis...</span></cite></font></div><div class="B6fmyf" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; height: 0px; visibility: hidden; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; text-size-adjust: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 qLRx3b tjvcx" role="text" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 1.3; padding-top: 1px;"><span class="dyjrff qzEoUe" role="text" /></cite></font></font></font></font></div><div class="eFM0qc" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; padding-left: 2px; visibility: visible;"><div class="csDOgf" style="display: inline; visibility: visible; position: absolute;"><div jscontroller="exgaYe" data-isdesktop="true" jsdata="l7Bhpb;;AhnTmw cECq7c;;AhnTnA" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQ2esEegQIChAE"><div jsaction="KyPa0e:RvIhPd;wjOG7e:edHC5b;al5F3e:edHC5b;"><div role="button" tabindex="0" jsaction="RvIhPd" jsname="I3kE2c" class="iTPLzd GUHazd lUn2nc eY4mx" aria-label="About this Result" style="cursor: pointer; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 28px; z-index: 1; line-height: 16px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 5px; outline: 0px; position: absolute;"><span jsname="czHhOd" class="D6lY4c" style="height: 22px; width: 22px; position: absolute; border-radius: 11px; top: -1px;"><span jsname="Bil8Ae" class="xTFaxe IjabWd z1asCe SaPW2b" style="display: inline-block; fill: rgb(112, 117, 122); height: 18px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 18px; margin-left: 2px; top: 2px;"><svg focusable="false" viewbox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M12 8c1.1 0 2-.9 2-2s-.9-2-2-2-2 .9-2 2 .9 2 2 2zm0 2c-1.1 0-2 .9-2 2s.9 2 2 2 2-.9 2-2-.9-2-2-2zm0 6c-1.1 0-2 .9-2 2s.9 2 2 2 2-.9 2-2-.9-2-2-2z" /></svg></span></span></div><span jsname="zOVa8" jsmodel="QaFSEb" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQh-4GegQIChAF" /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc uUuwM" data-content-feature="1" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 1 1 100%; min-width: 0px;"><div class="VwiC3b yXK7lf MUxGbd yDYNvb lyLwlc lEBKkf" style="padding-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; display: -webkit-box; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; overflow: hidden; -webkit-line-clamp: 2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="MUxGbd wuQ4Ob WZ8Tjf" style="padding-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">Apr 4, 2022 — </span>Ron <span style="font-weight: bold;">DeSantis</span> has a major man-crush on <span style="font-weight: bold;">Clarence</span> Thomas, ... Virginia “<span style="font-weight: bold;">Ginni</span>” Thomas is up to her pearls in cheerleading the insurrection.</font></div></div><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 0 0 auto;"><div jscontroller="K6HGfd" id="eob_2" jsdata="fxg5tf;;AhnTmk" jsaction="rcuQ6b:npT2md" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQ2Z0BegQIBRAA"><div class="MjjYud"><div class="g Ww4FFb vt6azd tF2Cxc" data-hveid="CA0QAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFSgAegQIDRAA" style="line-height: 1.58; width: 600px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; border: 0px; border-radius: 0px;" lang="en"><div class="kvH3mc BToiNc UK95Uc" data-sokoban-container="ih6Jnb_uA5Hpb" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; justify-content: flex-start; position: relative; contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden;"><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc uUuwM jGGQ5e" data-header-feature="0" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 1 1 100%; min-width: 0px;"><div class="yuRUbf" style="line-height: 1.58;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAgQAQ" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html&ved=2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAgQAQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;">
</a></font><h3 class="LC20lb MBeuO DKV0Md" style="font-weight: 400; margin: 0px 0px 3px; padding: 5px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.3; display: inline-block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAgQAQ" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html&ved=2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFnoECAgQAQ" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); outline: 0px;">The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas</a></font></h3><div class="TbwUpd NJjxre" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; text-size-adjust: none; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 qLRx3b tjvcx" role="text" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 1.3; padding-top: 1px;">https://www.nytimes.com<span class="dyjrff qzEoUe" role="text"> › 2022/02/22 › magazine › clar...</span></cite></font></div><div class="B6fmyf" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; height: 0px; visibility: hidden; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; text-size-adjust: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="iUh30 qLRx3b tjvcx" role="text" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 1.3; padding-top: 1px;"><span class="dyjrff qzEoUe" role="text" /></cite></font></font></font></font></div><div class="eFM0qc" style="display: inline-block; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-top: 1px; padding-left: 2px; visibility: visible;"><div class="csDOgf" style="display: inline; visibility: visible; position: absolute;"><div jscontroller="exgaYe" data-isdesktop="true" jsdata="l7Bhpb;;AhnTms cECq7c;;AhnTm0" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQ2esEegQICBAE"><div jsaction="KyPa0e:RvIhPd;wjOG7e:edHC5b;al5F3e:edHC5b;"><div role="button" tabindex="0" jsaction="RvIhPd" jsname="I3kE2c" class="iTPLzd GUHazd lUn2nc eY4mx" aria-label="About this Result" style="cursor: pointer; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 28px; z-index: 1; line-height: 16px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 12px; padding-right: 5px; outline: 0px; position: absolute;"><span jsname="czHhOd" class="D6lY4c" style="height: 22px; width: 22px; position: absolute; border-radius: 11px; top: -1px;"><span jsname="Bil8Ae" class="xTFaxe IjabWd z1asCe SaPW2b" style="display: inline-block; fill: rgb(112, 117, 122); height: 18px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 18px; margin-left: 2px; top: 2px;"><svg focusable="false" viewbox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M12 8c1.1 0 2-.9 2-2s-.9-2-2-2-2 .9-2 2 .9 2 2 2zm0 2c-1.1 0-2 .9-2 2s.9 2 2 2 2-.9 2-2-.9-2-2-2zm0 6c-1.1 0-2 .9-2 2s.9 2 2 2 2-.9 2-2-.9-2-2-2z" /></svg></span></span></div><span jsname="zOVa8" jsmodel="QaFSEb" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQh-4GegQICBAF" /></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc uUuwM" data-content-feature="1" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 1 1 100%; min-width: 0px;"><div class="VwiC3b yXK7lf MUxGbd yDYNvb lyLwlc lEBKkf" style="padding-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; display: -webkit-box; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; overflow: hidden; -webkit-line-clamp: 2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="MUxGbd wuQ4Ob WZ8Tjf" style="padding-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">Feb 23, 2022 — </span>The Supreme Court justice and his wife battled for years for a more conservative America. New reporting shows how far she was willing to go ...</font></div></div><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 0 0 auto;"><div jscontroller="K6HGfd" id="eob_4" jsdata="fxg5tf;;AhnTmc" jsaction="rcuQ6b:npT2md" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQ2Z0BegQIBBAA"><div class="MjjYud"><div class="g Ww4FFb vt6azd tF2Cxc" data-hveid="CBIQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwi-zPL5x935AhUMRTABHQrzA2EQFSgAegQIEhAA" style="line-height: 1.58; width: 600px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; border: 0px; border-radius: 0px;" lang="en"><div class="kvH3mc BToiNc UK95Uc" data-sokoban-container="ih6Jnb_y6ksVc" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; justify-content: flex-start; position: relative; contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden;"><div class="Z26q7c UK95Uc uUuwM jGGQ5e" data-header-feature="0" style="contain: layout paint; overflow: hidden; flex: 1 1 100%; min-width: 0px;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">liz </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Wood, a former U.S. attorney who served during the George W. Bush administration, to be senior investigative counsel. left to run; gold team trump</font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div><div>guk https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/26/ginni-thomas-house-january-6-committee</div><div><b>members of the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack are weighing whether to demand that Ginni Thomas</b>, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, cooperate with the inquiry, according to two sources familiar with the matter.</div><div>
</div><div>A move to request cooperation from Ginni Thomas, who was revealed to have pushed in text messages to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows to overturn the results of the 2020 election, would mark one of the most aggressive steps taken by the panel.</div><div>
</div><div>[FILE - Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, left and his wife Virginia Thomas, right, leave the the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington after attending funeral services of the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, on Feb. 20, 2016.]</div><div>
</div><div> Virginia Thomas sent weeks of text messages imploring White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to act to overturn the 2020 presidential election — furthering then-President Donald Trump's lies that the free and fair vote was marred by nonexistent fraud, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)</div><div>Ginni Thomas texts spark ethical storm about husband’s supreme court role</div><div>Read more</div><div>The select committee did not formally decide on whether to summon Thomas after a series of private deliberations on Friday, the sources said, even as the members discussed whether to request her voluntary cooperation or compel documents and testimony with a subpoena.</div><div>
</div><div>But the renewed discussions – the panel weighed the matter for weeks after it first obtained the text messages – are likely to continue in huddles and on the House floor on Monday before the select committee moves to hold two Trump aides in contempt of Congress, the sources said.</div><div>
</div><div>The hesitation to date about demanding that Thomas cooperate with the inquiry appears to have centered in part from concerns that she likely has scant interest in assisting the panel and could seek to create a political spectacle to distract from the investigation.</div><div>
</div><div>Thomas, for instance, remains a close friend of prominent rightwing political operatives including Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, who last year openly defied a subpoena as he sought to undermine the legitimacy of the select committee.</div><div>
</div><div>The other principal concern among some members on the panel is whether it would be worth it to pursue testimony from Thomas at potential political cost if she appears for questioning but then stonewalls the inquiry, one of the sources said, for instance by asserting the fifth amendment.</div><div>
</div><div>At least one member on the select committee also appeared to only just learn about the content of the text messages after reading them in news reports on Thursday, one of the sources said.</div><div>
</div><div>Justice Thomas remains an icon among the Republican base and some members have warned that a move against his wife would almost certainly be perceived as a partisan attack by Democrats trying to tarnish his reputation, the sources said.</div><div>The worries about political backlash has increasingly become a point of contention for the select committee in recent months. The Guardian first reported in January the panel had similar reservations about issuing subpoenas to House Republicans.</div><div>
</div><div>The select committee could yet demand cooperation from Thomas, seeking information on whether Thomas knew about the scheme to have then vice-president Mike Pence stop the certification of Joe Biden’s win or plans for Trump supporters to descend on the Capitol January 6.</div><div>
</div><div>Other lines of inquiry might include whether she connected lawyer John Eastman, who drew up the Pence scheme and clerked for Justice Thomas, to Trump, and whether she communicated with Meadows during a gap of unexplained correspondence between 24 November and 10 January.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The select committee would then find itself in the bizarre position of having John Wood, also a former clerk for Justice Thomas who now leads the “gold team” examining Trump’s role in the Capitol attack, questioning the senior justice’s wife.</span></div><div>A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment.</div><div>Thomas is facing heightened scrutiny for working as a Republican activist while her husband sits on the supreme court after the Washington Post and CBS reported that she pushed Trump’s most senior White House aide to overturn the 2020 election results.</div><div>
</div><div>In one of 29 text messages from Ginni Thomas that Meadows turned over to the select committee, Thomas also pressured the former White House chief of staff to have Trump appoint the conspiracy theorist and lawyer Sidney Powell to lead his post-election legal team.</div><div>
</div><div>The communications are significant as they represent the first evidence that she was advising the White House on how to return Trump to office by any means, while her husband ruled on cases attempting to change the outcome of the election.</div><div>
</div><div>But Meadows did not turn over any text messages between 24 November and 10 January, the Washington Post and CBS reported – a gap in communications that overlaps with the Capitol attack and would almost certainly be an area of interest to the panel.</div></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">june 10 2022</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/newly-disclosed-emails-make-ginni-thomas-efforts-look-worse-rcna33019">
</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/newly-disclosed-emails-make-ginni-thomas-efforts-look-worse-rcna33019">https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/newly-disclosed-emails-make-ginni-thomas-efforts-look-worse-rcna33019</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In recent months, we’ve learned quite a bit about Ginni Thomas’ political efforts, but it’d be a mistake to assume the full picture has come into focus. On the contrary, The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/06/10/ginni-thomas-election-arizona-lawmakers/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">reported</a> striking new information earlier today.</font></p><section class="blockquote" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" rem="rem" margin="margin" position="position" relative="relative" width="width" auto="auto" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(48, 97, 255); border-image: initial; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px;"><blockquote class="blockquote__quote" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1.875rem;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed 29 Republican state lawmakers in Arizona — 27 more than previously known — to set aside Joe Biden’s popular vote victory and “choose” presidential electors, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.</font></p><p style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></font></p></blockquote></section><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If this sounds a little familiar, it’s not your imagination. The Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">reported</a> a month ago on Thomas pressing GOP state legislators in Arizona to ignore the will of the voters and appoint their own “clean slate” of electors. At the time, the article referenced two Republicans who were on the receiving end of Thomas’ lobbying.</font></p><div id="taboolaReadMoreBelow" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Based on this new reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, it appears her efforts were far more expansive. The Post added that on Nov. 9, 2020 — two days after the race was called and Joe Biden became the president-elect —<b> Thomas “sent identical emails to 20 members of the Arizona House and seven Arizona state senators. That represents more than half of the Republican members of the state legislature<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span>at the time.”</b></font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What’s more, Thomas gave the Arizona legislators radically bad advice: In a state the Democratic ticket narrowly won — according to counts, recounts, and audits — the far-right activist wrote that responsibility to choose electors was “yours and yours alone.”</font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In other words, Thomas suggested they had the legal authority to ignore the will of Arizona voters. They did not.</b></font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the aggressive lobbying campaign continued anyway. In fact, Thomas emailed Arizona Republican lawmakers more than once: Her Nov. 9 message was followed by related emails a month later — targeting 22 state House members and one state senator — sent the day before members of the electoral college met.</span></font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s important to emphasize, of course, that Thomas’ lobbying efforts did not work, but that doesn’t negate the significance of the fact that she invested time and effort into an anti-election scheme designed to undermine our democracy.</font></p><div class="recommended-intersection-ref" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, it’s striking just how busy Thomas was during the Trump era. Circling back to our <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/emails-add-new-details-ginni-thomas-anti-election-efforts-rcna29864" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">earlier coverage</a>, The Daily Beast recently <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-ginni-thomas-insane-hiring-memos-for-former-president-donald-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">reported</a>, for example, that the activist would routinely meet with Donald Trump during his White House tenure, handing him lists of people to hire and fire.</font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-ginni-thomas-insane-hiring-memos-for-former-president-donald-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">report quoted</a> one former official saying, “These f*ing lists were so insane and unworkable. A lot of them were dripping with paranoia and read like they were written by a disturbed person."</font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">all the while, Thomas also worked with political organizations that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/21/there-is-new-champion-what-if-left-did-it-competition/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">had a stake</a> in decisions before the Supreme Court — where, incidentally, her husband works as one of nine sitting justices.</span></font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">She became even busier in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s defeat. For example, Thomas attended the pre-riot “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. Separate reports in <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">The New Yorker</a> and <b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">The New York Times Magazine</a> added that she also played an organizing role in the pro-Trump gathering just south of the White House.</b></span></font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She also had <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/ginni-thomas-text-messages-white-house-intensify-controversy-rcna21513" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">extensive communications</a> with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, with whom Thomas discussed strategies to overturn the election results. Thomas also reportedly <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/ginni-thomas-pressed-gop-lawmakers-protest-2020-election-results-rcna21644" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">pressured congressional Republicans</a> to do more to overturn the election, including calling on lawmakers to go “out in the streets.” By some accounts, she even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/us/ginni-thomas-january-6-committee.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">reached out</a> to Jared Kushner about legal options surrounding the larger offensive.</font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is not a situation in which the spouse of a sitting justice simply expressed political opinions. As The New York Times recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/us/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-recusal.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">explained</a>, the text messages between Thomas and Meadows “demonstrated that she was an active participant in shaping the legal effort to overturn the election.”</font></p><p class="" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And it was against this backdrop that Clarence Thomas heard arguments in election-related cases, even siding with Team Trump on matters related to disclosing important information to Congress.</font></p><p class="endmark" publico="Publico" text="Text" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" baskerville="Baskerville" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.5rem 0px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Republican-appointed jurist recently <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/clarence-thomas-speaks-shows-profound-lack-self-awareness-rcna27896" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">insisted</a> that our system is threatened if Americans are unwilling to “live with outcomes we don’t agree with.” If only his wife agreed.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">am over</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mark p?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span open="open" sans="sans" helvetica="helvetica" neue="neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">And a lawyer for Ginni Thomas, who two weeks ago </span><a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/jan-6-hearing-a-spotlight-on-trumps-pence-pressure-campaign?entry=1420263" open="open" sans="sans" helvetica="helvetica" neue="neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">had said she</span></a><span open="open" sans="sans" helvetica="helvetica" neue="neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> “couldn’t wait to clear up misconceptions” about her contacts with coup lawyer John Eastman, </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ginni-thomas-january-6-committee-testimony-letter-attorney/" open="open" sans="sans" helvetica="helvetica" neue="neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">now wants “better justification”</span></a></span><span open="open" sans="sans" helvetica="helvetica" neue="neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> for why Thomas should speak with the panel</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Here are other headlines related to Jan. 6 investigation:</span></span></font></div></div><div align="left"><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-two-men-very-close-to-ginni-thomasone">https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-two-men-very-close-to-ginni-thomasone</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">seth abramson </b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">In early September of 2020, during the same several-week period that </span><strong segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Ginni Thomas</strong><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> friend and </span><strong segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Donald Trump</strong><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> lawyer </span><strong segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Cleta Mitchell</strong><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> was successfully recruiting Ginni Thomas friend and former </span><strong segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Clarence Thomas</strong><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> law clerk </span><strong segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">John Eastman</strong><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> to also become a Trump lawyer, Eastman was the </span><a href="https://sethabramson.substack.com/subscribe" rel="" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; text-decoration-line: none;">head</a><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> of the far-right </span><strong segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Claremont Institute Center …...</strong></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">no lnx</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">July 17</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Proof,</b> Investigative Commentary:</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Two Men Very Close to Ginni Thomas—One of Them One Step Removed From Trump’s Coup Plot</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—Come Under New Scrutiny, Seth Abramson, left, July 16-17, 2022. </span></b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">New evidence strongly suggests that it’s more imperative than ever that the House January 6 Committee get sworn testimony from the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—and do so quickly.</span></b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Introduction: In early September of 2020, during the same several-week period that Ginni Thomas friend and Donald Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell was successfully recruiting Ginni Thomas friend and former Clarence Thomas law clerk John Eastman to also become a Trump lawyer, Eastman was the head of the far-right Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol">Around this time—<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">September 9—a member of Trump’s National Security Council, <b>Michael Anton, authored a truly stunning article entitled “The Coming Coup?” The document is profoundly unsettling in retrospect, given Anton’s high position within Trumpworld’s intelligence apparatus.</b></span></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In “The Coming Coup?”, Anton imagined the following scenario:</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Violence around the time of the 2020 election propagated by left-wing groups; requiring the invocation of the Insurrection Act by then-President Trump....</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Note that this very same sequence of events could equally be triggered if Trump and his political team were to stage a televised act of violence and chaos and then blame it on left-wing agitators in a premeditated way—<b>which, in the event, is exactly what Trump used the Rudy Giuliani-Steve Bannon-John Eastman “war room” at the Willard Hotel in Washington to do during Insurrection Week. [flynn called for martial law, seize machines, rerun election under mil?]</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite no evidence whatsoever that either Black Lives Matter activists or participants in the loose antifa movement had been present at the United States Capitol on that dark day, Trumpist partisans insisted that they had been—and immediately after the Capitol was cleared began pushing Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act on these (fraudulent) grounds.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[B]y September of 2020 it was Trump’s longtime friend, attorney, confidant, and fixer <b>Michael Cohen who had told Congress and all America under oath that he knew for a fact that Donald Trump was not going to concede the 2020 presidential election no matter what happened in it.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just days ago, a Mother Jones investigative report confirmed Cohen’s revelation with secretly recorded pre-election audio of Bannon—of Trump’s Insurrection Week Willard Hotel war room, which he shared with the Claremont Institute’s Eastman—<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">confirming that in fact it was Trump who’d all along planned to execute the plot Anton wrote of for Eastman’s Claremont Institute back in September, just after Eastman came aboard Trump’s legal team at Ginni Thomas friend Cleta Mitchell’s invitation.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So Michael Cohen was right. And if you’re of the camp that believes—on significant evidence—that every accusation by Trumpworld is fact a confession, you can see in the coup plot outlined above by Trump adviser Anton precisely the sequence of events that would quite nearly be carried out by Bannon, Giulian, Eastman, Sidney Powell, Michael Lindell, Patrick Byrne, and Michael Flynn.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Within 90 days of Anton’s essay, Eastman would be working on making the seditious vision of Trump’s intel guru (which the Claremont Institute had eagerly published) a reality—though for Donald Trump, of course, rather than Joe Biden<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">. Indeed, once Ginni Thomas friend Eastman joined Trump presidential adviser Ginni Thomas and the aforementioned <b>Ginni Thomas friend and presidential adviser Cleta Mitchell as a Trump adviser, he appears to mostly have focused on executing Anton’s hypothetical.</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; background-color: rgb(245, 252, 255);" /></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, seth abramson resized4 proof of collusion legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">// matt shea [Az fake electors Finchem pal:</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></font></div><div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2010/10/ginni_thomas_think_tank_allied_with_group_that_celebrates_spanish_inquisition/">https://www.alternet.org/<b>2010/10</b>/ginni_thomas_think_tank_allied_with_group_that_celebrates_spanish_inquisitio</a>n/</font></div><div>
</div><div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2647218553"><div class="body-description"><p>In recent days, the media has turned its attention to Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- not for her troubling ties to right-wing extremist groups, but for her bizarre demand for an apology from the woman who accused her husband of sexual harassment more than a decade ago. Yet Mrs. Thomas' Tea Party think tank, Liberty Central, promotes the causes of groups that take pride in intolerance, including one right-wing <b>Catholic group, Tradition, Family and Property, whose founder declared the Spanish Inquisition "the most beautiful page in the history of the Church."</b></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Earlier this year, <a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/reproductivejustice/147464/tea_party_think_tank_headed_by_clarence_thomas%27_wife_makes_common_cause_with_militia_guru_larry_pratt/?page=entire" class="rm-stats-tracked">AlterNet reported</a> on<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"><b> Liberty Central's embrace of Gun Owners of America, whose president, Larry Pratt -- guru to the militia movement -- unapologetically addressed a rally of white supremacists in 1992, and more recently told attendees of a gun owners' rally in Washington, D.C., that they are "at war" with the federal government. </b></span>We also looked at Liberty Central's relationship with the <a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/14/group-allied-with-ginni-thomas-think-tank-threatens-armed-insurrection/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Missouri Sovereignty Project</a>, which threatens armed insurrection against the government. Since then, Thomas has added to the "<a href="http://www.libertycentral.org/friends-of-liberty-central" class="rm-stats-tracked">Friends of Liberty Central</a>" page on her think tank's Web site a plug for <b>Tradition, Family and Property, </b>a virulently anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-democratic Catholic group founded in 1960 in opposition to Brazilian land reform.</span></p><p><b>TFP has long enjoyed ties to the far right in American politics, including the <a href="http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/some-notes-on-tradition-family-and-property-in-south-africa/" class="rm-stats-tracked">International Freedom Foundation</a>, which existed primarily as an American front group for the apartheid regime in South Africa during the Reagan years</b>, according to researcher Richard Bartholomew, and was once led by convicted felon and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But TFP is better known for its role in promoting and supporting authoritarian regimes in South America. <a href="http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/some-notes-on-tradition-family-and-property-in-south-africa/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Here's Bartholomew</a>:</p><blockquote><p>TFP played a role in the 1964 coup in Brazil, and in Uruguay it allegedly received explosives from the Brazilian military attaché that were used to attack communist installations. <b>The editor of TFP's Chilean magazine, Jaime Guzmán, became chief ideologist for General Pinochet's regime.</b></p></blockquote><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If TFP's activities on behalf of torturers and anti-democratic forces weren't enough to give one pause, there's its status as a cult. TFP is an all-male organization that finds its recruits among adolescent boys, whom it trains in the use of the combat regalia of the Middle Ages -- maces, crossbows, and the like -- according to the late Penny Lernoux's 1989 book,<b> People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism</b>. The medieval games in which the boys partake are so brutal, Lernoux reported, that one recruit told her his arm had been broken three times in the exercises.</span></p><p>The medieval games continue today. Last July, TFP sponsored a 10-day "Call to Chivalry" camp in rural Louisiana, where, <a href="http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/what-we-do/call-to-chivalry-camps/chivalry-inspires-a-new-generation-at-tfp-camp.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">according to the group's Web site</a>, boys and young men took part:</p><blockquote><p>Some new skills were learned such as medieval spear throwing and archery. Mock sword battles with padded weapons were a great success as were paintball wars in the thick tropical-looking forest surrounding the property. An exhausting hike in the Tunica Hills Park taught a poignant lesson of endurance.</p></blockquote><p>At the time Lernoux was reporting, recruits were taught to worship not only the Blessed Virgin Mary, the holiest woman in Catholicism, but also the flesh-and-blood mother of TFP founder Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, whom he referred to as Santa Monica. Oliveira, who died in 1995, loved the Spanish Inquisition, he wrote, "because, while it went on, the Catholic Church managed to cleanse itself of heretics." (Never mind that many of those so-called heretics were Jews who wanted nothing more than to practice their own faith, or people whose politics were inconvenient to the Spanish throne.)</p><p>I first learned of the American branch of TFP by stumbling upon one of their demonstrations in midtown Manhattan in the late 1980s, when the<b> group was coddled by the late Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor. </b>They often assembled on the sidewalk near St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, decked out in red polyester sashes emblazoned with a yellow lion. Their big issue at that moment was the criminalization of flag desecration, which was a lure for collecting names and addresses on petition forms. I remember feeling disconcerted by their need to videotape each interaction they had with those they were trying to attract.</p><p>The group remains active in New York, though its red-sashed members are as likely to be seen in lower Manhattan than around the cathedral.</p><p>The Catholic crusades against the Muslim world are viewed as a time of glory by the devotees of TFP. Roberto de Mattei, who wrote a friendly biography of Oliveira and is said to be close to TFP, presented his revisionist history of the crusades at a <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/european_football/article743063.ece" class="rm-stats-tracked">2006 conference</a> at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome. TFP is expressing its embrace of the medieval crusades in the <a href="http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/fighting-for-our-culture/the-ground-zero-mosque-and-the-clash-of-symbols.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">chorus of intolerance</a> raised against the Parc51 Islamic cultural center planned for lower Manhattan, dispatching student volunteers to a September protest at the site where the World Trade Center once stood. (TFP video <a href="http://www.tfp.org/current-campaigns/2010/america-says-no-to-mega-mosque.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">here</a>.)</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>TFP maintains a presence on the campuses of U.S. Catholic colleges</b>, and currently sponsors a petition drive to <a href="http://www.tfpstudentaction.net/campaigns/chronocontact/protest_1001.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">purge them</a> of LGBT rights groups. It describes a Supreme Court decision in <em>Lawrence v. Texas</em>, the suit that struck down anti-sodomy laws, as America's "Moral 9/11." Clarence Thomas, incidentally, joined Antonin Scalia's dissent in that case, which accused the court's majority of having "largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."</span></p><p>Related stories:</p><p><a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/reproductivejustice/147464/tea_party_think_tank_headed_by_clarence_thomas%27_wife_makes_common_cause_with_militia_guru_larry_pratt/?page=entire" class="rm-stats-tracked">Tea Party Think Tank Headed By Clarence Thomas' Wife Makes Common Cause With Militia Guru Larry Pratt</a></p><p><a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/14/group-allied-with-ginni-thomas-think-tank-threatens-armed-insurrection/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Group Allied With Ginni Thomas' Think Tank Threatens Armed Insurrection</a></p><p><a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/10/22/will-clarence-thomas-wife-demand-apology-from-latest-accuser-its-his-ex-girlfriend/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Will Clarence Thomas' Wife Demand Apology From Latest Accuser? (It's His Ex-Girlfriend)</a></p></div></div></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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<div class="primary-cli cli cli-text "><p>Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has a new job, running a think-tank she founded to appeal to Tea Party supporters. <b>Liberty Central,</b> according to Kenneth P. Vogel, <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39426.html#ixzz0t2kdhGzl" class="rm-stats-tracked">writing in Politico</a>, "appears to be positioning itself as a<b> hybrid think tank/advocacy group/campaign arm for the tea party movement."</b></p><p>Thomas herself explained it this way to Human Events magazine, Vogel reports:</p><blockquote><p>“I’m getting to know the Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists,” Thomas <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37683" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">told<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Human Events</span></a> late last month. “What I think I can bring to the table is a connective (t)issue between the new people and the old people.”</p></blockquote><p>On the Liberty Central Web site, visitors are urged to sign a "<a href="http://www.libertycentral.org/pledge-to-activism" class="rm-stats-tracked">pledge to activism</a>" that states the organization's commitment to small government, saying, in part:</p><blockquote><p>In an effort to <b>hold their government accountable to its constitutional limitations, </b>many Americans have voiced their opposition to a <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Big Government</span>” <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">agenda </span>through protests and election upsets only to be blatantly ignored by many elected representatives,</p><p>Therefore, I pledge to be more informed and more active, and encourage others to do likewise, in order to maximize my impact and influence in preserving, protecting and<b> promoting liberty, freedom, and limited Constitutional government in America</b>.</p></blockquote><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Call it the Great Convergence, this coming together of old-guard groups and extremists under the Tea Party brand -- something perhaps that only someone close to a major power center in the U.S. government could pull off. Unlike grassroots Tea Party organizations that struggle for donations, Thomas got off to a quick start last year with two large donations, according to Politico -- one for $50,000 and another for $500,000 -- whose sources the group declines to disclose</span>. (One imagines that for certain players on the legislative field -- especially those signing on to cases that might come before the high court -- saying "I gave at the office" to the spouse of a sitting justice might not come so easily.)</p><p>AlterNet took a spin through Thomas' Web site, to see if we could get a sense of who might be showing her some love. What we found was a cadre of groups listed as "friends" -- ranging from the typical Tea Party Inc. types, such as FreedomWorks, to the downright radical, like Gun Owners of America, led by executive director Larry Pratt.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In our ongoing chronicle of right-wing events, we last left <a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/news/146544/low_turnout_at_gun_march_the_nra%27s_fault,organizer_says?page=1" class="rm-stats-tracked">Larry Pratt at the 2nd Amendment March on Washington</a>, where he appeared to be calling for war against the U.S. government. The 2nd Amendment March wasn't really a march at all, but a r<b>ally on the grounds of the Washington monument of some 2,000 gun owners that took place April 19 -- the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City </b>bombing by self-styled militiaman Timothy McVeigh. (The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building took the lives of 168 innocents, including 19 children under the age of six.)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>When Pratt took the stage on the grounds of the Washington monument about 15 years later, he could barely contain his ire for former President Bill Clinton, who was in office at the time of McVeigh's act of mass murder</b>. On the day of the rally, <b>Clinton published an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opinion/19clinton.html?r=1&ref=opinion" class="rm-stats-tracked">op-ed</a> that seemed to be aimed at the gun owners convening on the Mall in which he urged readers not to forget that McVeigh's act was born of the belief that government is the enemy. "</b>[W]e must all assume responsibility for our words and actions<b> <span class="italic">before</span><span class="italic"> </span></b>they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged," <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opinion/19clinton.html?r=1&ref=opinion" class="rm-stats-tracked">he wrote</a>.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>At the gun rally, Pratt expressed his displeasure at Clinton's admonition, and at the attendance of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at an Oklahoma City ceremony commemorating the lives lost in the bombing. "I look around: it's so good to see all these terrorists out here</b>,</span>"<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Pratt said to the gun activists. "Janet Napolitano, she figured, as governor of Arizona, that we didn't have a border problem, but she knows who the real enemy is. Ha, ha, ha, ha.</span>[HIM/THEM? WHY?] And Bill Clinton's been runnin' cover for her, too. Watch out how you guys speak out there, you know, words can have consequences.</p><p><b>"Remember Oklahoma City?" Pratt continued. "Yeah, I do. And I also remember the Waco barbecue that your attorney general gave us. Thanks a lot...We're in a war</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The other side knows they're at war, because they started it. They're comin' for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They're comin' for everything because they're a bunch of <b>socialists</b>."</span></p><p>Is Larry Pratt's anti-government "war" the sort of activism that Ginni Thomas, CEO of Liberty Central and wife of a member of the high court, would condone? [YOU BETCHA]
</p><p>It is highly unlikely that Pratt's bitter rhetoric is a secret to Ginni Thomas. Pratt is no stranger to controversy. He's an unabashed supporter of the militia movement<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">; his<b> 1990 book, Armed People Victorious, </b>is viewed by many in the movement as an inspirational text.</span><i>
</i></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1996, Pratt was forced to resign his role as an adviser to Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign when it was revealed that, in 1992, he addressed a gathering of white supremacists in Estes, Colorado. Included on the roster of speakers that day were neo-Nazis and militia advocates, including Louis Beam, a former Texas Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who had taken his cause over to the Aryan Nation organization. The meeting had been called by Pete Peters, then leader of the <b>Christian Identity </b>movement, whose theology states that black people are subhuman and Jews are the spawn of Satan</span>.</p><p><b>Pratt came to make clear his advocacy for unfettered gun rights. "The Second Amendment ain't about duck hunting,"</b> he told the crowd, according reporter Leonard Zeskind, <a href="http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia7.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">reporting in <em>Rolling Stone</em></a>. Pratt explained that he bought his first gun during the 1968 riots that engulfed Washington, D.C., in the wake of the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "If they'd had that assault rifle, so-called, for sale, and I'd seen that big old magazine there at the time, that's exactly what I would have bought," Pratt said, according to <em>Rolling Stone</em>.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pratt represents a kind of pivot point between the right-wing extreme and the right-wing establishment. While Pratt is cozy with Howard Phillips, the Christian Reconstructionist founder of the Constitution Party, he's also friendly with former House Majority Leader Richard Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks, the kingpin of Tea Party Inc. astroturf groups. Armey once served on the advisory board of the now-defunct Family Foundation, an organization founded by Pratt, that housed an anti-immigrant group, English First (which still exists)</span>. </p><p><b>Ginni Thomas worked as an aide to Armey when he served in Congress in the GOP leadership,</b> according to Politico.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Today, Armey chairs FreedomWorks, the powerful Washington, D.C., organization that helped organize last summer's <b>disruptions of town-hall meetings conducted by members of Congress about health care reform legislation. </b></span>FreedomWorks also sponsored the stage program at the conclusion of last fall's 912 march on Washington, and an anti-health care rally on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol last spring. <b>Ginni Thomas also worked with FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe when both were on staff at the anti-regulatory lobbying group, the Chamber of Commerce. </b>Like FreedomWorks, in last month's GOP primary runoff for Utah's U.S. Senate seat, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Thomas' Liberty Central endorsed <b>Tea Party candidate Mike Lee (</b>the only candidate Liberty Central has endorsed so far</span>).</p><p>Gun Owners of America is hardly the only eyebrow-raising friend listed on Liberty Central's Web site -- just the most extreme. Also nestled amid the group of 32 largely establishment outfits such as the <b>Hudson Institute and the National Taxpayers Union, is Concerned Women for America,</b> which has been on an <a href="http://www.cwfa.org/articles/18936/CFI/nation/index.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">anti-gay tear</a> for the last two decades, and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ParcBench.com, which currently features a <a href="http://www.parcbench.com/2010/07/03/obama-commits-high-treason-if-you-say-nothing-youre-an-accomplice/" class="rm-stats-tracked">post alleging</a> that President Barack Obama committed treason when he presided over a session of the U.N. Security Council</span> last fall --<b> and that his administration <a href="http://www.parcbench.com/2010/07/07/o-ministration-dont-prosecute-vote-crimes-where-whites-are-the-victims/" class="rm-stats-tracked">won't prosecute violations of voting laws</a> committed when white people are the victims.</b></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gun Owners of America frequently participates in lawsuits headed for the high court, and its attorney, <a href="http://gunowners.org/a070210.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">William J. Olson, testified</a> against the nomination of Elena Kagan to the bench of the high court at last week's Senate hearings.</span> <b>Likewise, Concerned Women for America also features an <a href="http://www.cwfa.org/articles/19135/LEGAL/scourt/index.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">anti-Kagan post</a> on the front page of its Web site.</b> Not that people aren't entitled to their opinions, but it seems a bit untoward that the spouse of a sitting justice is running an organization that forges alliances with groups arrayed against her husband's next new colleague.</p><p>But more disturbing than that is the fact that Ginni Thomas, who shares her life with one of the most powerful men in the United States government, should use her social standing to recruit people to rage against the government in the company of the likes of Larry Pratt.</p></div></div>}}</div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bad code</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/10/new-revelations-show-ginni-thomas-very-much-part-seditious-conspiracy">https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/10/new-revelations-show-ginni-thomas-very-much-part-seditious-conspiracy</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bowers rusty email: <a href="https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1535295098191241217/photo/1">https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1535295098191241217/photo/1</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JULIA CONLEY</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">June 10, 2022</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas, the right-wing activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, lobbied far more Arizona state lawmakers than previously known to try to overturn the state's 2020 election results—a revelation that reignited calls on Friday for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from cases related to the election.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to emailing two state representatives in November and December 2020, calling on them to "choose" electors who would grant former President Donald Trump a victory in the state, Thomas used a platform called FreeRoots.com to call on 27 other state lawmakers to put aside President Joe Biden's victory. The Washington Post, which first reported the news, </font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Never before in our nation's history have our elections been so threatened by fraud and unconstitutional procedures," Thomas wrote.< [twt doc]when the letters to two lawmakers were reported by the Post last month, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was among the critics who said Thomas's efforts to keep Trump in office represented a "conflict of interest."</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas's husband was the ...said Friday, "As obvious as the symmetry between Clarence and Ginni Thomas' work was three weeks ago, it's even more glaring now."</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas's lobbying of 29 state lawmakers to overrule the will of Arizona voters represented "a completely egregious attack on democracy by the wife of a sitting SCOTUS justice," tweeted Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.)[twt]</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">friday's revelations come two-and-a-half months after the Post and CBS News obtained text messages that Thomas sent to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks following the election, calling on him to "save us from the left taking America down."</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) issued a "friendly reminder that Ginni Thomas has a government position and absolutely should not," referring to her position on the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board, to which Trump appointed her.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Her egregious actions to push the White House Chief of Staff and others to overturn a free and fair election make her a threat to democracy and should disqualify her for any role of public trust at the Library of Congress or anywhere else in government," said CREW in April.</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CPI?</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><p class="has-text-align-justify has-small-font-size" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Ginni has held leadership positions at conservative pressure groups that have either been involved in cases before the Court or have had members engaged in such cases.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In 2019, she announced a political project called Crowdsourcers</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and said that one of her four partners would be the founder of </span><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Project Veritas, James O’Keefe</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Project Veritas tries to embarrass progressives by making secret videos of them, and last year petitioned the Court to enjoin Massachusetts from enforcing a state law that bans the surreptitious taping of public officials. Another partner in Crowdsourcers, Ginni Thomas said in her announcement, was Cleta Mitchell, the chairman of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative election-law nonprofit.</span></font></p><p class="has-text-align-justify has-small-font-size" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-align: justify; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It, too, has had business before the Court, filing amicus briefs in cases centering on the democratic process. Thomas also currently serves on the advisory board of the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">National Association of Scholars</strong>, a group promoting conservative values in academia, which has filed <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.nas.org/blogs/press_release/scholars_file_amicus_brief_in_students_for_fair_admissions_v_harvard_colleg" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; box-shadow: none;">an amicus brief</a> before the Court in a potentially groundbreaking <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/02/can-affirmative-action-survive" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; box-shadow: none;">affirmative-action lawsuit</a> against Harvard. And, though nobody knew it at the time, Ginni Thomas was an undisclosed paid consultant at the conservative pressure group the Center for Security Policy, when its founder, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Frank Gaffney</strong>, submitted an amicus brief to the Court supporting <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Trump’s Muslim travel ban."</strong> - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" target="blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s linear 0s; box-shadow: none;">New Yorker</a></font></p></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgba="rgba" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle</strong> to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results — and how receptive and grateful Meadows said he was to receive her advice.</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgba="rgba" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Among Thomas’s stated goals in the messages was for lawyer Sidney Powell, who <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">promoted incendiary and unsupported claims about the election</strong>, to be “the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team."</span></font></p><h4 id="-washington-post-https-www-washingtonpost-com-politics-2022-03-24-virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts-" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans="Sans" unicode="Unicode" geneva="Geneva" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin-top="margin-top" px="px" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" font-size="font-size" pointer-events="pointer-events" auto="auto" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">Washington Post</a></font></h4></div><div align="left"><h2 id="attempt-to-overturn-the-vote" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 4px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-left: -1.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">attempt to overturn the vote</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.</strong></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Nov. 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!</strong>...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”<br style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;" /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">Washington Post</a></font></p><h2 id="conspiracy-theory" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 4px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-left: -1.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conspiracy theory</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one message sent in the days after the election, she urged the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down,” invoking a slogan popular on the right that refers to a web of conspiracy theories that Trump supporters believed would overturn the election.</font></p><h2 id="gop-charade" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 4px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-left: -1.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GOP charade</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In another, she wrote: “I can’t see Americans swallowing the obvious fraud. Just going with one more thing with no frickin consequences.” She added: “We just cave to people wanting Biden to be anointed? Many of us can’t continue the GOP charade.”</font></p><h4 id="-ny-times-https-www-nytimes-com-2022-03-24-us-politics-ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows-html-" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/us/politics/ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows.html" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">NY Times</a></font></h4><h2 id="effort-to-overturn-the-election" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 4px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-left: -1.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Effort to overturn the election</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Meadows wrote to Thomas on Nov. 24, the White House chief of staff invoked God to describe the effort to overturn the election. “This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”</font></p><h4 id="-washington-post-https-www-washingtonpost-com-politics-2022-03-24-virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts-" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;"><font style="font-weight: normal;">Washington Post</font></a></font></h4><h2 id="attempt-to-overturn-the-vote" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 4px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-left: -1.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Attempt to overturn the vote</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.</strong></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Nov. 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!</strong>...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”<br style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;" /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">Washington Post</a></font></p><h2 id="conspiracy-theory" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 4px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-left: -1.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conspiracy theory</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one message sent in the days after the election, she urged the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down,” invoking a slogan popular on the right that refers to a web of conspiracy theories that Trump supporters believed would overturn the election.</font></p><h2 id="gop-charade" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 4px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-left: -1.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GOP charade</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In another, she wrote: “I can’t see Americans swallowing the obvious fraud. Just going with one more thing with no frickin consequences.” She added: “We just cave to people wanting Biden to be anointed? Many of us can’t continue the GOP charade.”</font></p><h4 id="-ny-times-https-www-nytimes-com-2022-03-24-us-politics-ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows-html-" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/us/politics/ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows.html" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">NY Times</a></font></h4><h2 id="effort-to-overturn-the-election" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 30px; margin-bottom: 4px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; margin-left: -1.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Effort to overturn the election</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Meadows wrote to Thomas on Nov. 24, the White House chief of staff invoked God to describe the effort to overturn the election. “This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”</font></p><h4 id="-washington-post-https-www-washingtonpost-com-politics-2022-03-24-virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts-" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">Washington Post</a></font></h4></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgba="rgba" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">"The texts show Ginni tHomas was communicating not only with Mr. Meadows, but also with <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">Connie Hair, the chief of staff to Louie Gohmert</strong>, the Texas Republican congressman who sued Vice President Mike Pence to force him to certify Mr. Trump as the victor of the 2020 election."</font></font></p><h4 id="-ny-times-https-www-nytimes-com-2022-03-24-us-politics-ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows-html-" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans="Sans" unicode="Unicode" geneva="Geneva" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin-top="margin-top" px="px" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" font-size="font-size" pointer-events="pointer-events" auto="auto" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/24/us/politics/ginni-thomas-trump-mark-meadows.html" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">NY Times</a></font></h4></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div align="left"><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgba="rgba" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ginny Thomas has been a delegate to the Republican National Convention. And after <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">first endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for president</strong>, she became an ardent Trump supporter, meeting with the president at the White House to advise on political appointees. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When Trump gathered supporters at the White House to celebrate his acquittal at his first Senate impeachment trial, she was among those invited."</span></font></p><h4 id="-washington-post-https-www-washingtonpost-com-politics-courts_law-ginni-thomas-apology-clarence-thomas-clerks-trump-rally-2021-02-02-a9818cce-6496-11eb-8c64-9595888caa15_story-html-" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans="Sans" unicode="Unicode" geneva="Geneva" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin-top="margin-top" px="px" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" font-size="font-size" pointer-events="pointer-events" auto="auto" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/ginni-thomas-apology-clarence-thomas-clerks-trump-rally/2021/02/02/a9818cce-6496-11eb-8c64-9595888caa15_story.html" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">Washington Post</a></font></h4></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div align="left"><h2 id="conspiracy-theories" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans="Sans" unicode="Unicode" geneva="Geneva" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin-top="margin-top" px="px" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" font-size="font-size" pointer-events="pointer-events" auto="auto" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" margin-left="margin-left" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conspiracy theories</font></h2><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgba="rgba" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The first of the 29 messages between Ginni Thomas and Meadows was sent on Nov. 5, two days after the election. She sent him a link to a YouTube video labeled “TRUMP STING w CIA Director Steve Pieczenik, The Biggest Election Story in History, QFS-BLOCKCHAIN.”</font></p><h2 id="false-claims" lucida="Lucida" grande="Grande" sans="Sans" unicode="Unicode" geneva="Geneva" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" margin-top="margin-top" px="px" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" font-size="font-size" pointer-events="pointer-events" auto="auto" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" margin-left="margin-left" background-color="background-color" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">False claims</font></h2><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgba="rgba" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pieczenik, a former State Department official, is a far-right commentator who has falsely claimed that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a <a href="https://pieczenik.blogspot.com/2013/05/after-newtown-false-flag-fiasco-to-push.html" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">“false-flag” operation</a> to push a gun-control agenda."</font></p><p times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" rem="rem" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgba="rgba" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">Washington Post</a></font></p></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>p<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); letter-spacing: -0.02em;">ublic Interest Legal Foundation</span></b></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another partner in Crowdsourcers, Ginni Thomas said in her announcement, was Cleta Mitchell, the chairman of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative election-law nonprofit. It, too, has had business before the Court, filing amicus briefs in cases centering on the democratic process.</font></p><h4 id="-new-yorker-https-www-newyorker-com-magazine-2022-01-31-is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court-" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;"><font style="font-weight: normal;">New Yorker</font></a></font></h4><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2019, she announced a political project called Crowdsourcers, and said that one of her four partners would be the founder of Project Veritas, James O’Keefe. Project Veritas tries to embarrass progressives by making secret videos of them, and last year petitioned the Court to enjoin Massachusetts from enforcing a state law that bans the surreptitious taping of public officials.</font></p><h4 id="-new-yorker-https-www-newyorker-com-magazine-2022-01-31-is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court-" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;"><font style="font-weight: normal;">New Yorker</font></a></font></h4></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas also currently serves on the advisory board of the National Association of Scholars, a group promoting conservative values in academia, which has filed an amicus brief before the Court in a potentially groundbreaking affirmative-action lawsuit against Harvard.</font></p><h4 id="-new-yorker-https-www-newyorker-com-magazine-2022-01-31-is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court-" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;"><font style="font-weight: normal;">New Yorker</font></a></font></h4></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; pointer-events: auto; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And, though nobody knew it at the time, Ginni Thomas was an undisclosed paid consultant at the conservative pressure group the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: auto;">Center for Security Policy</strong>, when its founder, Frank Gaffney, submitted an amicus brief to the Court supporting Trump’s Muslim travel ban."</font></font></p><h4 id="-new-yorker-https-www-newyorker-com-magazine-2022-01-31-is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court-" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; pointer-events: auto; letter-spacing: -0.02em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; pointer-events: auto; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0px 1.1em;">New Yorker</a></font></h4></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/">Virginia Thomas urged White House chief to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 election, texts show - The Washington Post</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div>no lnx</div><div><div>Midterms 2022</div><div>
</div><div>Virginia Thomas urged White House chief to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 election, texts show</div><div>
</div><div>In messages to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks after Election Day, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called Biden’s victory ‘the greatest Heist of our History’ and told him that President Donald Trump should not concede</div><div>
</div><div><b>By Bob Woodward a</b>nd Robert Costa </div><div>
</div><div><b>March 24, 2022 </b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div>Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.</div><div>
</div><div>The messages — 29 in all — reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Nov. 10, after news organizations had projected Joe Biden the winner based on state vote totals, Thomas wrote to Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>When Meadows wrote to Thomas on Nov. 24, </b>the White House chief of staff invoked God to describe the effort to overturn the election. “This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”</div><div>
</div><div>Thomas replied: “Thank you!! Needed that! This plus a conversation with my best friend just now… I will try to keep holding on. America is worth it!”</div><div>
</div><div>It is unclear to whom Thomas was referring.</div><div>
</div><div>The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results — and how receptive and grateful Meadows said he was to receive her advice. Among Thomas’s stated goals in the messages was for lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted incendiary and unsupported claims about the election, to be “the lead and the face” of Trump’s legal team.</div><div>
</div><div>The text messages were among 2,320 that Meadows provided to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The content of messages between Thomas and Meadows — 21 sent by her, eight by him – has not previously been reported. They were reviewed by The Post and CBS News and then confirmed by five people who have seen the committee’s documents.</div><div>
</div><div>Meadows’s attorney, <b>George Terwilliger III, </b>confirmed the existence of the 29 messages between his client and Thomas. In reviewing the substance of the messages Wednesday, he said that neither he nor Meadows would comment on individual texts. But, Terwilliger added, “nothing about the text messages presents any legal issues.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Ginni Thomas did not respond to multiple requests for comment made Thursday by email and phone. </b>Justice Thomas, who has been hospitalized for treatment of an infection, did not respond to a request for comment made through the Supreme Court’s public information office.</div><div>
</div><div><b>It is unknown whether Ginni Thomas and Meadows exchanged additional messages between the election and Biden’s inauguration beyond the 29 received by the committee. </b>Shortly after providing the 2,320 messages, Meadows ceased cooperating with the committee, arguing that any further engagement could violate Trump’s claims of executive privilege. Committee members and aides said they believe the messages may be just a portion of the pair’s total exchanges.</div><div>
</div><div>A spokesman for the committee declined to comment. The revelation of Thomas’s messages with Meadows comes three weeks after lawyers for the committee said in a court filing that the panel has “a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States” and obstruct the counting of electoral votes by Congress.</div><div>
</div><div>Trump spoke publicly during this period about his intent to contest the election results in the Supreme Court. “This is a major fraud on our nation,” the president said in a speech at 2:30 the morning after the election. “We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Thomas has publicly denied any conflict of interest between her activism and her husband’s work on the Supreme Court. “Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work,” she said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet, for an article published March 14.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas, in that interview, also acknowledged that she had attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse near the White House on Jan. 6, but said that she left early because it was too cold and that <b>she did not have any role in planning the event.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div>Justice Thomas, 73, is the Supreme Court’s longest-serving current justice and has missed oral arguments this week because of his hospitalization. He has made few public comments about the 2020 election. In February 2021, when the Supreme Court rejected election challenges filed by Trump and his allies, Thomas wrote in a dissent that it was “baffling” and “inexplicable” that the majority had decided against hearing the cases because he believed the Supreme Court should provide states with guidance for future elections.</div><div>
</div><div>Critics say Ginni Thomas’s activism is a Supreme Court conflict. Under court rules, only her husband can decide if that’s true.</div><div>
</div><div>In her text messages to Meadows, Ginni Thomas spread false theories, commented on cable news segments and advocated with urgency and fervor that the president and his team take action to reverse the outcome of the election. She urged that they take a hard line with Trump staffers and congressional Republicans who had resisted arguments that the election was stolen.</div><div>In the messages, Thomas and Meadows each assert a belief that the election was stolen and seem to share a solidarity of purpose and faith, though they occasionally express differences on tactics.</div><div>
</div><div>“The intense pressures you and our President are now experiencing are more intense than Anything Experienced (but I only felt a fraction of it in 1991),” Thomas wrote to Meadows on Nov. 19, an apparent reference to Justice Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings in which lawyer Anita Hill testified that he had made unwanted sexual comments when he was her boss. Thomas strongly denied the accusations.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The first of the 29 messages between Ginni Thomas and Meadows was sent on Nov. 5, two days after the election. </b>She sent him a link to a YouTube video labeled “TRUMP STING w CIA Director Steve Pieczenik, The Biggest Election Story in History, QFS-BLOCKCHAIN.”</div><div>
</div><div>Pieczenik, a former State Department official, is a far-right commentator who has falsely claimed that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a “false-flag” operation to push a gun-control agenda.</div><div>
</div><div>The video Thomas shared with Meadows is no longer available on YouTube. But Thomas wrote to Meadows, “I hope this is true; never heard anything like this before, or even a hint of it. Possible???”</div><div>
</div><div>“Watermarked ballots in over 12 states have been part of a huge Trump & military white hat sting operation in 12 key battleground states,” she wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>During that period, supporters of the QAnon extremist ideology embraced a false theory that Trump had watermarked mail-in ballots so he could track potential fraud. “Watch the water” was a refrain in QAnon circles at the time.</div><div>
</div><div>In the Nov. 5 message to Meadows, Thomas went on to quote a passage that had circulated on right-wing websites: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”</div><div>
</div><div>The text messages received by the House select committee do not include a response from Meadows.</div><div>The next day, Nov. 6, Thomas sent a follow-up to Meadows: “Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.”</div><div>
</div><div>It is unclear if Meadows responded.</div><div>
</div><div>On Nov. 10, Thomas drew a reply from Meadows. She wrote, “Mark, I wanted to text you and tell you for days you are in my prayers!!” She continued by urging him to “Help This Great President stand firm” and invoking “the greatest Heist of our History.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Thomas added in the message that Meadows should “Listen to Rush. Mark Steyn, Bongino, Cleta”</b> — appearing to refer to conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn and Dan Bongino, as well as lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who was involved in Trump’s push to claim victory in Georgia despite Biden’s certified win there.</div><div>
</div><div>One minute later, Meadows responded: “I will stand firm. We will fight until there is no fight left. Our country is too precious to give up on. Thanks for all you do.”</div><div>Nine minutes after that, Thomas replied, “Tearing up and praying for you guys!!!!! So proud to know you!!”</div><div>
</div><div>Later that night, Ginni Thomas messaged Meadows seeming to react to a cable news segment. <b>“Van Jones spins interestingly,</b> but shows us the balls being juggled too,” Thomas said, referring to the prominent CNN commentator.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thomas then turned to her frustrations with congressional Republicans and said she wished more of them were rallying behind Trump and being more active with his base voters, who were furious about the election.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">She wrote, “House and Senate guys are pathetic too... only 4 GOP House members seen out in street rallies with grassroots... Gohmert, Jordan, Gosar, and Roy.” She appeared to be referring to Republican House members Louie Gohmert of Texas, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Paul A. Gosar of Arizona and Chip Roy of Texas.</span></div><div>
</div><div>This was a troubled time for Trump. <b>News organizations had declared Biden the winner on Nov. 7</b>, after a review of vote totals in each state and the electoral count. Trump’s legal operation was divided between his campaign’s official lawyers and Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s confidant and personal attorney who was fast asserting control of his campaign’s legal strategy. While many Republicans supported Trump’s filing of legal challenges in several states, his lawyers stumbled in court and many allies by mid-November were privately confiding that Trump’s legal battle would be short-lived.</div><div>
</div><div>Yet Thomas urged Meadows to plow ahead, rally Republicans around Trump and remind them of his enduring political capital.</div><div>
</div><div>“Where the heck are all those who benefited by Presidents coattails?!!!” she wrote in her text message to him late on Nov. 10. She then told him to watch a YouTube video about the power of never conceding.</div><div>
</div><div>Meadows might not have been Thomas’s only contact inside the Trump White House that week.<b> On Nov. 13, she texted Meadows about her outreach to “Jared</b>,” potentially a reference to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser. She wrote, “Just forwarded to yr gmail an email I sent Jared this am. Sidney Powell & improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved.” The messages provided to the House select committee do not show a response by Meadows.</div><div>
</div><div>Kushner did not respond to a request for comment.</div><div>
</div><div>Powell was becoming ubiquitous on television — and winning the president’s favor, according to several Trump advisers — as she claimed without evidence that electronic voting systems had stolen the election from Trump by switching millions of ballots in Biden’s favor. She claimed, again without evidence, that hundreds of thousands of ballots were appearing out of nowhere and that a global communist conspiracy was afoot involving Venezuela, Cuba, and probably China.</div><div>
</div><div>Still, while Trump cheered some of Powell’s commentary, she was a polarizing figure in his orbit. Her views were considered so extreme and unsupported by evidence that David Bossie, a longtime Trump supporter, told others that she was peddling “concocted B.S.” <b>After Fox News host Tucker Carlson contacted Powell about her claim that electronic voting machines had switched ballots to Biden, he told his viewers that he found her answers evasive and that she had shown no evidence to support her assertion. He stopped having her on his program.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas stood by her. “Don’t let her and your assets be marginalized instead...help her be the lead and the face,” she wrote to Meadows on Nov. 13.</span></div><div>
</div><div>The following day, Nov. 14, Thomas sent Meadows material she said was from Connie Hair, chief of staff to Gohmert. It is not clear if she was passing on a message from Hair or sharing Hair’s perspective as guidance for Meadows. The text message seems to quote Hair’s belief that “the most important thing you can realize right now is that there are no rules in war.”</div><div>
</div><div>“This war is psychological. PSYOP,” the text from Thomas states.</div><div>
</div><div>Hair said Thursday that she did not have any specific recollection of that text message.</div><div>
</div><div><b>On Nov. 19, which would be a crucial day for Powell as she spoke at a news conference at the Republican National Committee,</b> Thomas continued to bolster Powell’s standing in a text to Meadows.</div><div>
</div><div>“Mark (don’t want to wake you)… ” Thomas wrote. “Sounds like Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud. Make a plan. Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”</div><div>
</div><div>“Release the Kraken” had become a catchphrase on the far right after the election, used as shorthand for the anticipated exposure of a voter fraud conspiracy that would upend Biden’s victory with the same force as a “Kraken,” a mythical giant sea monster.</div><div>
</div><div>In that same exchange, Thomas also at one point offered Meadows advice on managing the West Wing staff.</div><div>
</div><div>“Suggestion: You need to buck up your team on the inside, Mark,” Thomas wrote. “The lower level insiders are scared, fearful or sending out signals of hopelessness vs an awareness of the existential threat to America right now. You can buck them up, strengthen their spirits.”</div><div>
</div><div>“Monica Crowley,” Thomas said, referring to the conservative commentator, “may have a sense of this [from] her Nixon days.” Crowley, a top official in Trump’s Treasury Department, had been an aide to former president Richard M. Nixon years after he resigned from office in 1974 because of the Watergate scandal.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thomas then wrote, “You guys fold, the evil just moves fast down underneath you all. Lots of intensifying threats coming to ACB and others.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett, sometimes called “ACB” by her supporters, had joined the Supreme Court in October, shortly before the election. It is unclear to what threats Thomas was referring.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Later on Nov. 19, Meadows replied to Thomas’s long text message by saying, “Thanks so much.”</div><div>
</div><div>But Thomas’s high aspirations for Powell quickly collapsed that afternoon. Instead of capturing the nation’s attention at the RNC news conference, where she spoke alongside Giuliani and other Trump advisers, Powell was criticized for spreading a false theory about electronic voting machines as a tool for communists. Some Trump aides were horrified by her and Giuliani’s performances and felt they had embarrassed the president by becoming a parody of his post-election fight.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Giuliani spoke, a dark brown liquid mixed with beads of sweat rolled down his cheek. “Did you watch ‘My Cousin Vinny?’ ” he asked reporters, tying a legal reference to the 1992 comedy.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thomas wrote to Meadows, “Tears are flowing at what Rudy is doing right now!!!!”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Glad to help,” Meadows replied.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>By Nov. 22, Trump gave his blessing for Giuliani and another Trump lawyer, Jenna Ellis, to issue a statement claiming that Powell “is not a member of the Trump Legal Team.”</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Thomas reached out to Meadows that day with concern. “Trying to understand the Sidney Powell distancing,” she wrote.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>“She doesn’t have anything or at least she won’t share it if she does,” Meadows texted back.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>“Wow!” Thomas replied.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Meadows did not respond.</div><div>
</div><div>On Nov. 24, Thomas engaged Meadows again by sharing a video from Parler, a conservative social media website, that appeared to refer to conservative commentator Glenn Beck.</div><div>
</div><div>“If you all cave to the elites, you have to know that many of your 73 million feel like what Glenn is expressing,” Thomas wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>She said Trump risked his supporters growing disenchanted to the point of walking away from politics. “Me included,” she wrote. “I think I am done with politics, and I don’t think I am alone, Mark.”</div><div>
</div><div>Meadows replied three minutes later: “I don’t know what you mean by <b>caving to the elites.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>Thomas responded: “I can’t see Americans swallowing the obvious fraud. Just going with one more thing with no frickin consequences... the whole coup and now this... we just cave to people wanting Biden to be anointed? Many of us can’t continue the GOP charade.”</div><div>
</div><div>After continued back-and-forth, Meadows wrote, “You’re preaching to the choir. Very demoralizing.”</div><div>
</div><div>The text exchanges with Thomas that Meadows provided to the House select committee pause after Nov. 24, 2020, with an unexplained gap in correspondence. The committee received one additional message sent by Thomas to Meadows, on Jan. 10, four days after the “Stop the Steal” rally Thomas said she attended and the deadly attack on the Capitol.</div><div>
</div><div>In that message, Thomas expresses support for Meadows and Trump — and directed anger at Vice President Mike Pence, who had refused Trump’s wishes to block the congressional certification of Biden’s electoral college victory.</div><div>
</div><div>“We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas wrote to Meadows. “Most of us are disgusted with the VP and are in listening mode to see where to fight with our teams. Those who attacked the Capitol are not representative of our great teams of patriots for DJT!!”</div><div>
</div><div>“Amazing times,” she added. “The end of Liberty.”</div></div><div>
</div><div>
</div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://documented.net/investigations/documented-obtains-list-of-2020-donors-to-ginni-thomas-group-that-supported-trumps-attempted-coup">https://documented.net/investigations/documented-obtains-list-of-2020-donors-to-ginni-thomas-group-that-supported-trumps-attempted-coup</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">donors, extensive</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></font></div><div align="left"><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3257600-ginni-thomas-unpacking-potential-conflicts-of-interest-on-the-supreme-court/">
</a></div><div align="left"><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3257600-ginni-thomas-unpacking-potential-conflicts-of-interest-on-the-supreme-court/">https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3257600-ginni-thomas-unpacking-potential-conflicts-of-interest-on-the-supreme-court/</a></div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">no lnx good sum</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>Ginni Thomas: Unpacking potential conflicts of interest on the Supreme Court</b></div><div align="left"><b>
</b></div><div align="left">BY KIMBERLY WEHLE, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR -<b> 04/03/22 </b></div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection would like to speak with Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) recently announced plans to invite her to appear.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Congress wants to hear more about her bombshell texts with former President Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows in which she urged that something be done to thwart Joe Biden’s White House win. Her husband, a sitting justice, is now under intense pressure to recuse himself from cases relating to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 violence, short of resignation or possibly even impeachment.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">An interview with the Jan. 6 committee is vitally important, not just for what Ginni Thomas has to say about the texts, but because her testimony could reveal even deeper conflicts of interest infecting the nation’s highest court — and thus its very legitimacy writ large.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">In three election-related cases, Clarence Thomas voted in a manner seemingly consistent with his wife’s far-right activism, and failed to recuse himself in contravention of a federal law mandating disqualification from any proceeding in which his impartiality may be questioned, including due to the interests of a spouse.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Most disturbingly, he was the sole dissenter in a decision requiring the National Archives to turn over to the Jan. 6 committee White House records relating to the subject matter of its inquiry. Ginni Thomas’s texts were provided voluntarily by Meadows before he stopped cooperating. It’s reported that Ginni Thomas may have communicated with others in the White House, too — if her husband’s vote reflected a desire to keep his wife’s involvement in Jan. 6 from public scrutiny, he was clearly flouting his ethical and legal obligation of actual — let alone perceived — neutrality.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>In January of this year, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer exposed a litany of potential conflicts arising from Ginni Thomas’ </b>tightness with radical ideologues, noting even back then — before the text scandal — that “the claim that the Justices’ opinions are politically neutral is becoming increasingly hard to accept.” Ginni Thomas, a lawyer herself, runs a lobbying firm called Liberty Consulting, and is on record as declaring the “deep state” a danger to America because of “transsexual fascists” on the left.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">She attended a “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, and posted a since-removed “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” message on Facebook that went viral. She complained about Trump’s Nov. 4 loss on a private Listserv called Thomas Clerk World, which includes a number of her husband’s former Supreme Court law clerks, including attorney John Eastman.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Eastman penned the infamous memos outlining a bogus theory for justifying former Vice President Pence’s stalling of the Electoral College certification. Pence ultimately refused, and a federal judge just this week pinged Eastman as “likely” having committed three federal crimes along with his client Trump, in that connection. (The court’s opinion specifically had to do with attorney-client privilege and work product claims, and thus has no bearing on actual criminal liability, which would have to come through the Justice Department.)</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas also served as a director of <b>C.N.P. Action, </b>a dark money group that, according to Mayer, “behind closed doors, connects wealthy donors with some of the most radical right-wing figures in America.” <b>She’s also on the advisory board of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump student group that reportedly sent protestors to the Jan. 6 rally.</b></span></div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>She has partnerships with right-wing groups that have other Supreme Court business, including Project Veritas, </b>which is known for making secret videotapes of progressive public officials, and Cleta Mitchell, who was on the call in which Trump urged Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to swing the state’s electors to him — ostensibly illegally.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>Ginni Thomas was also a paid consultant to a group that filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of Trump’s Muslim travel ban</b>, which was ultimately upheld over the dissenting votes of Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Sonya Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. And she serves on the board of a conservative group that filed an amicus brief in a Supreme Court case involving race-conscious affirmative action at Harvard. (Although during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson pledged to recuse herself from that case, due to a six-year role on the Harvard Board of Overseers, Thomas has not.)</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Meanwhile, the host of hot-button issues now pending before this Court is hard to match in recent memory. They include the fate of<b> Roe </b>v. Wade and the constitutional right to make decisions to end a pregnancy (a right the court already effectively overruled by refusing to halt the Texas six-week abortion ban). They also include the vitality of the longstanding<b> separation between church and state, </b>in a case involving whether taxpayer dollars must fund religious education, as well as the question of whether states and municipalities can regulate handguns outside the home. Another question of major constitutional significance currently pending before the court is whether the <b>Environmental Protection Agency </b>can regulate to meaningfully slow climate change.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>Each of these cases presents a possible sea change in constitutional law itself if the court reverses longstanding precedent — whether expressly or under the guise of disinterestedness. </b>Conservative groups would presumably want the new conservative majority to upend existing law on all of these fronts. If agencies cannot constitutionally enact regulations, big business wins. If states can’t constitutionally pass laws protecting the public from gun violence, proponents of an unfettered Second Amendment right win. If states must fund right-wing religious schools if it funds non-sectarian ones, the Christian right wins. And so on.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left"><b>What’s more, an unpacking of potential conflicts-of-interest on this court could mean that past cases are tainted, too</b>. The implications of looking backward and not just forward to future Jan. 6 cases — as appears to Democrats’ primary focus when it comes to Clarence Thomas and his wife’s problematic texts — are hard to fathom.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">One might argue that it’s better not to know what we don’t know, because the stakes of knowing are too high. But unfortunately, not knowing is the real problem here. If Congress doesn’t get to the bottom of things, it might soon be too late.</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">Kimberly Wehle is a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and author of “How to Read the Constitution — and Why,” as well as “What You Need to Know About Voting — and Why” and “How to Think Like a Lawyer – and Why.” Follow her on Twitter: @kimwehle</div><div align="left">
</div><div align="left">TAGS BENNIE THOMPSON CAPITOL INSURRECTION CLARENCE THOMAS DONALD TRUMP JAN. 6 JAN. 6 COMMITTEE JUDICIARY KIMBERLY WEHLE SCOTUS SUPREME COURT TRUMP TRUMP ADMINISTRATION</div><div align="left">some lnx</div><div align="left"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">coi in <b>is ginni threat]</b></span></div><div align="left"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> January of this year, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-color: rgb(42, 83, 193); text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-underline-offset: 0.3rem;">exposed</a> a litany of potential conflicts arising from Ginni Thomas’ tightness with radical ideologues, noting even back then — before the text scandal — that “the claim that the Justices’ opinions are politically neutral is becoming increasingly hard to accept.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” Ginni Thomas, a lawyer herself, runs a lobbying firm called Liberty Consulting, and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-color: rgb(42, 83, 193); text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-underline-offset: 0.3rem;">is on record as declaring</a> the “deep state” a danger to America because of “transsexual fascists” on the left.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">She <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/ginni-thomas-attended-stop-the-steal-rally" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-color: rgb(42, 83, 193); text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-underline-offset: 0.3rem;">attended a “Stop the Steal” rally</a> in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, and posted a since-removed “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/ginni-thomas-attended-stop-the-steal-rally" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-color: rgb(42, 83, 193); text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-underline-offset: 0.3rem;">message on Facebook</a> that went viral. She complained about Trump’s Nov. 4 loss on a private Listserv called Thomas Clerk World, which includes a number of her husband’s former Supreme Court law clerks, including attorney John Eastman.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Eastman penned the infamous memos outlining a bogus theory for justifying former Vice President Pence’s stalling of the Electoral College certification. Pence ultimately refused, and a federal judge <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/a-federal-judge-found-that-trump-likely-committed-serious-crimes-now-what/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-color: rgb(42, 83, 193); text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-underline-offset: 0.3rem;">just this week</a> pinged Eastman as “likely” having committed three federal crimes along with his client Trump, in that connection. (The court’s opinion specifically had to do with attorney-client privilege and work product claims, and thus has no bearing on actual criminal liability, which would have to come through the Justice Department.)</p></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/clarence-ginni-thomas-january-6th/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/clarence-ginni-thomas-january-6th/</a></font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">raw story</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and attempt to overthrow the election has moved closer</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/ginni-thomas-2657718889/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">to subpoenaing Ginni Thomas</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, co-chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) revealed on Sunday.</span></font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More evidence has been presented about the political relationships that Thomas along with her husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, have with special interest groups that control the judicial options handed to Republican lawmakers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo, who has worked with the Federalist Society for years, and has been referred to as "arguably the most powerful figure in the federal justice system" with his "network of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">interlocking nonprofits</a>," the <em>Washington Post</em> described, which were started and funded to get Republicans to put their judges on the bench.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Brett Kavanaugh was being promoted by Trump, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/leonard-leo-assures-koch-donors-about-trump-judiciary-picks.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Leo told a group of top Koch network donors</a> that he was "just the beginning of an even bigger effort to load up the federal judiciary with conservative judges," quoted CNBC. It proved to be correct, as Trump scored his third Justice just weeks before the election. It resulted in the overturning of reproductive freedom and privacy for women across the country.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-secrets-of-leonard-leo-the-man-behind-trumps-supreme-court-pick?ref=home" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A former colleague told the Daily Beast that </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Leo’s efforts</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> to change the judiciary came from his realization that the conservative position on culture war issues like abortion, contraception, and LGBTQ rights were unpopular. Americans were never going to vote to eliminate LGBTQ equality, abortion or contraception. The only way of ensuring that it would happen is if it was forced on Americans by conservative justices.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That became reiterated in Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring decision eliminating <em>Roe</em>.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents,” Thomas <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wrote</a> citing to the rulings that legalized contraception, same-sex relationships and marriage equality, respectively. “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including <em>Griswold</em>, <em>Lawrence</em>, and <em>Obergefell</em>.<em> </em>Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous’ … we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's the reason that the House moved legislation to codify same-sex relationships and contraception legislatively.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Leo's life in politics is certainly his own, his close relationship with the Thomas family appears to be a driving force behind the decisions from Thomas.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Leo and Thomas have a longstanding friendship that began when he served under Thomas on the Court of Appeals in 1990 before Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the Washington Post explained</a>.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Daily Beast noted that the<b> two have taken vacations together.</b></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>"Leo made Thomas the godfather of one of his children</b>, and, according to The New York Times, has hosted the justice on vacation at his New England getaway. Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, was also the subject of a recent profile by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, titled, ‘Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to The Supreme Court?’ It detailed the staggering extent and depth of connections between the justice’s wife and conservative groups," said the report.</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That same piece noted that Leo didn't start at the Federalist Society right after being hired so he could help Thomas through the confirmation process. Thomas has been a member of the group since the 1980s when he was in college and continues to give</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The report also described Leo's adviser from the company <a href="https://www.crcadvisors.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">CRC Advisors</a>, </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">who helped Thomas promote a new release of his 2007 memoir in 2021. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">CRC was founded by a former executive director of the National Conservative Political Action Committee in the late 80s. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CRC Advisors was then created by Leo and the CRC's longtime President Greg Mueller in 2020. Leo </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/leonard-leo-crc-advisors-federalist-society-50d4d844-19a3-4eab-af2b-7b74f1617d1c.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">told Axios</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> when the CRC planned to inject a “minimum of $10 million” into court advocacy matters ahead of the 2020 election.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was promoting a new release of his 2007 memoir last October, he made an interesting choice for his public relations firm, a company run by one of the most influential figures in conservative legal circles: Leonard Leo. Leo, the former head of the Federalist Society and a top fundraiser for right-wing judiciary activist groups, wasn’t just in charge of Thomas’ memoir; Leo’s PR firm, CRC Advisors, was also tasked with promoting a Thomas documentary, and the firm was the registered agent for four Thomas-centric web domains," noted the report.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They've also been activists in the far right side of the Catholic church, the<em> </em><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">New York Times described in Feb. 2022</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Leo, a Catholic like the justice, first met him when he was clerking on the District of Columbia Circuit," said the <em>Times</em>. "Thomas, then a judge on that court, became a mentor. </b>The justice has spent time at Leo’s New England vacation home, is godfather to one of his children and has supported him through hardships, including the death of his 14-year-old daughter from spina bifida. The two men often discussed religion — Thomas once recommended he read “A History of Christianity” by Paul Johnson — and Leo says Justice Thomas saw parallels between how the church grew and how to build a body of conservative jurisprudence."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The same report from the Times also revealed that Thomas is the godfather of one of Leo's daughters.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The justice has spent time at Leo’s New England vacation home, is godfather to one of his children and has supported him through hardships, including the death of his 14-year-old daughter from spina bifida," said the <em>Times</em>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas even keeps a drawing from Leo's daughter on his desk, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-conservative-pipeline-to-the-supreme-court" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a <em>New Yorker</em> report from 2017 reported</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In the meantime, he had married his high-school sweetheart, Sally Schroeder. In 1992, they had their first child, Margaret, who was born with spina bifida, which confined her to a wheelchair and led to other medical complications... 'She was extraordinarily vivacious, talented, simple. She had a great way with people,' [said Leo]. Clarence Thomas, Leo said, still keeps her drawings under glass on his desk.'"</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas went so far as to say that she considers Leo to be a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-is-ginni-thomas-saying-now-the-evolution-of-an-unusually-outspoken-supreme-court-spouse/2018/12/26/883da960-f753-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">mentor</a> of hers</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">She gave Leo an award at one of her Impact Awards. She called him a "hero," a "force of nature," and a "disciplined strategist." Prior to that, however, served on the board of Thomas’ Liberty Central group in 2010, which hired CRC Public Relations to be the spokesperson. He and Mrs. Thomas came together for the Council for National Policy, where Leo serves on the board and Thomas works on the political side, the Council for National Policy Action.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Such a board welcomes a group of other board members like extremists, conspiracy theorists, a recognized hate group and Ginni Thomas. The group was among those who attempted to overturn the 2020 election.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A 2013 <em>Mother Jones</em> report noted that the two also worked together on the right-wing messaging group Groundwell, </b>which would meet in the offices of Judicial Watch. They coordinated with Breitbart and the conservative <em>Washington Examiner</em>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Believing they are losing the messaging war with progressives, a group of prominent conservatives in Washington—including the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and journalists from Breitbart News and the Washington Examiner—has been meeting privately since early this year to concoct talking points, coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for “a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation,” <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">reported <em>Mother Jones</em>, citing documents they'd obtained</a>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The 2013 report listed, “Among the conveners listed in an invitation to a May 8 meeting of Groundswell were Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News Network; Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who resoundingly lost a Maryland Senate race last year (and is now running for a House seat); Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society; Sandy Rios, a Fox News contributor; </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lori Roman</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a former executive director of the American Legislative Exchange Council; and <b>Austin Ruse,</b> the head of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Many of these people also pushed the 2020 election conspiracy and attempt to overthrow the election. <a href="https://theacru.org/2020/11/07/media-availability-lori-roman-election-fraud-expert-and-president-of-the-american-constitutional-rights-union/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Roman paints herself as an election fraud expert</a>. Austin Ruse, <a href="https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Catholic-Case-Trump/Austin-Ruse/9781684510962" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">another Trump supporter</a>, argued <a href="https://ricochet.com/1095512/okay-may-controversial-trump-is-owed-a-second-term/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Trump is "owed"</a> a second term.</b></font></p><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 7 22</font></div><div align="left"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) left no doubt that the House committee investigating the Jan. 6th insurrection will definitely consider issuing a subpoena to Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, if she refuses to testify.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During her appearance with host Jake Tapper, the conservative lawmaker was asked about Thomas’ attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results and whether the committee will press her to testify.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“She was writing to them about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, not to mention her correspondence with Arizona lawmakers pushing fake electors. Is your committee planning on talking to her?” host Tapper asked.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are,” Cheney replied. “The committee is engaged with her counsel and hope she will agree to come in voluntarily. The committee is prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I hope it doesn’t get to that and I hope she comes voluntarily,” she continued. “We’ve spoken with numbers of people who are similarly situated in terms of the discussions that she was having as you mentioned. It’s very important for us to speak with her and, as I said, I hope she’ll agree to do so voluntarily — I’m sure we’ll contemplate a subpoena if she won’t.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.rawstory.com/ginni-thomas-2657718889/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Watch below or at this link.</a></font></p></div><div align="left"><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/04/02/on-ginni-thomas-obstruction-exposure-and-clarences-former-clerk-carl-nichols/">https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/04/02/on-ginni-thomas-obstruction-exposure-and-clarences-former-clerk-carl-nichols/</a></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">O</font><a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/04/02/on-ginni-thomas-obstruction-exposure-and-clarences-former-clerk-carl-nichols/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: On Ginni Thomas’ Obstruction Exposure and Clarence’s Former Clerk, Carl Nichols" data-wpel-link="internal" style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: inherit; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">N GINNI THOMAS’ OBSTRUCTION EXPOSURE</span><span style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240);"> AND CLARENCE’S FORMER CLERK, CARL NICHOLS</span></a></b></font></p><header class="entry-content-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="post-meta-infos" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; position: relative; top: -8px; display: block;"><time class="date-container minor-meta updated" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">April 2, 2022</time><span class="text-sep text-sep-date" style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">/</span><span class="comment-container minor-meta" style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/04/02/on-ginni-thomas-obstruction-exposure-and-clarences-former-clerk-carl-nichols/#comments" class="comments-link" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">170 Comments</a></span><span class="text-sep text-sep-comment" style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">/</span><span class="blog-categories minor-meta" style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">in <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2020-presidential-election/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">2020 Presidential Election</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/january-6-insurrection/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">January 6 Insurrection</a> </span><span class="text-sep text-sep-cat" style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">/</span><span class="blog-author minor-meta" style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">by <span class="entry-author-link" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="vcard author" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="fn" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/author/emptywheel/" title="Posts by emptywheel" rel="author" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">emptywheel</a></span></span></span></span></span></font></header><div class="entry-content" itemprop="text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a motions hearing for January 6 assault defendant Garret Miller on November 22, former Clarence Thomas clerk Carl Nichols <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/22/capitol-riot-trump-523211" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">asked</a> the appellate prosecutor for the January 6 investigation, James Pearce, whether someone asking Mike Pence to invalidate the vote count could be charged with the obstruction statute, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240);"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">18 USC 1512(c)(2), that Miller was challenging.</span><b> Pearce replied that the person in question would have to know that such a request of the Vice President was improper.</b></span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 1em 20px 85.8875px; padding: 5px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 7px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(127, 140, 94); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">At a hearing on Monday fo</span><b>r defendant Garret Miller of Richardson, Texas</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">, Nichols made the first move toward a Trump analogy by asking a prosecutor whether the obstruction statute could have been violated by someone who simply “called Vice President Pence to seek to have him adjudge the certification in a particular way.” The judge also asked the prosecutor to assume the person trying to persuade Pence had the “appropriate mens rea,” or guilty mind, to be responsible for a crime.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nichols made no specific mention of Trump, who appointed him to the bench, but the then-president was publicly and privately pressuring Pence in the days before the fateful Jan. 6 tally to decline to certify Joe Biden’s victory. Trump also enlisted other allies, including attorney John Eastman, to lean on Pence.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An attorney with the Justice Department Criminal Division, James Pearce, initially seemed to dismiss the idea that merely lobbying Pence to refuse to recognize the electoral result would amount to the crime of obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I don’t see how that gets you that,” Pearce told the judge.</font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">However, Pearce quickly added that it might well be a crime if the person reaching out to Pence knew the vice president had an obligation under the Constitution to recognize the result.</font></font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“If that person does that knowing it is not an available argument [and is] asking the vice president to do something the individual knows is wrongful … one of the definitions of ‘corruptly’ is trying to get someone to violate a legal duty,” Pearce said.</font></font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At the time (as Josh Gerstein wrote up in his piece), we knew that former Clarence Thomas clerk John Eastman had pressured Pence to throw out legal votes.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;">But we’ve since learned far more details about Eastman’s actions, including his admissions to Pence’s counsel, Greg Jacob, that there was no way SCOTUS would uphold the claim. In fact, those admissions were cited in </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21562091-220328-carter-eastman-order#document/p41/a2092405" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Judge David Carter’s opinion</a><span style="font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;"> finding that Eastman himself likely obstructed the vote count by pressuring Pence to reject the valid votes, because he knew that</span><b> <span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">not even Clarence Thomas</span> </b><span style="font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;">would buy this argument.</span></font></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 1em 20px 85.8875px; padding: 5px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 7px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(127, 140, 94); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ultimately, Dr. Eastman conceded that his argument was contrary to consistent historical practice, 37 would likely be unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court,38 and violated the Electoral Count Act on four separate grounds.39</font></p><p style="font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[snip]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Dr. Eastman himself repeatedly recognized that his plan had no legal support. In his discussion with the Vice President’s counsel, Dr. Eastman “acknowledged” the “100 percent consistent historical practice since the time of the Founding” that the Vice President did not have the authority to act as the memo proposed</span><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242);"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">.254 More importantly, Dr. Eastman admitted more than once that “his proposal violate[d] several provisions of statutory law,”255 including explicitly characterizing the plan as “one more relatively minor violation” of the Electoral Count Act.256 In addition, on January 5, Dr. Eastman conceded that the Supreme Court would unanimously reject his plan for the Vice President to reject electoral votes.257 </span><b>Later that day, Dr. Eastman admitted that his “more palatable” idea to have the Vice President delay, rather than reject counting electors, rested on “the same basic legal theory” that he knew would not survive judicial scrutiny</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">.258</span></span></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">We’ve also learned <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">more details</a> about Ginni Thomas’ role in pressuring Mark Meadows to champion an attempt to steal the election, including — after a gap in the texts produced to the January 6 Committee — attacking Pence.</font></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 1em 20px 85.8875px; padding: 5px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 7px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(127, 140, 94); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The committee received one additional message sent by Thomas to Meadows, on Jan. 10, four days after the “Stop the Steal” rally Thomas said she attended and the deadly attack on the Capitol.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In that message, Thomas expresses support for Meadows and Trump — and directed anger at Vice President Mike Pence, who had refused Trump’s wishes to block the congressional certification of Biden’s electoral college victory.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas wrote to Meadows. “Most of us are disgusted with the VP and are in listening mode to see where to fight with our teams. Those who attacked the Capitol are not representative of our great teams of patriots for DJT!!”</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Amazing times,” she added. “The end of Liberty.”</font></font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas famously remains close with a network of Clarence’s former clerks, so much so she <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/ginni-thomas-apology-clarence-thomas-clerks-trump-rally/2021/02/02/a9818cce-6496-11eb-8c64-9595888caa15_story.html" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">apologized</a> to a listserv of former Justice Thomas clerks for her antics after the insurrection.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Any former Thomas clerk on that listserv would likely understand how exposed in efforts to overturn the vote certification Ginni was.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">As I said, little of that was known, publicly, when former Justice Thomas clerk Carl Nichols asked whether someone who pressured Pence could be exposed for obstruction. We didn’t even, yet, know all these details when </span><b>Judge Nichols <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.227582/gov.uscourts.dcd.227582.72.0_2.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">ruled</a> in Miller’s case on March 7, alone thus far of all the DC District judges, against DOJ’s application of that obstruction statute</b></span><b style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240);">.</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;"> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/03/03/thanks-to-your-bullshit-were-now-under-siege/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">we had just learned</a><span style="font-weight: inherit;"> some of the details about Jacobs’ interactions with former Thomas clerk John Eastman, we did not yet know how centrally involved Ginni was — frankly, we still don’t know, especially since the texts Mark Meadows turned over to the January 6 Committee have a gap during the days when Eastman was most aggressively pressuring Pence.</span></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DOJ may know but if it does it’s not telling.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But now we know more of those details and now we know that Judge Carter found that Eastman and Trump likely did obstruct the vote certification. All those details, combined with Nichols’ treatment of the Miller decision as one that might affect <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">others</em>, up to and including Ginni Thomas and John Eastman and Trump, sure makes it look a lot more suspect that a former Clarence Thomas clerk would write such an outlier decision.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Which brings us to the tactics of this <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.227582/gov.uscourts.dcd.227582.75.0.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">DOJ motion to reconsider</a> filed yesterday in the Miller case. It makes two legal arguments and one logical one.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240);">As </span><a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/03/08/judge-carl-nichols-upends-dojs-january-6-prosecution-strategy/" data-wpel-link="internal" style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">I laid out here</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Nichols ruled that the vote certification was an official proceeding, but that the statute in question only applied to obstruction achieved via the destruction of documents. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240);">He also held that there was sufficient uncertainty about what the statute means that the rule of lenity — basically the legal equivalent of “tie goes to the runner” — would apply.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">DOJ challenged Nichols’ claim that there was enough uncertainty for the rule of lenity to apply. After all, the shade-filled motion suggested, thirteen of Nichols’ colleagues have found little such uncertainty.</font></font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 1em 20px 85.8875px; padding: 5px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 7px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(127, 140, 94); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First, the Court erred by applying the rule of lenity. Rejecting an interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2)’s scope that <span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">every other member of this Court to have considered the issue and every reported case to have considered the issue (to the government’s knowledge) has adopted</span>, the Court found “serious ambiguity” in the statute. Mem. Op. at 28. The rule of lenity applies “‘only if, after seizing everything from which aid can be derived,’” the statute contains “a ‘grievous ambiguity or uncertainty,’” and the Court “‘can make no more than a guess as to what Congress intended.’” Ocasio v. United States, 578 U.S. 282, 295 n.8 (2016) (quoting Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 138-39 (1998)) (emphasis added); see also Mem. Op. at 9 (citing “‘grievous’ ambiguity” standard). Interpreting Section 1512(c)(2) consistently with its plain language to reach any conduct that “obstructs, influences, or impedes” a qualifying proceeding does not give rise to “serious” or “grievous” ambiguity.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[snip]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First, the Court erred by applying the rule of lenity to Section 1512(c)(2) because, as many other judges have concluded after examining the statute’s text, structure, and history, there is no genuine—let alone “grievous” or “serious”—ambiguity.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[snip]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Confirming the absence of ambiguity—serious, grievous, or otherwise—is that despite Section 1512(c)(2)’s nearly 20-year existence, no other judge has found ambiguity in Section 1512(c)(2), <span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">including eight judges on this Court considering the same law and materially identical facts</span>. See supra at 5-6.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[snip]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before this Court’s decision to the contrary, every reported case to have considered the scope of Section 1512(c)(2), see Gov’t Supp. Br., ECF 74, at 7-9, 1 and <span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">every judge on this Court to have considered the issue in cases arising out of the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021</span>, see supra at 5-6, concluded that Section 1512(c)(2) “prohibits obstruction by means other than document destruction.” Sandlin, 2021 WL 5865006, at *5. [my emphasis; note, not all of the 13 challenges to 1512(c)(2) that were rejected made a rule of lenity argument, which is why AUSA Pearce cited eight judges]</font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the other things that this argument will force Nichols to do if he wants to sustain his decision, on top of doubling down on being the extreme outlier on this decision, is to engage with all his colleagues’ opinions rather than (as he did in his original opinion) just with Judge Randolph Moss’.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The government then argued that by deciding that 1512(c)(2) applied to the vote certification but only regarding tampering with documents, Nichols was not actually ruling against DOJ, because he can only dismiss the charge at this stage if the defendant, Miller, doesn’t know what he is charged with, not if the evidence wouldn’t support such a charge.</font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 1em 20px 85.8875px; padding: 5px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 7px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(127, 140, 94); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although Miller has styled his challenge to Section 1512(c)(2)’s scope as an attack on the indictment’s validity, the scope of the conduct covered under Section 1512(c)(2) is distinct from whether Count Three adequately states a violation of Section 1512(c)(2).6 Here, Count Three of the indictment puts Miller on notice as to the charges against which he must defend himself, while also encompassing both the broader theory that a defendant violates Section 1512(c)(2) through any corrupt conduct that “obstructs, impedes, or influences” an official proceeding and the narrower theory that a defendant must “have taken some action with respect to a document,” Mem. Op. at 28, in order to violate Section 1512(c)(2). The Court’s conclusion that only the narrower theory is a viable basis for conviction should not result in dismissal of Count Three in full; instead, the Court would properly enforce that limitation by permitting conviction on that basis alone.</font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The government argues that that means, given Nichols’ ruling, the government must be given the opportunity to prove that Miller’s actions were an attempt to spoil the actual vote certifications that had to be rushed out of the Chambers as mobsters descended.</font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 1em 20px 85.8875px; padding: 5px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 7px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(127, 140, 94); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even assuming the Court’s interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2) were correct, and that the government therefore must prove “Miller took some action with respect to a document, record, or other object in order to corruptly obstruct, impede[,] or influence Congress’s certification of the electoral vote,” Mem. Op. at 29, the Court cannot determine whether Miller’s conduct meets that test until after a trial, at which the government is not limited to the specific allegations in the indictment. 7 And at trial, the government could prove that the Certification proceeding “operates through a deliberate and legally prescribed assessment of ballots, lists, certificates, and, potentially, written objections.” ECF 74, at 41. For example, evidence would show Congress had before it boxes carried into the House chamber at the beginning of the Joint Session that contained “certificates of votes from the electors of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.” Reffitt, supra, Trial Tr. at 1064 (Mar. 4, 2022) (testimony of the general counsel to the Secretary of the United States Senate) (attached as Exhibit B).</font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Those are the two legal arguments the government has invited Nichols to reconsider.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But along the way of making those arguments, DOJ pointed out the absurd result dictated by Nichols’ opinion: That Guy Reffitt’s physical threats against members of Congress or <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/page/file/1359541/download" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">the threat Miller is accused of making</a> against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would not be obstruction, because neither man touched any documents.</font></font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 1em 20px 85.8875px; padding: 5px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 7px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(127, 140, 94); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Any such distinction between these forms of obstruction produces the absurd result that a defendant who attempts to destroy a document being used or considered by a tribunal violates Section 1512(c) but a defendant who threatens to use force against the officers conducting that proceeding escapes criminal liability under the statute.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[snip]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finally, an interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2) that imposes criminal liability only when an individual takes direct action “with respect to a document, record, or other object” to obstruct a qualifying proceeding leads to absurd results. See United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 69 (1994) (rejecting interpretation of a criminal statute that would “produce results that were not merely odd, but positively absurd”). That interpretation would appear, for example, not to encompass an individual who seeks to “obstruct[], influence[], or impede[]” a congressional proceeding by explicitly stating that he intends to stop the legislators from performing their constitutional and statutory duties to certify Electoral College vote results by “drag[ging] lawmakers out of the Capitol by their heels with their heads hitting every step,” United States v. Reffitt, 21-cr-32 (DLF), Trial Tr. 1502, carrying a gun onto Capitol grounds, id. at 1499, and then leading a “mob and encourag[ing] it to charge toward federal officers, pushing them aside to break into the Capitol,” id. at 1501-02, unless he also picked up a “document or record” related to the proceeding during that violent assault. The statutory text does not require such a counterintuitive result.</font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The mention of Reffitt is surely included not <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">just</em> to embarrass Nichols by demonstrating the absurdity of his result. It is tactical.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right now, there are two obstruction cases that might be the first to be appealed to the DC Circuit. This decision, or Guy Reffitt’s conviction, including on the obstruction count.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By asking Nichols to reconsider, DOJ may have bought time such that Reffitt will appeal before they would appeal Nichols’ decision. But by including language about Reffitt’s threats to lawmakers, DOJ has ensured not just the Reffitt facts and outcome will be available if and when they do appeal, but so would (if they are forced to appeal this decision) a Nichols decision upholding the absurd result that Reffitt didn’t obstruct the vote certification. Including the language puts him on the hook for it if he wants to force DOJ to appeal his decision.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I said in my post on Nichols’ opinion that DOJ probably considered themselves lucky that Nichols had argued for such an absurd result.</font></p><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(245, 246, 242); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 1em 20px 85.8875px; padding: 5px 20px; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 7px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-color: rgb(127, 140, 94); border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They may count themselves lucky that this particular opinion is not a particularly strong argument against their application. Nichols basically argues that intimidating Congress by assaulting the building is not obstruction of what he concedes is an official proceeding.</font></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By including Reffitt in their motion for reconsideration, DOJ has made it part of the official record if and when they do appeal Nichols’ decision.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">This would be a dick-wagging filing even absent the likelihood that Nichols has some awareness of Ginni Thomas’ antics and possibly even Eastman’s. It holds Nichols to account for blowing off virtually all the opinions of his colleagues, including fellow Trump appointees Dabney Friedrich and Tim Kelly, forcing him to defend his stance as the outlier it is.</font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">But that is all the more true given that there’s now so much</span><b> public evidence that Nichols’ deviant decision might have some tie to his personal relationship with the Thomases</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;"> and even the non-public evidence of Ginni’s own role.</span></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Plus, by making any appeal of this opinion — up to the Supreme Court, possibly — pivot on how and why Nichols came up with such an outlier opinion, it would make Justice Thomas’ participation in the decision far more problematic.</b></font></p><hr style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; border-style: solid; border-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-image: initial; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left: 0px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); clear: both; margin: 10px 0px 30px;" /><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.227582/gov.uscourts.dcd.227582.72.0_2.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Carl Nichols, March 7, 2022, Miller</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21562091-220328-carter-eastman-order#document/p41/a2092405" data-wpel-link="external" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">David Carter, March 28, 2022, Eastman</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.85em 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Opinions upholding obstruction application:</font></p><ol style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.227256/gov.uscourts.dcd.227256.63.0.pdf" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Dabney Friedrich, December 10, 2021, Sandlin</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.226726/gov.uscourts.dcd.226726.558.0.pdf" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Amit Mehta, December 20, 2021, Caldwell</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.227771/gov.uscourts.dcd.227771.88.0_2.pdf" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">James Boasberg, December 21, 2021, Mostofsky</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21170582-211228-kelly-deny-motion-to-dismiss" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Tim Kelly, December 28, 2021, Nordean</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.230237/gov.uscourts.dcd.230237.87.0.pdf" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Randolph Moss, December 28, 2021, Montgomery</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1484595746687135750" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Beryl Howell, January 21, 2022, DeCarlo</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21194714-220201-bates-1512-opinion" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">John Bates, February 1, 2022, McHugh</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.226617/gov.uscourts.dcd.226617.78.0_2.pdf" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, February 9, 2022, Grider</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1497207954898042894" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Richard Leon (by minute order), February 24, 2022, Costianes</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.226905/gov.uscourts.dcd.226905.63.0.pdf" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Christopher Cooper, February 25, 2022, Robertson</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2021cr0093-47" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Rudolph Contreras, announced March 8, released March 14, Andries</a></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 3px 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.233180/gov.uscourts.dcd.233180.37.0.pdf" rel="external noopener noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Paul Friedman, March 19, Puma</a></font></li></ol></div><footer class="entry-footer" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 240);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="blog-tags minor-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Tags:</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"> <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/carl-nichols/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Carl Nichols</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/clarence-thomas/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Clarence Thomas</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/dabney-friedrich/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Dabney Friedrich</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/david-carter/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">David Carter</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/garret-miller/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Garret Miller</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/ginni-thomas/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Ginni Thomas</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/greg-jacob/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Greg Jacob</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/guy-reffitt/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Guy Reffitt</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/james-pearce/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">James Pearce</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/john-eastman/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">John Eastman</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/mark-meadows/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Mark Meadows</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/mike-pence/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Mike Pence</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/randolph-moss/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Randolph Moss</a>, <a href="https://www.emptywheel.net/tag/tim-kelly/" rel="tag" data-wpel-link="internal" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px rgb(212, 212, 212); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%;">Tim Kelly</a></span></span></font></footer></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/ginni-thomas-shares-a-soros-conspiracy-meme-creates-more-of-a-mess-for-clarence.html">https://slate.com/news-and-politics/<b>2018/05</b>/ginni-thomas-shares-a-soros-conspiracy-meme-creates-more-of-a-mess-for-clarence.html</a></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">salon <b>5/2018</b></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="103" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtcoh900466gm8x4kgj8t9@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ginni Thomas is at it again. On Saturday, the conservative activist and lobbyist—and spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—shared </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/1941699282529581" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">a meme on her Facebook page</a><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> accusing Democrats of engaging in “a silent coup, not just against Trump, but also against the very premises of our constitutional republic.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">” The meme, which came from the Citizens [sic] Mandate, featured an image of </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">George Soros,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> the liberal donor often </span><a href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/394062/anti-semitic-soros-conspiracy-theory-posted-by-notable-christian-zionist/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">at the center</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about </span><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-it-s-not-anti-semitism-if-you-just-hate-the-bad-jews-1.5804871" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">malign “globalist” machinations</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Americans, the meme declared, “will decide if they want to reward those who are engaged in [the] silent coup” at the ballot box in November.</span></font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="79" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfauk00163i5texhm4hby@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni has long been on the far-right fringe of the conservative movement, but in recent months, she’s escalated her rhetoric against perceived political enemies.<b> She has alleged that President Barack Obama <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/1858477077518469" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">“rigged” (unsuccessfully) the 2016 election</a> for Hillary Clinton and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/1835500956482748" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">that Robert Mueller</a> is “going to fabricate whatever fake scandals [are] needed to take down Trump.</b></span>” But by sharing this “coup” language, Thomas has taken an aggressive new stance—one that yet again creates thorny ethical issues for her husband.</font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="79" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfauk00163i5texhm4hby@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">let’s say a 2018 race were contested all the way to SCOTUS. In light of the fact that, as part of her lobbying work, Ginni has claimed that Democrats are engaged in a “coup” that must be thwarted to save “our constitutional republic,” should Clarence Thomas recuse? Under federal law, the answer is likely yes. And if Clarence Thomas served on any other court, Ginni Thomas’ posts might compel him to. But because he sits on the Supreme Court, there is simply no way to make him respect his ethical duties.</font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="129" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfaul00173i5tj5z785tm@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s often claimed that Supreme Court justices do not follow any code of ethics, but that’s not quite right. In theory, the justices are supposed to follow the same <a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-united-states-judges" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">code of conduct</a> to which all other federal judges must adhere. Moreover, federal statutes governing recusal and financial disclosure apply to all federal judges, including the justices. The problem is one of enforcement: There is currently no mechanism to force the justices to comply with these rules. If a lower court judge improperly declines to recuse herself from a case, a litigant can ask a higher court to adjudicate the dispute. But SCOTUS is, by constitutional command, the highest court in the land. There is thus no higher authority to step in when the justices do not adequately police themselves.</font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="116" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfaum00183i5ttinhdcej@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congress has considered various solutions to this predicament. In 2011, House Democrats pushed <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/862" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">a bill</a> that would create a new court, made up of judges or justices, to weigh in on SCOTUS recusals. The late Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/why-don-t-supreme-court-justices-have-ethics-code-n745236" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">repeatedly introduced bills</a> to increase transparency among the justices by declaring them bound to the ethical rules of the federal judiciary. Senate Democrats have <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/835/text" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">introduced a similar measure</a> that would obligate the justices to follow the judicial code.<b> Sen. Elizabeth Warren <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/01/supreme-court-ethics-problem-elizabeth-warren-opinion-215772" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">touted the legislation</a> after Justice Neil Gorsuch <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/08/why_neil_gorsuch_shouldn_t_speak_at_the_trump_international_hotel.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">spoke at Trump International Hotel</a> to a group bankrolled by the same foundation that helped to fund litigation against public sector unions in <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/the-supreme-courts-conservatives-prepare-to-hobble-public-sector-unions-as-a-gift-to-the-gop.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">a case before the Supreme Court</a>.</b></font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="164" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfaui00153i5tzmwmamo0@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet as Brookings’ Russell Wheeler has <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/whats-so-hard-about-regulating-supreme-court-justices-ethics-a-lot/" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">pointed out</a>, were any of these efforts to become law, they would immediately encounter several hurdles. First, the Constitution <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">commands the establishment</a> of “one Supreme Court”; if Congress created another court with authority over SCOTUS, it could arguably create a <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">second</em> supreme court, in contravention of the Constitution. Second, only parties to a case may request a recusal—which they almost never do at the Supreme Court. Would that change if some body had power to enforce recusals? Maybe, but it’s no sure thing given the high stakes. If the recusal challenge fails, after all, the targeted justice may be embittered toward the party that asked him or her to sit out the case. (Virtually all calls for a justice’s recusal in recent years have been made by outside groups eager to highlight perceived conflicts of interest.<b> When the Sierra Club asked Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse from a 2004 dispute, he responded with <a href="http://news.findlaw.com/wsj/docs/scotus/chny31804jsmem.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">a howl of defiant rage</a>.</b>)</font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="79" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfavj001e3i5tiq7womir@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These obstacles are, of course, hypothetical, and they may be surmountable, but it doesn’t much matter so long as a majority of Congress remains indifferent to SCOTUS’s ethics. Controversies flare up now and then, like when Scalia <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/us/politics/scalia-led-court-in-taking-trips-funded-by-private-sponsors.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">accepted lavish trips</a> from private sponsors or when <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Thomas <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/11/15/142339329/the-nation-clarence-thomas-vs-legal-ethics" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">did not recuse</a> himself from Affordable Care Act litigation despite his wife’s fervent lobbying against the law</span>. For the most part, though, Americans don’t appear especially worried about the justice’s relatively laissez-faire self-regulation.</font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="94" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfave001a3i5t8xhvtj7m@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas seems almost determined to change that. <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/clarence-thomas-is-moving-closer-to-the-trumpist-fringe-his-wife-ginni-is-already-there.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">As I reported in April</a>, her activism has largely shifted from direct political lobbying to Facebook—where, on her verified page, she has shared memes <b>attacking Obama, Clinton, Mueller, David Hogg, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/1887047274661449" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">Andrew McCabe</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/1852887891410721" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">DACA recipients</a>,</b> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/1876384945727682" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">the Girl Scouts</a>, and the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/1837762622923248" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">American Civil Liberties Union</a>. She has also <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GinniLThomas/posts/1913184298714413" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">touted a meme</a> blaming gun control for the Holocaust featuring a photo of the famous shoe exhibition at the Holocaust Museum. And now she has accused Democrats of engaging in a “coup” to bring down Trump and <b>“our constitutional republic.</b></span><b>" [vs democracy, see Az wackos]</b></font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="94" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfave001a3i5t8xhvtj7m@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ginni’s views should not be automatically imputed to her spouse.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Yet her very public stances, which ultimately promote her political lobbying firm, raise a legitimate concern under the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">federal recusal statute</a>—which, again, purports to cover the justices. That law directs the justices to recuse themselves from any case in which “his spouse … has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”</span></font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf" data-word-count="99" data-uri="slate.com/_components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfavc00193i5tnhboptzy@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Even a narrow reading of that statute indicates that the Thomases may have crossed an ethical line. Gabe Roth, executive director of the pro-transparency group Fix the Court, told me that “it’s not difficult to imagine that Justice Thomas’ votes in certain cases over the years may have translated into more consulting work” for his wife—“even as the judicial ethics statute dictates that a justice ‘shall disqualify himself’ from proceedings that could impact his spouse’s livelihood.” Ginni Thomas, for example, raised <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/07/02/new-financial-forms-show-clarence-thomass-wife-continued-to-lobby-against-healthcare-in-2011" style="box-sizing: inherit; cursor: pointer; outline-color: transparent; transition: color 0.12s ease 0s, fill 0.12s ease 0s, border-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-color 0.12s ease 0s, outline-style 0.12s ease 0s; text-decoration-line: none; border-bottom-width: 2px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-color: var(--theme-color,#ff0e50);">a substantial amount of money</a> lobbying against the ACA. Her husband then voted to strike down the entire law.</span></font></p><p class="
slate-paragraph slate-graf slate-paragraph--tombstone" data-word-count="98" data-uri="slate.com/components/slate-paragraph/instances/cjgwtfavg001c3i5t8i1fuypv@published" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The spouses of Supreme Court justices are assuredly allowed to hold political opinions. But Ginni’s extreme activism is her livelihood. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">She doesn’t just have views—she has an “interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome” of Supreme Court cases</span>.</b> Under our current ethical regime, though, there would be no way to force Clarence Thomas to even consider recusing himself from a case that has consequences for his wife’s bottom line. The system is badly broken. And its flaws allow Clarence to enact from the bench the same political agenda that his spouse relentlessly promotes. What a coup.</font></p></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/09/the-scariest-couple-in-america-clarence-and-virginia-thomas/</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="post_date" title="2022-03-09" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1.2em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">MARCH 9, 2022</span></font><h1 class="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: calc(18px + 1.15vw); max-width: 800px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/09/the-scariest-couple-in-america-clarence-and-virginia-thomas/" rel="bookmark" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">The Scariest Couple in America: Clarence and Virginia Thomas</a></font></h1><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="post_author_intro" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 1.2em;">BY</span> <span class="post_author" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; display: inline-block; line-height: 1.2em;"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/fra6u/" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 1px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-transform: uppercase;">DAVID ROSEN</a></span>
</font><div class="post_content" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; max-width: 680px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the most frightening articles to recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word;">appeared</a> in <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">The New York Times</em> is “The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas” by Danny Hakim and Jo Becker. It is a follow-up article to one <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word;">written</a> by Jane Mayer, “Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court,” in <span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">The New Yorker</span>. They should be read as a warning, a foreshadowing, of what is likely to come as the U.S. Supreme Court and radical-right politics gain increasingly more power and influence.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Times</em>’s authors note, “Since the founding of the nation, no spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice has been as overt a political activist as Ginni Thomas.” They add, quoting Mrs. Thomas, that the couple believe that “America is in a vicious battle for its founding principles.” Going further, the authors argue, “In a nation freighted by division and upheaval, the Thomases have found their moment.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For all of Pres. Donald Trump’s ranting, corruption and false claims, his <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/26/politics/trump-kavanaugh-gorsuch-barrett-supreme-court/index.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word;">appointment</a> of three fierce conservatives to the Court will be his historical legacy. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have joined Thomas and Samuel Alito to forge a solid rightwing majority. Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, seeks to serve as a moderating force, holding the shrinking center. The liberal wing has shrunk to Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer; Breyer is retiring and will likely be replaced by Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American to be appointed to the Court.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">History has its own surprises. In 1991, Pres. George H. W. Bush nominated Thomas for the Court to replace Thurgood Marshall. Marshall served as chief of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and argued the historic 1954 <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Brown v. Board of Education </em>case, in which the Court declared “separate but equal” unconstitutional in public schools.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Thomas was a very different appointment. A Yale Law School graduate, he was influenced by the writings of Ayn Rand</b>. He worked for Senator John Danforth (MO) and briefly served as head of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. At his Senate confirmation hearing, chaired by Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), Anita Hill raised concerns regarding sexual harassment that were swept under the proverbial rug. The <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Times</em> article identifies three other women who allege that they were subject to Thomas’s harassment, including one while he has served on the Court.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most revealing insight into Justice Thomas might well have been offered by Brown Jackson, now being consider for a Court seat. At a lunch meeting with Thomas, she recalled thinking: “’I don’t understand you. You sound like my parents. You sound like people I grew up with.’ But the lessons he tended to draw from the experiences of the segregated South seemed to be different than those of everybody I know.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas and Ginni Lamb met in 1986 while she worked for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; they married 1987. She is from a leading Republican family of Omaha (NB), her mother a leading figure in the state – and national – Republican Party. <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">The Washington Post</em> reported that one of her aunts said, “He [Thomas] treated her so well, all of his other qualities, made up for his being Black.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mrs. Thomas has long been a conservative political activist. In 1996, Phyllis Schlafly, who successful blocked the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), praised her as a “second-generation Engle” [eagle?]; Schlafly found the Eagle Forum, a conservative group, in 1975</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Justice Thomas appeared at the event with his wife. In 2010, she founded Liberty Central to link “Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists.”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2013, Mrs. Thomas joined with Stephen Bannon, John Bolton and Frank Gaffney to found the Groundswell </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">group that sought, in the words of one report, to “cook up battle plans for their ongoing fights against the Obama administration, congressional Democrats, progressive outfits, and the Republican establishment and ‘clueless’ GOP congressional leaders.” One of its members was James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas. Together with O’Keefe, she </span><a href="https://buriedtruth.com/docs/Groundswell-rightwing-group-Ginni_Thomas.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word;">reportedly</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> founded Crowdsourcers. In addition, she has been associated with other leading conservative organizations, including Turning Point USA, the Heritage Foundation and The Daily Caller. She also runs her own consulting firm, Liberty Consulting.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virginia Thomas is an active member of the Council for National Policy, founded in 1981. The Southern Poverty Law Center <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/05/27/shadowy-right-wing-strategy-group-embraces-islamophobic-figures-policies-presents-challenge" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word;">describe</a>s it as “a coalition of influential right-wing leaders, political operatives, conservative media figures, members of the religious right, free-market fundamentalists and donors.” It adds, “the coalition operates on multiple fronts and focuses on political strategy, media and grassroots organizing.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New Yorker reports that in 2010 Thomas, with Kimberly Fletcher, head of a group called Moms for America, co-hosted the “Remember the Ladies Banquet” at the Liberty <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">xpo</em> & Symposium, described as the “largest conservative training event in history.” Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, was a speaker at the symposium.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Times </em>notes that in 2019, she “joined the nine-member board of C.N.P Action, an arm of the council organized as a 501(c)4 … that allows for direct political action.” <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">The</em> <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">New Yorker’</em>s Meyer describes C.N.P. Action, “behind closed doors, [it] connects wealthy donors with some of the most radical right-wing figures in America.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most troubling part of the <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Times </em>story concerns “the extent to which Justice Thomas flouted judicial-ethical guidance by participating in events hosted by conservative organizations with matters before the court.” It adds, “those organizations showered the couple with accolades and, in at least one case, used their appearance to attract event fees, donations and new members.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2002, Thomas headlined an event for the Council for National Policy and in ’08 he attended one of its meetings and, according to the <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Times</em>, “was photographed with a gavel behind a lectern bearing the group’s name.” That same year he offered the keynote address at a special Manhattan Institute event and allegedly attended an all-expenses paid retreat put on by Charles Koch in Palm Springs (CA). (Koch funded a documentary, “Created Equal,” about Thomas.) In 2017, Thomas made a second appearance at the Eagle Forum when his wife received a special award.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mrs. Thomas attended the 2016 Republican convention as a Sen. Ted Cruz (R-FL) delegate initially opposed to Trump’s nomination. However, once he was in office, she became a devoted Trump supporter. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Following Kavanaugh’s nomination of the Court in July 2018, Trump invited Justice Thomas to a private dinner at the White House and he brought Mrs. Thomas. In follow-up, Ginni Thomas sought repeated meetings with Trump, which he apparently obliged.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">At one, as <span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">The New Yorker</span> reports, “by all accounts it was uncomfortable.” It then notes:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1rem 0px; padding: 0.5em 0px 0.5em 2em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; border-color: rgb(231, 231, 231); border-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0.1em;"><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas opened by saying that she didn’t trust everyone in the room, then pressed Trump to purge his Administration of disloyal members of the “deep state,” handing him an enemies list that she and Groundswell had compiled. Some of the participants prayed, warning that gay marriage, which the Supreme Court legalized in 2015, was undermining morals in America.</font></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Times</em> notes that a Trump aide told reporters that “she [Thomas] began by leading the prayer.” It also reported the aide mentioned “talk about ‘the transgender agender’ and parents ‘chopping off their children’s breasts.’” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">T<b>homas brought with her Frank Gaffney, head of Center for Security Policy and a leading proponent of banning Muslims, and several other associates. </b> As Mayer notes, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“the White House was not informed that Gaffney’s group had been paying Liberty Consulting for the previous two years.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Times</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> reports that an ex-Trump aide called the meeting between the former president and Ginni Thomas as the <b>“craziest” meeting he’d ever attended.</b></span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reflecting on Mrs. Thomas’s visits with Trump, the Times notes, “It was an event with no precedent …: the wife of sitting Supreme Court justice lobbying a sitting president when several cases involving transgender rights were making them way through the federal courts.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Mrs. Thomas played an active role in support of the January 6<sup style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 0.5em;">th</sup> gathering at the Capitol. </b> According to The New Yorker, “In a Facebook post that went viral, she linked to a news item about the protest, writing<b>, ‘<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">love maga</span> people!!!!’” </b>It noted that “Shortly afterward, she posted about Ronald Reagan’s famous “A Time for Choosing” speech. Her next status update said, “<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">god bless each of you standing up</span> or <span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">praying</span>.” It points out that, two days after the insurrection, “she added a disclaimer to her feed, noting that she’d written the posts ‘before violence in US Capitol.’”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">The New Yorker</span>’s Mayer reminds readers: “Ginni Thomas has held so many leadership or advisory positions at conservative pressure groups that it’s hard to keep track of them. And many, if not all, of these groups have been involved in cases that have come before her husband.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The increasingly politicized culture wars is the nexus where the interests of the scariest couple in America merge into a shared agenda. A woman’s right to determine her pregnancy, gay/transgender rights, “critical race theory,” popular elections and book censorship, among others, are up for grabs. As the <span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;">Times</span> warns, “… the Thomases are winning the war for the courts – and, some would argue, the country.”</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><p class="author_description" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em; max-width: 680px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.5em;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word;">David Rosen </strong>is the author of Sex, Sin & Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York’s Forbidden into America’s New Normal (Skyhorse, 2015). He can be reached at <a href="http://us.mc845.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=drosennyc@verizon.net" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">drosennyc@verizon.net</a>; check out <a href="http://www.davidrosenwrites.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; word-break: break-word; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">www.DavidRosenWrites.com</a>.</span></font></p></div></div></div><div align="left"><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>=</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1 22</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> 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 <b>it’s “<a href="https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1483429546204487686" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">concerning</a>” that <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ginni Thomas</a> signed <a href="http://conservativeactionproject.com/conservative-leaders-remove-cheney-and-kinzinger-from-house-republican-conference/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a letter</a> attacking the House January 6 Select Committee.</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Peter+Strzok" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Peter Strzok</strong></a>, 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.</font></font></p><div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-slot="6339868799" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 20px; display: block;" /></font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“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 <a href="https://twitter.com/petestrzok/status/1483429547295092736" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wrote</a>, “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?”</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/storytelling/capitol-riot-mob-arrests/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">More than 700 Americans</a> have been charged in conjunction with the January 6 attack.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The letter, resurfaced by Charlie Sykes [ntbcw savage] at the never-Trump media outlet <a href="https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/trump-previews-the-gops-future" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Bulwark</a>, 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.</b>”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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!!!!”</b>...[twt]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref twt</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap"><b>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”</b></span></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref 2</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">December 15, 2021</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Honorable Kevin McCarthy<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Minority Leader and Member (CA-23)<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />U.S. House of Representatives<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />2468 Rayburn House Office Building<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Washington, DC 20515</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dear Leader McCarthy,</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The undersigned conservatives ask that the House Republican Conference act immediately to remove both Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) from the Republican conference due to their egregious actions as part of the House of Representative’s January 6th Select Committee.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As you are aware, this committee has no formal representation from Republicans. Both Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger serve at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). As part of Pelosi’s team, Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger have deliberately sought to undermine the privacy and due process of their fellow Republicans, and those of private citizens, with improperly issued subpoenas and other investigatory tactics designed not to pursue any valid legislative end, but merely to exploit for the sake of political harassment and demagoguery.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The actions of Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger on behalf of House Democrats have given supposedly bipartisan justification to an overtly partisan political persecution that brings disrespect to our country’s rule of law, legal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong, and which demeans the standing of the House.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As duly elected representatives, Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger are free to serve in the House, but they should no longer do so with the privileges granted to members of the House Republican Conference. They should no longer be given access to the benefits of a conference they actively seek to undermine.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We ask that the GOP conference meet immediately to vote on stripping Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger from their membership in the GOP conference. We further inform you that conservative leaders are launching a nationwide movement to add citizens’ voices to this effort.</font></p><hr style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1.313em 0px; border-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.075) currentcolor currentcolor; border-style: solid none none; border-right: 0px none; border-bottom: 0px none; border-left: 0px none; border-image: initial;" /><table style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); width: 960px; margin-bottom: 1.313em; border-spacing: 0px; border-top: 0px;"><tbody style="box-sizing: border-box;"><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Edwin Meese III</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Attorney General<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President Ronald Reagan (1985-1988)</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable J. Kenneth Blackwell</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman, Conservative Action Project (CAP)<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman, Constitutional Congress, Inc.</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Bob McEwen (R-OH)</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />U.S. House Committee on Rules<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Former Member</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Matt Schlapp</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />American Conservative Union (ACU)</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Jim DeMint</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman, Conservative Partnership Institute<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Member, US Senate (SC 2005-2013)</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Ed Corrigan</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Vice Chairman, Conservative Action Project<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President & CEO, Conservative Partnership Institute</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Jenny Beth Martin</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Tea Party Patriots Citizen Fund</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Election Transparency Initiative</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">David N. Bossie</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Citizens United</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Tony Perkins</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Family Research Council</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable David McIntosh</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Club for Growth</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Scott T. Parkinson</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />VP for Government Affairs<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Club for Growth</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Rachel A. Bovard</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Senior Director of Policy<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI)</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chief Domestic Advisor<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President Ronald Reagan (1987-1988)</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">L. Brent Bozell III</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Founder and President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Media Research Center</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Alfred S. Regnery</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Republic Book Publishers</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Lisa B. Nelson</span></font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Cleta Mitchell, Esq.</span></font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">David Bozell</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />ForAmerica</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Noah Wall</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Executive Vice President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />FreedomWorks</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Chad Connelly</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Founder and President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Faith Wins</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Terry Schilling</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />American Principles Project</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">William L. Walton</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The Bill Walton Show<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Resolute Protector Foundation</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Brooke Rollins</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President and CEO<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />America First Policy Institute (AFPI)</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Russ Vought</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Director<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Office of Management and Budget (2020-2021)</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Wesley Denton</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chief Operating Officer<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI)</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Ginni Thomas</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Liberty Consulting</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Lori <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roman</span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />ACRU Action Fund</span></font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Gary L. Bauer</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />American Values</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Briscoe Cain</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />State Representative<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Texas House of Representatives</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Elaine Donnelly</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Center for Military Readiness</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Craig Shirley</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Reagan Biographer<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Presidential Historian</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Alan M. Gottlieb</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Gary A. Hofmeister</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Businessman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Business Owner</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable George K. Rasley Jr.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Managing Editor<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />ConservativeHQ.com</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Seton Motley</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Less Government</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">H. Preston Hawkins</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The Association for Community Education, Inc.</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Richard Manning</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Americans for Limited Government</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Jeremy Cerone</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Member<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Council for National Policy</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Robert K. Fischer</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Meeting Coordinator<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Conservatives of Faith</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">William Shaker</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />CEO<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Washington Marketing Group</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Paavo Ensio</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Universal Minerals Group</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Richard D Hayes</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Partner<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Hayes, Berry, White & Vanzant, LLP</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Joan Holt Lindsey</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Lindsey Communications</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Allen J. Hebert</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />American-Chinese Fellowship of Houston</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Mary Vought</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Executive Director<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Senate Conservatives Fund</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Clare Lopez</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Founder/President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Lopez Liberty LLC</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Sheryl Kaufman</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Board of Directors<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Americans for Limited Government</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Dr. Allen Unruh</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Founder<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />National Abstinence Clearinghouse</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Amapola Hansberger</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Legal Immigrants for America</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Morton C. Blackwell</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />The Leadership Institute</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin (Ret.)</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Executive Vice President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Family Research Council</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Brandon Zehm</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Owner<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Zehm & Associates</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Dr. Richard Rounsavelle</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Trustee<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />MRC</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Jenna L. Ellis, Esq.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chair<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Election Integrity Alliance</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Wendy Borcherdt</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Retired Political Volunteer<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Board Member, Hoover Institution</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Jessie Jane Duff</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Gunnery Sergeant, US Marine Corps (ret)<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Ambassador, America First Policy Institute (AFPI)</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Ralph A. Rebandt II</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Gubernatorial Candidate<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Ralph Rebandt for Governor</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Peter J. Thomas</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Chairman<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Conservative Caucus</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Melvin Adams</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />President<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Noah Webster Educational Foundation</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Sandy Rios</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Director of Governmental Affairs<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />American Family Association</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Terrence Scanlon</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Former Chairman and Commissioner<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />U.S. Consumer Product Safety Comn.</font></td></tr><tr style="box-sizing: border-box;"><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">The Honorable Mike Hill</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Former Member<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Florida State Representative</font></td><td style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0.5em 0.625em; line-height: 1.4; vertical-align: middle; border-top: 0px; background-color: transparent;" width="312"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" /></font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.313em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">All organizations listed for IDENTIFICATION purposes only.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Signatures updated: 12/21/21.</span></font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ref 3</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas">https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The New Civil Rights Movement ginni 7 22</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS3 weeks ago Legal Experts Urge Committee to Subpoena Ginni Thomas After She Backs Away From TestifyingLegal experts are encouraging the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack to subpoena far right-wing activist and lobbyist Ginni Thomas, now that she is...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS4 weeks agoEmails Raise ‘Obvious Suggestion’ Ginni Thomas Was Feeding John Eastman Inside Information: Carl BernsteinLegendary Watergate journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were interviewed by CNN’s Jake Tapper after bombshell revelations that she was in contact with “coup memo” author...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BREAKING NEWS1 month ago‘Can’t Wait’: Ginni Thomas Says She ‘Looks Forward’ to Testifying Before Jan. 6 Committee Ginni Thomas says she is looking forward to speaking to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack after its Chairman indicated she would be called...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM1 month ago Ginni Thomas Looking Like ‘Full Fledged Potential Co-Conspirator’ After Discovery of Emails With Eastman: Legal Expert After Thursday’s revelation that Ginni Thomas, the spouse of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and a far right-wing activist in her own right, had been...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BREAKING NEWS1 month ago‘It’s Time’: Jan. 6 Chair Announces Committee Wants Ginni Thomas to Testify Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) is now at a point where he thinks the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack needs far right-wing activist and...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BREAKING NEWS1 month ago Ginni Thomas Corresponded with ‘Coup Memo’ Author John Eastman: ReportGinni Thomas, the far right-wing activist and lobbyist who is spouse to a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, corresponded with John Eastman, a now-former law professor,...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM1 month ago Ginni Thomas’ Attempts to Overturn Election at State Level Even More Extensive Than Previously KnownThe efforts of far right-wing lobbyist and pro-MAGA activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas to overturn the 2020 presidential election, disenfranchising millions of voters in the process, were even more...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ETHICS2 months ago Critics Wonder Why Ginni Thomas ‘Ethics Crisis’ Is Ignored as Supreme Court Investigates Its Own Clerks for Roe Leak The Marshal of the United States Supreme Court has begun her investigation into the nearly unprecedented leak of a draft majority opinion that is expected to...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS2 months ago <b>Adam Schiff Prosecutes the Case Against Ginni Thomas on MSNBC After ‘Stunning’ Revelations </b>The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee offered a brutal analysis after a bombshell new report on efforts by Ginni Thomas seeking to overturn the 2020...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">COMMENTARY2 months ago ‘Sordid, Corrupt, Lawless’: Experts Call New Ginni Thomas Revelations ‘Breathtaking’ and Ask ‘What Did Her Husband Know?’ The latest revelations about the actions of Ginni Thomas, the far right wing activist, lobbyist, and spouse of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice who had...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BREAKING NEWS2 months ago Ginni Thomas Also Pressed Arizona Lawmakers to Overturn 2020 Election: ‘Stand Strong’Far right wing activist, lobbyist, and spouse of a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Ginni Thomas pressed lawmakers in Arizona to overturn the results of the 2020...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS3 months ago Revealed: <b>Ginni Thomas Texted Friend Whose Boss Tried to Get Trump Election Challenges to Supreme Court</b> Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had more than just Mark Meadows as a texting buddy in the effort to overturn Donald Trump’s... </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CORRUPTION4 months ago Ginni Thomas Demanded Republicans Go ‘Out in the Streets’ to Protest Election, Support Donald TrumpVirginia “Ginni” Thomas demanded Congressional Republicans take the fight to overturn the 2020 election to the streets after Donald Trump lost his re-election bid to Joe...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CORRUPTION4 months ago </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Watergate Reporter Calls Ginni Thomas-Mark Meadows Bombshell ‘Unprecedented Entanglement’ CBS News’ chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa and Bob Woodward of Watergate fame </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">are responding to the bombshell news that Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows,...</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM5 months ago NYT Drops the Hammer on Ginni Thomas With Scathing Report on Her Political Activism The political activism of a Supreme Court spouse is the focus of a New York Times exposé titled “The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas.”...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM6 months ago</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Exposé Reveals Ginni Thomas’ Ties to ‘Many Groups Directly Involved in Controversial Cases’ Before the Supreme Court </b>A bombshell exposé by an award-winning investigative journalist takes a deep look into lobbyist and far right wing activist and conspiracy theorist Ginni Thomas, and the... </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM6 months ago Former Top FBI Official: ‘Concerning’ Ginni Thomas Signed Letter Saying Jan. 6 Participants ‘Have Done Nothing Wrong’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...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS1 year ago Ginni Thomas Apologizes to Husband’s Clerks for Sharing With Them Her ‘Passions’ – Including Support of Trump CoupFar right wing activist Ginni Thomas, who happens to be married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent what she believed to be an apology...</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">NEWS2 years ago Ginni Thomas, Wife of the Supreme Court Justice, Helped Advance the Election Disinformation Campaign – Here’s How Before Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas took to Facebook in the early morning hours that Wednesday; there she urged...</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM4 years ago Ginni Thomas Posts Far Right Attack Against ‘Radicalized’ Parkland Student Survivors <b>Virginia Thomas reportedly once called David Hogg "a special kind of stupid."</b>8 years ago Ginni Thomas Hosts Activist Who Attacks Obama For ‘Tyranny’ (Video) Ginni Thomas is a well-connected and well-funded Tea Party activist. She also happens to be the wife of highly-controversial and highly-conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas....</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS2 months ago ‘Truth Will Be Your Kryptonite’: Democrat Hakeem Jeffries Calls Out Clarence Thomas – ‘Have a Conversation With Ginni’D</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">emocratic House Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) delivered an impassioned speech Wednesday, telling Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas he should “have a conversation” with his spouse.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The far-right...</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS2 weeks ago ‘<b>Impeach Justice Clarence Thomas’: More Than One Million Signatures as Petition Goes Viral</b> U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, like most federal judges, has an appointment for life, but the U.S. Congress has the right and ability to remove...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS1 month ago‘ O<b>ne of the Worst Breaches of Trust’: Clarence Thomas Is a ‘Corrupt Jurist’ Who Should Resign Says US Congressman Five-term U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)</b> is calling on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign, and says the long-serving jurist and his wife Ginni Thomas...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">HYPOCRISY ALERT2 months ago Clarence Thomas Blasted for Declaring SCOTUS Can’t Be ‘Bullied’ Into Giving ‘Outcomes You Want’ After Spouse’s Actions Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving justice currently on the U.S. Supreme Court, defiantly declared the justices will not be “bullied” into handing down decisions the American people...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ANALYSIS2 months ago Overturning Roe Is Just the Beginning Analysis The Supreme Court majority built by the hard-right legal movement with help from Republican presidents and senators, and turbocharged by three Trump-McConnell justices, is apparently preparing...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CORRUPTION4 months ago<b> As Legal Experts Call for Clarence Thomas to Recuse House Republicans Say ‘We Need More’ Like Him</b> Republicans in the House, some of whom are believed to have some degree of complicity with the efforts to stage a coup on January 6, 2020...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CORRUPTION4 months ago Watch: Kevin McCarthy Defends Clarence Thomas in Wake of Spouse’s ‘Traitorous’ Texts Urging Overturning 2020 Election<b> House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is defending Clarence Thomas in the wake of bombshell reports that Ginni Thomas, the spouse of the Supreme Court Justice, was.</b>..</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS4 months ago ‘Radio Silence’: Unknown if Clarence Thomas Missing SCOTUS Private Conference After Entering Hospital One Week Ago U.S. Supreme Court Justices Friday morning are holding a closed-door private conference, and it is not known if Justice Clarence Thomas is attending, in person or...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM4 months ago</span><b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">‘Shady Ties to Sprawling Network of Dark Money’: Clarence Thomas Has Business Relationship With Right Wing Activist </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">– ReportU.S, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a business relationship with Leonard Leo, a co-chairman of the board of the right-wing Federalist Society, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">which was responsible...</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">OPINION2 years ago ‘This Is Treason!’: Whoopi Goldberg Brings the Hammer Down on Clarence Thomas’ Wife for Supporting Capitol Coup“The View” host Whoopi Goldberg called out the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for encouraging an attempted overthrow of the U.S. government. Ginni Thomas,...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RECKLESS2 years ago<b> Justice Clarence Thomas Takes Potshot at ‘Chilling’ Mask Mandates During SCOTUS ObamaCare Hearing </b>Justice Clarence Thomas, who once went for an entire decade without asking a single question during Supreme Court oral arguments, weighed in on Tuesday’s landmark review...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM2 years ago<b> In Strange Move Clarence Thomas – Not Chief Justice Roberts – to Administer Oath to Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will not officiate</b> the swearing in of soon-to-be confirmed Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett Monday night. Instead, Associate Justice Clarence...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BIGOTRY2 years ago <b>SCOTUS Turns Down Kim Davis but Clarence Thomas Pens Scathing Attack Suggesting Same-Sex Marriage Must Be Overturned</b> Former Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis won’t get a hearing from the U.S. Supreme Court. A case against her, brought by several same-sex couples she...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">THIS IS WHAT FASCISM SOUNDS LIKE 2</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> years ago Clarence Thomas’ Wife Is Helping Trump Purge ‘Snakes’ From the White House — and Replace Them With Fox News Regulars</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is spearheading an effort to purge the White House of staffers perceived as disloyal to President Donald Trump....</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">THAT'S NOT RIGHT3 years ago</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Justice Clarence Thomas Has Been Secretly Lobbying Senators to Get a Trump Judicial Nominee Confirmed Trump's highly controversial nominee, Neomi Rao, holds extremist views far outside the mainstream.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">8 years ago Gay Republican Fred Karger And Marriage Equality: 1. Justice Clarence Thomas And Bigotry: 0.Fred Karger and his group, Rights Equal Rights, today published the above ad for marriage equality in the Washington Post. The image is clear, but the...</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS5 days ago ‘Hot-Blooded, Contentious, Deranged’: J6 Hearing to Reveal Details About ‘Craziest Meeting in Trump Presidency’ – Report Tuesday’s televised public hearing held by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack will include details about former President Donald Trump’s “hot-blooded, contentious, deranged”...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">NEWS1 month ago ‘Pure 100-Proof Fascism’: Morning Joe Panel Hammers ‘Completely Lawless’ Trump Election Plot Revealed in New Emails MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and conservative attorney George Conway condemned Ginni Thomas for exchanging emails with a right-wing lawyer who was plotting to overturn Donald Trump’s election...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CORRUPTION3 months ago ‘Smoking Gun’: Former US Attorney Labels Don Trump Jr’s Election Texts ‘Powerful Evidence’ of Fraud Appearing on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” with host Jonathan Capehart, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance made the case that Don Trump Jr’s texts about overturning the...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CORRUPTION4 months ago ‘Merrick Garland Not Interested in Serving Up Justice’: Morning Joe Slams Attorney General and ‘Un-American Seditioners’ <b> MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough called on attorney general Merrick Garland to start prosecuting Donald Trump’s allies who tried to overthrow the government — including the wife of</b>...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RIGHT WING EXTREMISM8 months ago</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Attorney Who Helped Trump Try to Overturn Election Results Named to Federal Election Assistance Commission Cleta Mitchell, who helped then-President Donald Trump try to overturn the election results in Georgia and later helped funnel funds to the pro-Trump “fraudit” in Arizona,...</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">'FUNDAMENTALIST ZEALOTS' 10 months ago‘ Some Next Level BS’: Amy Coney Barrett Blasted Over Claim US Supreme Court Isn’t a ‘Bunch of Partisan Hacks’ Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court whose nomination was rammed through the Senate by then-Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>RIGHT WING EXTREMISM1 year ago A Congressman, a VP, a Hate Group Head, or the Wife of a SCOTUS Justice: Who Was Behind Trump’s Transgender Military Ban the Most? </b>It was July 26, 2017. Three and a half years ago, almost to the day, when President Donald Trump shocked the nation with a series of...</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">UN-AMERICAN2 years ago Senate Republicans, Ignoring Rules, Confirm Extremist Judge to Become Trump’s Third Supreme Court Justice In the first entirely partisan Supreme Court vote Republicans have just confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to become President Donald Trump’s third justice to sit on the...MORE POSTS</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The New Civil Rights Movement</div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div align="left"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b></b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>origin of IWF [trump, kavanaugh?]
</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/04/clarence_thomas_female_supporters_in_the_iwf.html"><b>http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/04/clarence_thomas_female_supporters_in_the_iwf.html</b></a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Confirmation Bias</b>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
How “Women for Judge Thomas” turned into a conservative powerhouse.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
By Barbara Spindel</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">clarence thomas anita hill.
Anita Hill’s televised testimony that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her is credited for ushering in the Year of the Woman. But it also has another, less visible legacy.
Right on the heels of FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson, the HBO film Confirmation offers another opportunity to relive a depressing ’90s spectacle—in this case, Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court hearings. Anita Hill’s televised testimony that Thomas sexually harassed her, and her poor treatment at the hands of the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee, are often credited with raising awareness of the issue of workplace sexual harassment and ushering in the so-called Year of the Woman, the 1992 election of four women to the Senate. (Confirmation premieres April 16 and stars Scandal’s Kerry Washington as Hill and The Wire’s Wendell Pierce as Thomas.)
But the Thomas hearings have another, less visible legacy. A small group of prominent Washington women rallied around the nominee; they were headed by the late Ricky Silberman, a friend of Thomas’ who, like Hill, had worked with him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Calling themselves Women for Judge Thomas, they pointedly demonstrated that not all women, simply by virtue of their sex, were ready to don an “I Believe Anita Hill” pin.<b> This ad-hoc bunch—which included Anita Blair, Barbara Ledeen, and the late Barbara Olson—went on to form the Independent Women’s Forum, a D.C. nonprofit devoted to waging war on mainstream feminism.</b>
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Stills of Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce in Confirmation.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kerry Washington as Anita Hill and Wendell Pierce as Clarence Thomas in Confirmation.]
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Back in the 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly and her allies had whipped up fears of unisex public bathrooms and female military conscription in order to help kill the Equal Rights Amendment</b>. After that, groups such as Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America railed against reproductive rights and gay rights and championed traditional gender roles.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> But among conservative women’s groups, the IWF was something new. If you squinted, its members—enterprising, educated professionals—looked like they could belong to the National Organization for Women. Instead, they had an extreme loathing for the feminist movement.</span>
<b>The IWF argued that second-wave feminism had solved the problem of sex discrimination</b>. In a 1997 interview with now-defunct conservative magazine Insight, Blair, who was by then IWF president, said that current feminists were “playing out their own Freudian drama on the policy stage, saying, ‘Well, my first husband walked out on me, or I never had dates in high school, so all men are bad.’ ” A 1997 IWF press release called National Pay Inequity Awareness Day “a cruel hoax … designed to brainwash girls and young women into believing that they are victims.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> The IWF’s Elizabeth Larson, in the organization’s Women’s Quarterly magazine, called sexual harassment an issue drummed up by “a growing number of women, many spurred on by Anita Hill’s example … [who] find it more profitable to litigate than to work.”<b> After the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act—spearheaded by then-Sen. Joe Biden in what was widely seen as atonement for his mishandling of the Thomas hearings</b>—the IWF argued that the legislation should be repealed or receive zero funding;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> IWF spokeswoman (and ’90s right-wing It Girl) Laura Ingraham referred to VAWA as feminist “pork” with a “tear-jerker” title. </span>The group also took on affirmative action, headlining a Women’s Quarterly article on the topic “That’s No White Male, That’s My Husband”—a phrase that revealed a lot about IWF constituents’ racial identities and loyalties. (“You can’t have white guys saying you don’t need affirmative action,” Ledeen told the Washington Post when asked why the anti-feminist IWF had organized as women in the first place.)
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<b>[Laura Ingraham appears with Sen. George Allen</b> at a fundraiser on Oct. 7, 2006, in Maidens, Virginia.
<b>In 1995, NOW President Patricia Ireland, in a considerable understatement, called it “a little startling” that the new and tiny conservative upstart IWF, with fewer than 2,000 members, was garnering media coverage to rival that of Ireland’s mass-membership organization</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It surely helped that stalwart right-wing donors including Richard Scaife and the Koch brothers were funding the IWF, and that its well-connected roster included former National Endowment for the Humanities chairwoman (and wife of Dick Cheney) Lynne Cheney,</span> Who Stole Feminism? author<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Christina Hoff Sommers, neoconservative writer (and wife of Norman Podhoretz) Midge Decter, and Wendy Lee Gramm and Mary Ellen Bork, married, respectively, to Texas Sen. Phil Gramm and rejected Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.</span>
<b>Hill was often dismissed as overreacting to a joke about a pubic hair on a Coke can.</b>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While much of the IWF’s campaign against feminism was waged in the media, the group also took the fight to Capitol Hill; the IWF testified before Congress against the Violence Against Women Act and affirmative action, and filed amicus briefs opposing the enforcement of Title IX and the coeducation of the Virginia Military Institute</span>.
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>After the election of George W. Bush, the IWF’s clout grew as its members received posts within the new administration, among them <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Elaine Chao </span>as labor secretary,</b> Diana Furchtgott-Roth as chief of staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Blair as deputy assistant secretary of the Navy. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Most absurdly, two<b> IWF members, then-president Nancy Pfotenhauer </b>and board member Margot Hill, were appointed to the administration’s National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women.</span>
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Despite engaging in serious business, the IWF’s spokeswomen never appeared to take themselves too seriously; they loved to bait feminists but always with a smile. Blair said, “There’s a telltale way to find a liberal feminist: It’s the nasty wrinkles around her mouth that she gets from frowning. You’ll probably find my side with laugh lines.</b>” “We have no angry agenda,” Grace Paine Terzian, then publisher of Women’s Quarterly, told a journalist in 1995. When Wendy Kaminer wrote on right-wing challenges to feminism in the American Prospect the following year, the IWF’s Elizabeth Lurie responded in a letter to the editor that she had found the piece “howlingly funny.” All of this forced cheer was intended to highlight the contrast between the IWF’s anti-feminism and its caricatured version of feminism, which, according to<b> Hoff Sommers in a 1996 60 Minutes profile of the IWF, had come to mean “that you’re chronically offended, that you’re looking for oppression and bias under every tree.”
</b>
Plenty of people still see Hill as fitting this description, even 25 years after the Thomas hearings. Although she accused Thomas of repeated graphic descriptions of pornographic films, including scenes of rape and bestiality, and of detailed boasts about his own sexual prowess, Hill was and is often dismissed as overreacting to a joke about a pubic hair on a Coke can. Indeed, IWF managing director Carrie Lukas recently described Hill’s allegations against Thomas as “rather PG-rated.”
Of course, the IWF exists not because its founders thought Hill was overreacting but because, as friends of Thomas, they thought she was lying. In the years since—when downplaying the existence and impact of sex discrimination and of gender-based crimes such as harassment, rape, and domestic violence—the IWF doesn’t suggest that all women are lying. The group has frequently suggested, however, that women who speak out about these issues are whining, and should stop playing the victim, and ought to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In that sense the IWF, whose current mission is to “improve the lives of Americans by<b> increasing the number of women who value free markets and personal liberty,” has ties to Thomas that are not merely personal but philosophical as well.</b>
The women of the IWF continue to stand by Clarence Thomas, and he by them. After Silberman’s 2007 death, Thomas sat down with the group’s Michelle Bernard and Charlotte Hays to talk about his friend for the IWF newsletter. “Sometimes at IWF we are accused of being anti-women and anti-feminist, because our mantra is that all issues are women’s issues,” his interviewers noted. “I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” Thomas responded, proceeding to describe his own experiences being called “traitor” and “Uncle Tom.” “When I am criticized, I take it as a compliment,” he said. “If I weren’t relevant, they wouldn’t talk about me. <b>Don’t worry about it. You just wish them good health and do it with a smile.</b>”<b>
</b></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-family-research-councils-insurrection-connections/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-family-research-councils-insurrection-connections/</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>the </b><b>Family Research Council, a major player in the religious-right political movement, was deeply involved in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election</b>—a fact made all the more apparent by revelations during the June 23 public hearing of the House select committee investigating the conspiracy that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.</font></p><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We had already known that FRC publicly supported Trump’s schemes to unlawfully stay in power. FRC President Tony Perkins and other leaders connected with the secretive <b>Council for National Policy had <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-leaders-join-call-for-state-legislatures-to-overrule-voters-and-give-election-to-trump/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">signed a letter</a> in mid-December 2020 </b>falsely claiming, “There is no doubt President Donald J. Trump is the lawful winner of the presidential election. Joe Biden is not president-elect.” That letter called on state legislatures in six battleground states won by Joe Biden to “appoint clean slates of electors to the Electoral College to support President Trump.” It urged the House and Senate to reject pro-Biden electors from those states.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>FRC Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin also signed that letter, as did <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Kenneth Blackwell,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> FRC’s senior fellow for human rights<b> </b></span><b>and constitutional governance</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Blackwell, a <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/ken-blackwell-ohio-brown-senate/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">notorious</a> voter suppresser who abused the power of his office when he was Ohio’s secretary of state, was all-in on Trump’s election lies from the earliest days of the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement. Just days after the election, <b>Blackwell used <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/notorious-voter-suppressor-kenneth-blackwell-denounces-pennsylvania-governor-and-his-legion-of-darkness/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">wildly false and inflammatory language</a> in support of Trump’s claims, denouncing Pennsylvania’s governor,</b> who defended his state’s election results from false claims of voter fraud, and “his legion of darkness.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-lawyer-cleta-mitchell-signs-letter-by-hard-right-leaders-urging-gop-senators-to-contest-swing-state-electors/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Blackwell</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-lawyer-cleta-mitchell-signs-letter-by-hard-right-leaders-urging-gop-senators-to-contest-swing-state-electors/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;"> and Perkins signed a second open letter</a> at the end of December 2020 urging Senate Republicans to contest the votes from five battleground states.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Two days before the insurrection at the Capitol, Blackwell <a href="https://twitter.com/kenblackwell/status/1346073374016102402" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">tweeted</a> a video message using the “Stop the Steal” hashtag</b>. “This is not a time for sideline sitters or backbenchers,” he said. “You must do what you can with what you have where you are. Our republic demands it.”</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It turns out that Blackwell was busy behind the scenes, too.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">At the Jan. 6 committee’s June 23 hearing, Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2022/06/26/ohio-officials-pat-cipollone-ken-blackwell-jan-6-capitol-hearings/7717349001/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">revealed</a> the contents of a <b>Dec.28, 2020, email from Blackwell that read in part, “As I stated last week, I believe the VP and his staff would benefit greatly from a briefing by John and Ken.”</b></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“John” would be John Eastman</span>, <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-sordid-record-of-john-eastman-the-latest-right-wing-lawyer-on-trumps-legal-team/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">the far right-wing lawyer</a> who <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/what-we-learned-from-day-three-of-the-jan-6-hearings/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">doggedly pushed illegal schemes</a> to keep Trump in power based on false claims of election fraud and bogus theories about the vice president’s power to single-handedly decide who would become the next president. “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Ken” referred to Ken Klukowski, a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-christian-legal-army-behind-masterpiece-cakeshop/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">religious-right lawyer</a> and pundit, longtime associate of Blackwell, and former director of FRC’s Center for Religious Liberty.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Blackwell’s email was sent to Ed Corrigan, a former Heritage Foundation vice president who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/magazine/trump-government-heritage-foundation-think-tank.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">served</a> as part of the leadership team of Trump’s transition and now <a href="https://www.cpi.org/staff/ed-corrigan/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">heads up the Conservative Partnership Institute</a>,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">which </span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/another-right-wing-group-touts-election-integrity-project-led-by-trump-attorney-cleta-mitchell/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">promotes voter suppression in the name of “election integrity.<b>”</b></a><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> It also went to Rep. Louis Gohmert’s chief of staff Connie Hair</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">,</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> whose promotion of Big Lie conspiracies about the election was </span><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/ginni-thomas-quoted-rep-gohmerts-chief-of-staff-in-texts-to-mark-meadows-at-trump-white-house-report-says" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">quoted by </span><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Ginny Thomas</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> in her post-election emails to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> Completing the circle,<b> Meadows</b> is now <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/congress/jan-6-hearings/live-blog/live-updates-analysis-day-5-rcna34785" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">a “senior partner” at the Conservative Partnership I</a>nstitute, which <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-gave-1m-meadows-nonprofit-weeks-after-jan-6-panel-n1288334" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">received $1 million from Trump’s PAC </a>shortly after the Jan. 6 committee was created.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Klukowski had </span><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/ken-klukowski-breitbartcom-writer-and-anti-lgbtq-lawyer-joins-trump-administration" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">joined</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget in the fall of 2019. After the 2020 election, Klukowski was parachuted into the Justice Department office of </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jeffrey Clark,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> who was scheming to drag the DOJ into Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in key battleground states.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Blackwell </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">clearly seemed to recognize the bad optics of</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Klukowski’</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">s involvement, urging in his email, “As I also mentioned, make sure we don’t overexpose Ken given his new position.”</span></b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clark has unwillingly played a starring role in the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation, which has painstakingly exposed his effort to get Trump to name him acting attorney general.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Clark and others had originally planned to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/23/us/jeffrey-clark-draft-letter.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">send a letter</a> to Georgia legislators—a <b>letter that Klukowski helped Clark write</b>—falsely claiming that the DOJ had identified major election problems in the state and encouraging them to convene a special session to consider naming a pro-Trump Electoral College slate.</span> When Clark’s DOJ superiors blocked his scheme, Trump seriously considered making Clark acting attorney general so he could carry it out, abandoning the plan only after other top Justice Department officials threatened a massive leadership resignation that would swamp news of the letter and define Trump’s legacy.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Rep. Cheney <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/january-6-hearings-june-23/h_adcf42b67a4ed25dcf46f1ae5d3ae012" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">concluded</a>, “This email suggests that Mr. Klukowski was simultaneously working with Jeffrey Clark to draft the proposed letter to Georgia officials to overturn their certified election and working with Dr. Eastman to help pressure the vice president to overturn the election.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In other words, while a battle raged between principled White House and Justice Department officials who were committed to upholding the election results and facilitating a peaceful transfer of power and the defeated president and his power-at-all-costs supporters, <b>current and former FRC leaders were in the trenches with Trump and the would-be election overthrowers.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Their collusion on Trump’s attempt to overturn the election is far from the first<b> Blackwell-Klukowski collaboration. </b>They co-authored numerous partisan diatribes in the form of op-eds and books, including “Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency” and “Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America.” In 2016, Klukowksi <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-perry-back-trump-because-of-the-supreme-court/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">guest-hosted</a> FRC’s “Washington Watch” radio program and had Blackwell on as a guest.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">At FRC’s <b>October 2021 Pray Vote Stand conference—the rechristened activist gathering known for years as the Values Voter Summit</b>—Blackwell <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/stop-the-steal-activist-ken-blackwell-backs-state-voter-suppression-slams-federal-voting-rights-legislation-at-religious-right-activist-conference/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">slammed</a> federal voting rights legislation and backed new voting restrictions being put in place by Republican state legislators.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The revelations of the Family Research Council’s all-out effort to help Trump stay in power despite his rejection by voters makes it e<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">ven more appalling to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/family-research-council-irs-church-status" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">learn from ProPublica</a> that FRC has successfully petitioned the IRS to change its official classification to that of an association of churches, a tactic that Right Wing Watch has reported has been used by other religious-right groups like <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/heres-how-focus-on-the-family-convinced-the-irs-to-call-it-a-church/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Focus on the Family</a> and <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/focus-on-the-family-has-declared-itself-a-church-avoiding-irs-disclosure-rules/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Liberty Counsel</a> to evade public scrutiny and accountability.</span></font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-family-research-councils-insurrection-connections/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/connie-hair/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Connie Hair</a><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/ed-corrigan/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Ed Corrigan</a></b> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jeffrey-clark/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Jeffrey Clark</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jerry-boykin/" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Ken Klukowski</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/kenneth-blackwell/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Kenneth Blackwell</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/mark-meadows/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Mark Meadows</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/tony-perkins/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Tony Perkins</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/capitol-insurrection/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Capitol Insurrection</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/house-select-committee-on-jan-6/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">House select committee on Jan. 6</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/conservative-partnership-institute/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Conservative Partnership Institute</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/council-for-national-policy/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Council for National Policy</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/family-research-council/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em;">Family Research Council</a></font></p></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div></div></div></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">D U</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div align="left"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">before Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas took to Facebook in the early morning hours that Wednesday; there she urged people to tune into the so-called Stop the Steal rally held on the grounds of the White House. “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” she posted, adding minutes later, “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING.”
Though her affinity for caps-lock commentary may suggest otherwise, Ginni Thomas is an influential right-wing activist respected in conservative politics. The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, she has made her own mark on the Republican Party with lofty positions at Turning Point USA, the Heritage Foundation, The Daily Caller, and the Council for National Policy, a highly secretive organization whose members include some of the most powerful conservatives and right-wing players in the country.
Respected though she may be in conservative circles, Ginni Thomas’ connection to extremists is nothing new. In 2010, she led Liberty Central, a think tank she founded to appeal to Tea Party supporters and to serve as the connective tissue between “Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists,” as she claimed in a 2010 interview. That group’s sponsors included the Gun Owners of America—a radical alternative to the NRA—and its gun-rights extremist leader Larry Pratt, who addressed white supremacists at a 1992 gathering in Colorado and appeared to call for war against the U.S. government in 2010. <b>The far-right Catholic group Tradition, Family and Property, known for being virulently anti-LGBTQ, anti-woman, and anti-democratic, was also linked to Ginni Thomas’ think tank from its inception.</b>
Ginni Thomas’ zeal for the Stop the Steal campaign and its followers, a mob of whom would later storm the Capitol in an act of domestic terrorism, is notable in and of itself—her husband sits on the highest court, after all—but it’s also disconcerting for another reason: She is the latest in a string of Council for National Policy members—and an authoritative voice at that—who has supported the Stop the Steal movement.
<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/how-ginni-thomas-and-the-shadowy-council-of-national-policy-advanced-a-disinformation-campaign/" target="blank">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/how-ginni-thomas-and-the-shadowy-council-of-national-policy-advanced-a-disinformation-campaign/</a>
Ah, of course... the leader of the "Kids not wanting to get shot in school is <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/382311-ginni-thomas-shares-posts-criticizing-parkland-students" target="blank">JE-GEORGE SOROS SOCIALISM</a>" faction is tied to this. No wonder this insurrection is so disgusting.</font></div><div align="left"><p style="padding: 5px 0px; margin: 5px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong></strong></font></p><p style="padding: 5px 0px; margin: 5px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>omg confirm?!
</strong></font></p><p style="padding: 5px 0px; margin: 5px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nationofchange.org/2022/07/07/opus-dei-supreme-indecency-extreme-deceit/">https://www.nationofchange.org<b>/2022/07</b>/07/opus-dei-supreme-indecency-extreme-deceit/</a></font></p><p style="padding: 5px 0px; margin: 5px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the<strong> </strong>current Supreme Court majority that just denied women a legal right to abortion (<em>Dobbs vs. Jackson</em>) consists of religious fanatics whose careers have been fast-tracked (so that young Justices can serve for decades) by ultra-wealthy, like-minded lobbyists and political operatives. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The nexus of this activity lies with a powerful arch-conservative organization within the Catholic Church, <b>Opus Dei</b>, that in the U.S. operates out of the Catholic Information Center in Washington D.C.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I am not targeting Catholics but rather the Church’s reactionary, fundamentalist wing. Many Catholic organizations are dedicated to upholding the rights and lives of minorities (and majorities, such as women), victims of pedophilic priests, gays, the poor, immigrants, etc. The fundamentalist wing of any religion has more in common with other creeds’ fundamentalisms than with many of its own co-religionists, whom they often regard as enemies.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Catholic fundamentalism is obviously not the only “brand” influencing American politics, but it is the one with a dominant insidious influence on the judiciary.</span></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Opus Dei and its partner organizations have poured tens of millions of dollars into <a href="https://rollcall.com/2019/08/06/conservative-judicial-group-is-top-donor-to-gop-state-elections-arm/">promoting the careers and appointments</a> of Chief Justice Roberts and the five Justices who overturned Roe</span>: Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett (Roberts, an arch-conservative, nonetheless dissented on the abortion case).</b> </font></font></font></font></p><p><b>Opus Dei was founded in Spain by Escriva de Balaguer in 1928 and grew in power, wealth, and influence during the Fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco who, with significant military help from Nazi Germany, overthrew the legitimate Spanish government and ruled over a police state from 1939-1975. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The group extended its power throughout Latin America, supporting Pinochet’s murderous regime in Chile and other terrorizing dictatorships</span><b>. It consistently opposes gay, sexual, and reproductive rights, and the Catholic liberation movements</b> that champion the poor in Latin America. It has been involved in the Vatican’s banking scandals but still wields enormous influence over Vatican finances, as detailed by Robert Hutchison in his book, <em>Their Kingdom Come</em>.
</p><p><b>Opus Dei’s assets as of 2008 were $2.8 billion, but they have undoubtedly grown since.</b> Popes <a href="https://www.population-security.org/cffc-97-01.htm">John Paul II</a> and <a href="https://opentabernacle.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/pope-francis-increases-opus-dei-power/">Francis </a>both elevated Opus Dei officials to the highest Church offices. One of Opus Dei’s core principles, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130531231642/http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/oppositionwatch/documents/OpusDeiinLatinAmerica.pdf">as articulated by its founder</a>, is to engage in “the sphere of public life”, not because they are human or Catholic rights but because “they are God’s rights…May such ‘fanaticism’ for the Faith…become stronger every day.” Opus Dei is not simply a conservative religious group, it is openly dedicated to wielding political and financial power in nations throughout the world. And that often means promoting and aligning itself with the most violent, reactionary regimes and acting in the shadow realms of political influence.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Opus Dei members were prominent in </span><a href="http://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/03/opus-deis-influence-on-the-u-s-judiciary/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump’s White House</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, including </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Attorney General William Barr and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/29/1108798387/jan-6-committee-subpoenas-pat-cipollone-trumps-former-white-house-counsel">Pat Cipollone</a>,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Trump’s former </span><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/white-house-counsels-betrayal-his-office/605980/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">White House counsel</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Opus Dei had </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/koch-lobbyists-and-opus-dei--whos-dropping-in-on-trump-budget-czar-mick-mulvaney.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">access to Trump’s budget </a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">director,</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Mick Mulvaney</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, along with other noted right-wing lobbyists (Heritage Foundation, Koch Industries), meetings the Trump administration</span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/koch-lobbyists-and-opus-dei--whos-dropping-in-on-trump-budget-czar-mick-mulvaney.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> tried to keep secret</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/06/opus-deis-influence-is-felt-in-all-of-washingtons-corridors-of-power/">Member Larry Kudlow</a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> was Trump’s director of the National Economic Council. It may well be the most powerful political lobby in the world and yet its explicit political agenda is absolutely subservient to its extreme, authoritarian religious agenda.</span></p><p><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">A key fixer in this effort is Leonard Leo.</span> <a href="https://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/06/opus-deis-influence-is-felt-in-all-of-washingtons-corridors-of-power/">Leo is on the board of directors</a> of the Catholic Information Center (William Barr was a past director) and <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2018/politico50/leonard-leo/">Executive Vice President </a>of the Federalist Society, a lobbying group that adheres to an “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution</b> (more on this below). The two organizations are close political allies, as Leo’s dual role suggests. As Trump’s close advisor during his presidency, Leo was responsible for selecting and guiding the Supreme Court nominations of Alito, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch and was instrumental in riddling the lower Federal courts with <a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2017/03/lower-court-judicial-nominations-by-the-trump-administration/">Trump appointees</a>.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Meanwhile, members of both<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"><b> Opus Dei </b>and The Federalist Society include Alito<b>, Clarence Thomas</b></span>, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia</span>. Chief Justice Roberts is a Federalist Society member and the Society’s <a href="https://fedsoc.org/contributors">members and supporters</a> are prominent in many of nation’s top law schools and most powerful law firms, which allows it to have an untoward influence over judicial selections. <b>When Clarence Thomas headlined a <a href="https://www.commoncause.org/democracy-wire/justice-thomas-crosses-the-line-again/">2013 Federalist Society fundraiser</a>, guests were seated in proximity to him according to the size of their donations. In effect, the Federalist Society and Opus Dei have become the Supreme Court of the land.</b></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>Much of Opus Dei’s influence was exerted via the Wellspring Committee, established and run by Opus Dei members Ann and Neil Corkery in 2008</b></span>. The Koch brothers were instrumental in providing Wellspring with its first $10 million in seed money. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/30/behind-the-dark-money-web-that-put-barrett-and-kavanaugh-and-gorsuch-on-the-supreme-court/">According to Robert Maguire</a> of <b>Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Corkerys “have been the overseers of massive amounts of money that have gone into federal judicial races.”</b>
</p><p><b>Wellspring closed down in 2018 but not before passing its mantle to the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN);</b> in 2017 Wellspring transferred <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/262046485/02_2019_prefixes_25-26/262046485_201712_990O_2019022016111921">$14,814, 998.00</a>, or 94% of its donations that year, to JCN. JCN was formerly directed by Leonard Leo and now by<b> Carrie Severino, who served as Thomas’s law clerk. (</b>Opus Dei’s Roger Severino, Carrie’s husband, was Director of Trump’s Office for Civil Rights). JCN is a 501(c)(4) organization so its donors can remain secret. JCN <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/05/26/secret-money-behind-push-ban-abortion?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=twitter">poured millions</a> into supporting Bush and Trump’s Supreme Court nominees (Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett) and millions <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaires-try-to-buy-the-supreme-court">blocking </a>Obama’s Court nominee, Merrick Garland.</p><p>Given Opus Dei’s absolute anti-choice ideology, global power, and influence over the Supreme Court, it is clear the Court’s anti-choice decision was not driven by legal arguments over the right to privacy, strict or “originalist” interpretations of the Constitution, or states rights. These were all just window dressing. The Supreme Court—and much of our judiciary—has been taken over by fanatics with a strictly <em>theological </em>agenda: to replace “separation of Church and State” with “the Church <em>runs</em> the state”. It is a narrow, fanatical religious ideology that decided the case.</p><p><b>The so-called “originalist” theory of interpreting the Constitution claims the Constitution only protects rights explicitly mentioned in the text. The Constitution itself rejects the “originalist” idea so central to conservative ideology.</b> The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This clearly states that interpreting the Constitution is a living, evolving process, for how else can those “other[s]” rights be “retained by the people”? The Ninth is also a safety valve: “If we left out any important rights, sorry, our bad, it doesn’t mean those rights aren’t protected as well.” The Ninth has been used to uphold such diverse rights as teaching non-English languages, sending kids to private schools, protecting against forced sterilization, and the 1965 Griswold decision overturning bans on contraception, in which privacy was deemed a “penumbra” (also called “unenumerated”) right. The penumbra concept was then applied to abortion in 1973’s Roe decision.</p><p><b>Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority decision in Roe v. Wade, citing both the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments: </b>“This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or…in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent.” The Court also recognized that “When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary…is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” Blackmun’s decision includes an overview of the dramatic shifts in cultural and legal attitudes towards abortion, though most views differentiated abortions in the first 12-16 weeks (before the baby is usually felt moving inside the womb) from those occurring later.</p><p>The “sanctity of the foetus”, that is, viewing abortion at any stage of pregnancy as equivalent to murder, is the linchpin of the anti-choice position and its driving emotional trigger. However, even the Catholic Church’s historical opposition to abortion had nothing to do with the sanctity of the foetus; it was <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12178868/">aimed at the “sin” of sexual pleasure</a>. Church policy varied over the centuries but the foetus’s life was either absent as an issue or secondary to sexual sin and other theological concerns. St. Thomas Aquinas asserted that in its earlier stages <a href="https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/st-thomas-aquinas-c-1225-1274">a foetus is in a “vegetal”</a> and then “animal” state before achieving person-hood at some point, most likely at the end of the third month.<b> It wasn’t until 1965 that the Church banned abortion on the basis of sanctity of life rather than sexual sin. </b>However, the Bible passages used to justify this claim 1) do not really address abortion (the BIble is much more direct in advising that adulterers be stoned to death); 2) are drawn mostly from the Old Testament, a Jewish document, significant since the Jewish religion allows abortion; and 3) are in the Bible, which has no legal standing in the United States. Or didn’t.</p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Court’s decision in <b>Dobbs v. Jackson </b>is only the beginning, as anti-abortion activists and GOP-led extremists mobilize to assault a wide range of right</span>s. The anti-choice movement was never only about abortion. Abortion was used as the emotional catalyst for a broad attack on the values of tolerance and social commitment embodied in Federal guarantees backed by Constitutional authority. The well-being of Americans and our system of government is now in the hands of religious fanatics on a crusade against all those who do not believe in their degraded, medieval version of truth. They are welcome to their beliefs but are not welcome to impose those beliefs on the rest of us, nor to challenge the fundamental values of the United States, which holds the value of human beings above adherence to extreme and rigid political or religious ideologies.</p><strong /></div><div align="left"><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/ginni-thomas-election-fraud-guru-claims-he-arrested-pope">
</a></strong></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/ginni-thomas-election-fraud-guru-claims-he-arrested-pope">https://www.thedailybeast.com/ginni-thomas-election-fraud-guru-claims-he-arrested-pope</a></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx
</font></strong></div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ginni Thomas’ Election Fraud Guru Claims He Arrested Pope</b>
TOO HOT FOR INFOWARS
Ginni Thomas name-checked Steve Pieczenik, a little-known conspiracy theorist, in texts to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about overturning the 2020 election.
Will Sommer
Politics Reporter
Updated Mar. 26, 2022 3:55AM ET / Published Mar. 25, 2022
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Ginni Thomas, a prominent conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, made the case to overturn the election to a top adviser to former President Donald Trump in the days after the 2020 election, she cited several conspiracy theories popular with the president’s most deluded supporters
In her messages, published Thursday by CBS News and the Washington Post, Thomas urged then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to look into the claims of Steve Pieczenik, a little-known conspiracy theorist whose ideas are often too crazy for even Alex Jones.</span>
Thomas appeared to have wholly embraced Pieczenik’s off-the-wall claims in her texts, including the idea that Trump’s election defeat was really a ruse meant to entrap Democratic voter fraudsters.
“If you believe what Steve Pieczenik has to say, you have completely lost all touch with reality,” said Jordan Holmes, a comedian who follows InfoWars and its guests, including Pieczenik, on his Knowledge Fight podcast.
<b>Thomas and Pieczenik didn’t respond to requests for comment.</b>
Pieczenik has a history of lying and often claims to have worked throughout the national security bureaucracy—including in classified positions, all of which makes it difficult to discern what’s true about his identity. He emerged in the media in the late 1980s as an expert on the psychology of hostage-taking. In the 1990s, Pieczenik launched a series of novels with national-security thriller author Tom Clancy.
<b>Whatever grip Pieczenik had on reality began to slip decades ago, when he began to appear on InfoWars.</b> Pieczenik became known for claiming that a tragic event, often a mass shooting, was in fact a false flag event or even faked entirely. He’s argued that the 9/11 attacks, the Sandy Hook shooting, and Pearl Harbor were all false flags. Among other claims, Pieczenik insists he once arrested Pope Francis.
His stories were so wild they even became too much for Jones. After he claimed the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting that killed 60 people was fake, for example, Jones appeared to temporarily block him from appearing on the outlet. All that has given him a reputation as a loose cannon even by the already outré standards of the InfoWars green room.
“Pieczenik goes on to hit the ball out of the fences every single time, which means he goes too far sometimes,” Holmes said. “And when that happens, he winds up getting put on the backburner for a little while.”
While Jones distanced himself from Pieczenik after the Las Vegas shooting claims, Pieczenik reemerged a few years later as a “vector” to push QAnon claims on InfoWars, according to Holmes. He also became a key figure on the show in the 2020 election, ready to pump out the kind of crazed optimism for Trump supporters that Ginni Thomas later repeated to Trump’s chief of staff. Two days after the election, Thomas texted Meadows video of a Pieczenik appearance on InfoWars’ “War Room” show.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
While the YouTube video she sent Meadows has been deleted, other copies posted on far-right YouTube alternatives reveal that the video was about Pieczenik’s claim that the election was a ruse meant to catch Democrats. In the video, a Hawaiian shirt-clad<b> Pieczenik tells InfoWars host and future Jan. 6 indictee Owen Shroyer about how secret watermarks on the ballots would be used to find fake ballots and arrest leading liberals.</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pieczenik predicted the arrests would begin within days.
<b>“You’re seeing a sophisticated sting operation that was initiated by Trump,”</b> Pieczenik said. “I’m just a lowly peasant in this game.”
Thomas appears to have found solace in Pieczenik’s claim that Trump hadn’t really lost the election.
“I hope this is true; never heard anything like this before, or even a hint of it,” Thomas wrote to Meadows. “Possible???”
<b>Thomas embraced other Pieczenik claims, telling Meadows that military “white hats”—a QAnon term for pro-Trump forces in the federal government—had been deployed to key states.</b></span>
It’s not clear how Thomas first encountered Pieczenik’s work. But her praise for his obviously ludicrous claims demonstrate the power that conspiracy theories had on Trump’s inner circle.
“It’s so funny how crazy this guy is,” Holmes said. “But at the same time he’s been around pulling these weirdo [psychological operations] for the past 50 years, and it does seem like he’s had a pretty big effect on people.”
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</strong></font></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>david corn</strong></font></strong></div><div align="left"><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>mojo <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/why-you-should-care-that-ginni-thomas-is-bonkers/"> https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/why-you-should-care-that-ginni-thomas-is-bonkers/</a>
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</strong></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>...last week, the <b>Washington Post</b><em> </em>and CBS News published <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">text messages</a> exchanged between Ginni Thomas and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the wake of the November 2020 election, in which Thomas fervently urged Meadows to overturn the results to keep Donald Trump in power. </strong></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></strong></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The disclosure of these texts has revived a long-running debate over Justice Thomas’ potential conflicts of interest related to his wife’s political work and his steadfast refusal to recuse himself from cases to which she might possess a connection</span>. One recent example: in January Clarence Thomas was the only justice to dissent in a case in which the Supreme Court declined to support Donald Trump’s effort to block the House committee investigating the January 6 assault from obtaining White House documents related to his attempt to undermine the election.</strong></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
</strong></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong> Given his wife’s role in the so-called Stop the Steal movement and her communications with the Trump White House about this matter, Justice Thomas might not have been an impartial arbiter in this dispute. Legal ethics experts have <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/legal-scholars-are-shocked-by-ginni-thomass-stop-the-steal-texts?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">plenty to dissect here</a>. But as serious as that topic is, the texts raise another troubling prospect: Ginni Thomas is absolutely bonkers.</strong></font></strong><p><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>The texts show that she was a true-blue believer in Trump’s Big Lie conspiracy theory about the election. “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History,” she texted Meadows a few days after the election, when there was no proof of any such theft (as there would never be) and when no opinion polls showed most Americans concluding the election had been rigged against Trump. In another text, she claimed the dispute over the election (which Trump and his cult had ginned up) was a “a fight of good versus evil.” Her texts indicated she believed the nonsense grifter-attorney Sidney Powell was peddling about foreign states (China! Venezuela!) manipulating voting machines to change the vote count.</strong></font></strong></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>One Thomas text to Meadows shared a video promoting a QAnonish conspiracy theory claiming watermarks on ballots would show that Biden received millions of fraudulently cast votes. This baseless assertion was <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/quantum-blockchain-watermark-vote/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">being pushed</a> on InfoWars, the conspiracy theory site of blowhard nutter Alex Jones, by a fellow named Steve Pieczenik</b>, a longtime disinformation purveyor who claimed the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, was a staged “false flag” operation. Related to this particular BS, Thomas texted Meadows a quote she had pulled off a right-wing website: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition</span>.” Uh, no.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ginni Thomas has long been one of the leaders of the right, and it turns out she’s a loon. This is not entirely a newsflash. Nine years ago, I <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">revealed the existence</a> of a new and secretive conservative outfit that Thomas had helped pull together. Called Groundswell,</b> it assembled a collection of right-wingers in Washington, DC, for weekly meetings to concoct talking points, coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for “a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation,” according to a trove of its documents I obtained. The group included a host of far-right extremists, including Frank Gaffney (who had claimed Barack Obama was a secret Muslim); Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council; Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch; tea party fanatic Allen West, a former member of Congress; Steve Bannon, then the executive chairman of Breitbart News Network; Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who would become a Fox News presence; Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the influential Federalist Society; a handful of conservative journalists; and others. <b>A top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz was a Groundsweller.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Groundswell appeared to be set up as competition to the well-known Wednesday morning gatherings of conservative advocates hosted by Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform</b>. That collective included a broad spectrum of Republicans, including conservatives opposed to gay rights and abortion rights and those who favor them, as well as GOPers on different sides of the immigration reform debate. Groundswell, which met at the same time as Norquist’s group, was a more ideologically pure and extreme version of the Norquist confab.
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The group devised strategies for killing immigration reform, hyping the Benghazi controversy, and countering the impression that the GOP exploits racism</b>. On a Google group page, Groundswellers often griped that the GOP’s inside-the-Beltway crowd was trying to marginalize the conservative die-hards and recruit, promote, and support political candidates deemed less strident and more electable. Their Number One enemy in this regard was Republican strategist Karl Rove, and Groundswell <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-ginni-thomas-war-karl-rove/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">mounted an effort</a> to discredit him.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The documents indicated that Ginni Thomas was a guiding force for Groundswell, setting agendas for its meetings and actively coordinating messaging among its participants, and that the group had a dark, paranoid, and Manichean view of American politics. One Groundswell memo stated that an “active radical left is dedicated to destroy [sic] those who oppose them” with “vicious and unprecedented tactics. We are in a real war; most conservatives are not prepared to fight.” At one meeting a participant claimed that many government agencies (the<b> State Department, the CIA, the Pentagon, the EPA,</b> and others) were conspiring with “far left wing groups” to undermine conservatives in the media. [THE DREADED DEEP GREEN STATE!]
</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a post on a Google group page, Ginni Thomas encouraged Groundswell members to watch <b><a href="https://www.agendadocumentary.com/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">Agenda: Grinding America Down</a>, </b>a purported <a>documentary</a> that claims progressives (including Obama) seek “a <b>brave new world” based on the “failed policies and ideologies of <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">communism</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">”</span> and that an evil left is purposefully “destroying the greatest country in all of world history.” This film could have been produced by the John Birch Society. Dredging up the Alger Hiss and Rosenberg atomic spying cases, it compares liberalism to communism and Hitler’s Nazism. The film alleges that the left is deliberately seeking to impose communism on the United States and to eradicate the “American family.” It’s that old bugaboo of the subversive foe within: “America has an enemy that is getting very close to accomplishing its plan of destroying the greatest country in all world history.” The <a href="https://www.agendadocumentary.com/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">website</a> for the film features a wire diagram of the leftist conspiracy to exterminate the United States that is worthy of a tinfoil hat award.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas was endorsing this claptrap. To see this film as an accurate depiction of reality, one would have to be a paranoid nutcase incapable of effectively and somberly evaluating the world. And there’s this: a person who believes that such a sinister plot is afoot could likely justify almost anything. As that one Groundswell memo suggests, this is a war, yet only Groundswellers are prepared for this battle. In such circumstances—if you were combatting an evil force bent on annihilating the land you love—would you really care about such niceties as avoiding judicial conflicts of interest?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>in one of her texts to Meadows, Thomas sent a dire message: “the most important thing you can realize right now is that there are no rules in war.” That text also said, “This war is psychological. PSYOP.” That means that the fight is over defining reality—something to which Ginni Thomas is not strongly tethered—and that in this clash she feels no need to abide by rules or, perhaps, even laws.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s much to the Ginni Thomas story. The House 1/6 committee has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/28/jan-6-committee-thomas-trump/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert&wpmk=1&wpisrc=al_newsalert-politics--alert-national&pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJjb29raWVuYW1lIjoid3BfY3J0aWQiLCJpc3MiOiJDYXJ0YSIsImNvb2tpZXZhbHVlIjoiNTk3YzJlYjU5YmJjMGY2ODI2ZDM2NjZmIiwidGFnIjoid3BfbmV3c19hbGVydF9yZXZlcmUiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vcG9saXRpY3MvMjAyMi8wMy8yOC9qYW4tNi1jb21taXR0ZWUtdGhvbWFzLXRydW1wLz91dG1fc291cmNlPWFsZXJ0JnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXdwX25ld3NfYWxlcnRfcmV2ZXJlJmxvY2F0aW9uPWFsZXJ0JndwbWs9MSZ3cGlzcmM9YWxfbmV3c19fYWxlcnQtcG9saXRpY3MtLWFsZXJ0LW5hdGlvbmFsIn0.c2Sm85zkkNKGBtyjhHn3uKxPCH9yRmsjnLbKsWdH1s0">requested</a> she come by for a chat. And for so many years now, she and her husband have created the appearance of a serious conflict of interest. (A decade ago she was <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/07/02/new-financial-forms-show-clarence-thomass-wife-continued-to-lobby-against-healthcare-in-2011?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-03-29-2022">lobbying against Obamacare</a> when her spouse was clearly going to have to rule on the constitutionality of the healthcare law.)
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But she has now certainly demonstrated she’s a conspiratorial crackpot. What does it say about the tea party and the far right that they have been steered by a zealous lunatic? No doubt, many Stop-the-Stealers do not drink Trump’s Kool-Aid. They use the false claims of a fraudulent election as a cudgel against Joe Biden and the libs. Or perhaps they suspect there was some chicanery, but they do not buy the full My Pillow Guy nuttiness. (The CIA used Italian military satellites to swipe votes from Tump!) Ginni Thomas, though, is all in. She is unhinged. Though it may be unfair to judge a judge by his or her spouse, it is hardly reassuring that a Supreme Court justice is literally in bed with a quasi-QAnon conspiracist—and ruling on cases related to her passions.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas texted Meadows. In the Thomas household, it’s more like the end of rationality.</font></p></div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
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</b></strong></font></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">heavy</font></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://heavy.com/news/2017/02/virginia-ginni-thomas-clarence-wife-supreme-court-daily-caller-family-age-donald-trump-muslim-ban-emails/">https://heavy.com/news/2017/02/virginia-ginni-thomas-clarence-wife-supreme-court-daily-caller-family-age-donald-trump-muslim-ban-emails/</a></font></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 fast facts no lnx</font></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
Virginia ‘Ginni’ Thomas is the controversial wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The 59-year-old Nebraska native might have made it difficult for her husband to rule on Donald Trump‘s immigration travel ban, since The Daily Beast has published emails that appear to show Ginni Thomas attempt to organize activists to support Trump’s policies.
The 59-year-old Ginni Thomas and Clarence Thomas have been married since 1987. They do not have any children. She has made her affiliation to the Republican party clear and is the founder of the conservative advocacy group Liberty Central. She also contributes to Tucker Calrson‘s conservative Daily Caller website. During the 2016 presidential primary campaign, she endorsed Texas Senator Ted Cruz for president.
Here’s a look at Ginni Thomas.
1. She Asked in an Email How She Could Start a ‘Ground-Up Grassroots Army of Pro-Trump Daily Action Items’
Atlanta Tea Party, Virginia Thomas! Tax Day Tea Party. The Atlanta Tea Party was graced with the opportunity to hear from Virginia Thomas. She was a refreshing voice from DC. May her patriotic devotion spread across that city! How many champions for the Constitution, our Founding, and Liberty are walking the halls of power, or have close access to those who do, and need…2010-04-16T14:04:20.000Z
On February 16, The Daily Beast reported that it obtained emails Ginni Thomas sent to a conservative listerv on February 13.
“What is the best way to, with minimal costs, set up a daily text capacity for a ground up-grassroots army for pro-Trump daily action items to push back against the left’s resistance efforts who are trying to make America ungovernable?” she wrote, according to the report. “I see the left has Daily Action @YourDailyAction and their Facebook likes are up to 61K.”
The email included a link to a Washington Post story about Daily Action.
“But there are some grassroots activists, who seem beyond the Republican party or the conservative movement, who wish to join the fray on social media for Trump and link shields and build momentum,” she continued, according to the Daily Beast. “I met with a house load of them yesterday and we want a daily textable tool to start… Suggestions?”
Ginni and Clearance Thomas did not provide the Daily Beast with a comment.
Heidi Li Feldman, a professor at Georgetown Law School, told the Daily Beast that the email could give lawyers a reason to ask that Justice Thomas recuse himself from cases centering on the Trump travel ban.
2. She Wrote That There Is a ‘Subversive Alt-Government in Line With the Alt-Left’s Growing Resistance’
Ginni Thomas: Palin Resonates Because People Love Authenticity The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas explains why she thinks her new website, inspired by the tea party, will become even bigger. She comments on Obama's power grab, the dangers of aggressive government and Sarah Palin's popularity.2010-06-01T19:37:28.000Z
<b>Ginni Thomas has been writing for The Daily Caller for several years. In her most recent post, she claimed there was an alt-left “subversive government” inside the government that wants to make “America ungovernable.”</b>
“Today, a subversive alt-government is emerging, in line with the alt-left’s growing resistance to use any means necessary to slow, stop and obstruct Trump’s agenda, from inside the government, to make America ungovernable,” Ginni Thomas wrote. She also cited an October report from The Hill that 95 percent of federal workers supported the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Ginni Thomas’ posts often have a disclaimer at the bottom, noting that she does not receive money from the Daily Caller’s advertisers.
“Mrs. Thomas does not necessarily support or endorse the products, services or positions promoted in any advertisement contained herein, and does not have control over or receive compensation from any advertiser,” the disclaimer reads.
[Read More From Heavy Supreme Court Confirmation Process: How Neil Gorsuch Would Be Confirmed]
3. In 2010, She Surprisingly Called Anita Hill & Requested an Apology
Thomas' Wife Wants Anita Hill ApologyVirginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, left a message for Anita Hill asking her to apologize for the accusations made against her husband 19 years ago. Jan Crawford reports.2010-10-20T14:11:06.000Z
During Justice Thomas’ confirmation hearings in 1991, lawyer Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment when she worked for him at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Despite her claims, Thomas was confirmed by the Senate and remains on the Supreme Court.
In 2010, The New York Times reported that Ginni Thomas surprisingly called Hill, who is now a professor at Brandeis University. Hill played the message, in which Ginni Thomas asked Hill to apologize to her husband. In the message, Ginni Thomas said:
“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.”
At first, Hill thought it was a prankster and she asked the FBI to investigate. Ginni Thomas later confirmed that it was her, but she didn’t say why she left the message 19 years after the hearings.
“I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago,” she said in a statement to the Times. “That offer still stands. I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”
“I appreciate that no offense was intended, but she can’t ask for an apology without suggesting that I did something wrong, and that is offensive,” Hill told the Times.
<b>4. She Founded a Tea Party-Affiliated Group Called Liberty Central, Which Backed off From a Memo That Called Obamacare Unconstitutional</b>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas: I Am Proudly Endorsing Ted Cruz for President in 2016 t</span>edcruz.org2015-11-20T20:03:50.000Z
In 2009, Ginni Thomas founded Liberty Central, a Tea Party-affiliated non-profit organization. The group no longer exists, since it merged with the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty in late 2010.
“The more we realized where we both were, our shared missions, our share principles, our shared knowledge of the conservative movement, it became clear that there could be an alliance here,” she told the Daily Caller in December 2010.
Her tenure as the leader of a conservative group while her husband had to rule on Obama Administration policies raised eyebrows throughout Washington. For example, in October 2010, Liberty Centrral called Obama’s healthcare law “unconstitutional” in a memo. According to the Tribune Washington Bureau, the memo was posted on the group’s website and Ginni Thomas’ name appeared on it.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sarah Field, the group’s chief operating officer at the time, said that Ginni Thomas herself didn’t mean to endorse the memo, which was circulated by another group. It was then removed from the Liberty Central website.</span>
Ginni Thomas “did not review the memo; it was reviewed by staff who mistakenly signed off with her name on it. As a result, we have asked CAP to remove her name and they did so immediately,” Field told the Tribune. “Liberty Central assiduously avoids taking a position on the constitutionality of this, and other issues, and will continue to do so in the future.”
In 2014, Justice Thomas was among the dissent in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the case that ruled that most parts of the Affordable Care Act are constitutional.
5. She Was the White House Liaison for the Conservative Heritage Foundation During the George W. Bush Administration
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas has created conflict of interest concerns for her husband throughout his tenure on the Court. Fore example, during the Bush v. Gore case in 2000, there were concerns because she was already collecting resumes of potential George W. Bush appointments while working at the Heritage Foundati</span>on.
During the Bush Administration, Ginni Thomas continued to work at the conservative think tank. She was White House liaison for the organization. She no longer works at the group. Her last position there was director of Executive Branch Relations.
According to the Los Angeles Times in 2011, the Common Cause watchdog group said Justice Thomas failed to report Ginni Thomas’ income from the Heritage Foundation. She earned $686,589 from the group between 2003 and 2007. However, in 2009, Justice Thomas put down spousal income as “none.”<b>
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</strong></font></strong></div><div align="left"><h2 class="node-title"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><strong><a href="https://www.glaad.org/gap/ginni-thomas">Ginni Thomas</a></strong></strong></font></strong></h2><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong /></font></strong><div class="field field-name-field-commentator-description field-type-text field-label-hidden"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong /></font></strong></strong><div class="field-items"><strong><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong /></font></strong></strong></strong><div class="field-item even"><strong><strong><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Activist</strong></font></strong></strong></strong></strong></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-title-2 field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><strong><strong>Wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas</strong></strong></div></div></div><p><strong><strong>—<a href="https://dailycaller.com/2017/05/27/heres-the-real-reason-businesses-attacked-north-carolinas-bathroom-bill-video/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Aggressively pushed</a> propaganda defending North Carolina’s anti-trans “bathroom bill.”</strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong>—<a href="https://dailycaller.com/2015/10/10/former-intelligence-analyst-political-correctness-is-a-manipulative-tool-for-centralizing-power/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Promoted</a> viciously anti-trans activist Stella Morabito, with both insisting that transgender rights are part of a politically correct propaganda tool that is manipulating the masses.</strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong>—<b><a href="https://dailycaller.com/2016/06/04/author-the-left-is-aggressively-breaking-down-the-resistance-to-transform-america/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Used</a> her Daily Caller column to promote an author who claims trans rights are part of an agenda to transform America:</b> “To [author Dr. Kim Holmes], the transgender issue uses a small number of ‘victims’ to demonstrate who can make laws. By expanding an administrative interpretation of ‘civil rights,’ without Congress, the federal state solidifies its capacity to dictate American law – even if it’s public school bathroom policies. Most Republicans fail to step up and fight, he says, because they fear a popular culture that is against them and are exceedingly shallow.”</strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong>—<a href="https://dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/HIGGINS-transcript.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Included</a> “the emergence of transgender rights” as one of the host of horribles that left-wing activists are supposedly imposing on America: “So help people connect the dots in America. There’s so much going on. Whether it’s suddenly the emergence of transgender rights, or the downing of statues or ESPN suddenly becoming left wing commentators instead of sports people, or the closing down of free speech on college campuses, or the censorship that’s happening by media providers to conservative or pro-American voices.”</strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong>—<b><a href="https://dailycaller.com/2016/08/27/homeschool-advocate-us-govt-bullies-parents-and-kids-into-common-core-video/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Promoted</a> Sam Sorbo</b>, an anti-trans activist who claims that trans-inclusive public school policies “bully” other students.</strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">—<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/?slide=0" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Founding member</a> of secretive far-right group Groundswell, which lobbies against LGBTQ rights.</span></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong>—<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/justice-thomass-wife-now-lobbyist-048812" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Worked</a> as White House liaison for the anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation.</strong></strong></p></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 243); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-style: inherit;">ref
</span></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 243); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; line-height: 1.5;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; font-style: inherit;"><a href="https://dailycaller.com/2016/08/27/homeschool-advocate-us-govt-bullies-parents-and-kids-into-common-core-video/">https://dailycaller.com/2016/08/27/homeschool-advocate-us-govt-bullies-parents-and-kids-into-common-core-video/</a>
</span></font></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As parents increasingly notice government schools indoctrinate children with secular or progressive values, more families are exploring homeschooling as “a freedom initiative” to maintain control over values and beliefs.</font></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sam Sorbo is a passionate, dedicated homeschooling mom of three and talk radio host. Often on Fox News, Sorbo is an actress, former model and biomedical engineer from Duke University, who is married to actor <a href="http://www.kevinsorbo.net/" target="blank">Kevin Sorbo</a> of “Hercules” fame. She is also the author of recent book <a href="http://www.samsorbo.com/books/theyre-your-kids" target="blank">“They’re Your Kids.”</a>...</font></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx
As parents increasingly notice government schools indoctrinate children with secular or progressive values, more families are exploring homeschooling as “a freedom initiative” to maintain control over values and beliefs.
Sam Sorbo is a passionate, dedicated homeschooling mom of three and talk radio host. Often on Fox News, Sorbo is an actress, former model and biomedical engineer from Duke University, who is married to actor Kevin Sorbo of “Hercules” fame. She is also the author of recent book “They’re Your Kids.”
Mandated government schools are failing us, she argues, and are doing more harm than good. It is time for parents to act. Sorbo wants more parents to find the joys of homeschooling their own children out of an abundance of caution for what the school system is doing wrong.
Sorbo says the head of the United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew, was “bullying” when he stated, “I will punch you in the face and shove you on the ground if you try to take away my Common Core” to teacher applause.
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Sorbo also talks about the national discussion on transgender bathrooms forced by the federal government, and reminds us the perversion prescribed for public schools is stated as a communist goal in the Congressional Record.</span>
Sorbo wants parents to “be a hero to your kids.” She realized how beneficial homeschooling was when she tried it while her husband was on a movie shoot, according to this video interview for The Daily Caller News Foundation. She, like other parents, overcame self-doubt and realized “our self-doubt has been instilled in us by the school system.”
freestar
Her book starts with a Bertrand Russell quote about public schools being a means of destroying students’ free will, preparing them for servitude. Many students, instead of learning the U.S. Constitution protects God-given natural rights, she says, are learning about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as conceived by the United Nations in 1948.
Sorbo is “offended” by the Republican Congress, the “wet noodle party,” as they do not confront the fundamental transformation of the nation. Referring to the Republicans, she says, “no conflict means capitulation” in her book.
She ends the video interview with what gives her hope in our times.
For more on Sam Sorbo, go to her website, buy her book, listen to her radio show or follow her on Facebook or Twitter @thesamsorboshow. She was also recently interviewed on Varney & Co. You should watch for a coming faith-informed movie she co-wrote and acts in called “Let There Be Light.”
freestar
Mrs. Thomas does not necessarily support or endorse the products, services or positions promoted in any advertisement contained herein, and does not have control over or receive compensation from any advertiser.
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Communist Goals (1963)</font></font></strong></strong><dl><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><dt><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110717143639/http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm#Documention">Documention below</a></dt><dt style="font-weight: bold;"><hr /></dt></font></strong></strong></dl><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 10,<b> 1963</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Current Communist Goals</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thursday, January 10, 1963</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[From "<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The Naked Communist," by <b>Cleon Skousen]</b></span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3<b>. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">one-world government</span> with its own independent armed forces. </b>(Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States. TRUMP PRO PUTIN, TROLL CAUCUS, CHECK!]
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">18. Gain control of all student newspapers.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">23. <b>Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies.</b> Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.[TRUMP? GINGRICH?]
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition [1776 JAN 6] ; </b>that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the <b>World Court from seizing jurisdiction </b>[over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><hr /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Note by Webmaster: The Congressional Record back this far has not be digitized and posted on the Internet.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It will probably be available at your nearest library that is a <b>federal repository</b>. Call them and ask them.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Your college library is probably a repository. This is an excellent source of government records.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another source are your Congress Critters. They should be more than happy to help you in this matter.</font></p><hr /><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You will find the Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto interesting at this point.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110717143639/http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/10planks.htm">Click here to see them listed with brain-challenging comments.</a><a name="Documention" /></font></p><a name="Documention"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a name="Documention" /></font><dl><a name="Documention"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a name="Documention"><dt><hr /><b>Documentation</b></dt><dd> </dd><dt>Webmaster Forest Glen Durland found the document in the library.</dt><dt>Sources are listed below.</dt><dt>The quote starts on page 259.</dt><dd><hr /><blockquote><blockquote><dl><dt><b>Microfilm:</b></dt><dd> </dd><dt>California State University at San Jose</dt><dt>Clark Library, Government Floor</dt><dt>Phone (408)924-2770</dt><dt>Microfilm</dt><dt>Call Number: </dt><dt>J</dt><dt>11</dt><dt>.R5</dt><dt>Congressional Record, Vol. 109</dt><dt>88th Congress, 1st Session</dt><dt>Appendix Pages A1-A2842</dt><dt>Jan. 9-May 7, 1963</dt><dt>Reel 12</dt></dl></blockquote></blockquote></dd></a></font></dl><hr /><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The book was found in the off campus stacks, was ordered and checked. The quote below was checked against the original and is correct. The few errors in the copy from the Congressional Record are shown in [ ] .</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The quote starts on page 259.</font></p><dl><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">California State University at San Jose, Clark Library stacks call number<b>:</b></font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Naked Communist</font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HX</font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">56</font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">S55</font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Book title page:</font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Skousen, W. Cleon. Naked Communist</font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Co.</font></dt><dt><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">C. 1961 , 9th edition July 1961.</font><hr /></dt></dl><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110717143639/http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/list-com.htm">Go to the Commie List</a></font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110717143639/http://www.uhuh.com/control/list-con.htm">Go to the List of Controls</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110717143639/http://www.uhuh.com/index.htm">Go to the Uhuh opening Title Page</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20110717143639/http://www.uhuh.com/homepage.htm">Go the Uhuh Home Page</a></font></p></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=
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at? <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">an evangelical victory party in front of the Supreme Court to celebrate the downfall of Roe v. Wade last week, a prominent Capitol Hill religious leader was caught on a hot mic making a bombshell claim: that she prays with sitting justices inside the high court. “We’re the only people who do that,” Peggy Nienaber said.</span>
This disclosure was a serious matter on its own terms, but it also suggested a major conflict of interest. Nienaber’s ministry’s umbrella organization, Liberty Counsel, frequently brings lawsuits before the Supreme Court. In fact, the conservative majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which ended nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights, cited an amicus brief authored by Liberty Counsel in its ruling.
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In other words: Sitting Supreme Court justices have prayed together with evangelical leaders whose bosses were bringing cases and arguments before the high court.
Nienaber is Liberty Counsel’s executive director of DC Ministry, as well as the vice president of Faith & Liberty, whose ministry offices sit directly behind the Supreme Court. She spoke to a livestreamer who goes by Connie IRL, seemingly unaware she was being recorded. “You actually pray with the Supreme Court justices?” the livestreamer asked. “I do,” Nienaber said. “They will pray with us, those that like us to pray with them.” She did not specify which justices prayed with her, but added with a chortle, “Some of them don’t!” The livestreamer then asked if Nienaber ministered to the justices in their homes or at her office. Neither, she said. “We actually go in there.”
Nienaber intended her comments, broadcast on YouTube, to be “totally off the record,” she says in the clip. That’s likely because such an arrangement presents a problem for the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, which not only weighed in on the Dobbs case as a friend of the court, but also litigated and won a 9-0 Supreme Court victory this May in a case centered on the public display of a religious flag.
The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment. Liberty Counsel’s founder, Mat Staver, strenuously denied that the in-person ministering to justices that Nienaber bragged about exists. “It’s entirely untrue,” Staver tells Rolling Stone. “There is just no way that has happened.” He adds: “She has prayer meetings for them, not with them.” Asked if he had an explanation for Nienaber’s direct comments to the contrary, Staver says, “I don’t.”
But the founder of the ministry, who surrendered its operations to Liberty Counsel in 2018, tells Rolling Stone that he hosted prayer sessions with conservative justices in their chambers from the late-1990s through when he left the group in the mid-2010s. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rob Schenck, who launched the ministry under the name Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, described how the organization forged ministry relationships with Samuel Alito,<b> Clarence Thomas</b>, and the late Antonin Scalia, saying he would pray with them inside the high court. Nienaber was Schenk’s close associate in that era, and continued with the ministry after it came under the umbrella of Liberty Counsel.</span>
Louis Virelli is a professor at Stetson University College of Law who wrote a book about Supreme Court recusals. He’s blunt in his assessment: “Praying with a group that filed an amicus brief with a court,” he says, “is a problem.”
Barbara Abshire, center, of Baltimore, and Peggy Nienaber of Lorton, Md., unpack flowers for use in the "Encircle the Court in Prayer," event led by Christian faith organizations on the eve of the Supreme Court arguments on President Obama's health care legislation, in Washington, Sunday, March 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Peggy Nienaber, right, at an event outside the Supreme Court led by Christian faith organizations on the eve of the Supreme Court arguments on President Obama’s health care legislation in 2012.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the shadow of the high court, across the street from its chambers, sits a cluster of unassuming row houses known only to the initiated as “Ministry Row.” The strip is host to evangelical political groups that have spent the past several decades pushing Beltway conservatives to embrace the religious right’s political causes — and, most of all, reverse Roe v. Wade. The street view offers few clues as to what transpires behind the painted brick facades, save for a granite slab inscribed with the Ten Commandments</span> planted in the grassy patch before a modest cream-colored Victorian with maroon trim.
The home serves as Faith & Liberty’s headquarters. The Ten Commandments statue had been placed there by Schenck, an evangelical minister famous for orchestrating high-profile anti-abortion stunts, such as shoving an aborted fetus in a plastic container into the face of former President Bill Clinton during the 1992 campaign. Schenck had opened the ministry in the 1990s as Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, a nonprofit dedicated to ending federal abortion rights. The organization operated on a “utopian ‘trickle-up’ theory” of influence: building access “higher and higher up within the government, until we got to the top, my ultimate target — members of Congress, U.S. senators, cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices — even presidents,” Schenck wrote in his 2018 autobiography.
The group established a strong foothold in both chambers of Congress and, eventually, the White House. But Faith and Action ultimately directed its energies toward the judicial branch. “There were no pro-life groups directly approaching the judges and justices, who shaped abortion law simply by their precedent-setting decisions,” Schenck wrote. “We knew we were stuck with members of the federal bench — they were appointed for life — so why not convert them while in office?” (Schenck has since reversed course: He is now a fierce critic of evangelical politicking and says Liberty Counsel assumed Faith and Action’s operations in 2018. He says he has no knowledge of the group’s inner workings after he left.)
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At first, the high court regarded Faith and Action and its peer organizations as nuisances, according to Schenck. “Justice Thomas would say to me, ‘You know those groups outside? Are they crazy or are they good people?’” Schenck recalls in an interview with Rolling Stone. When Schenck first began his approach in 1994, prayer activities on the Supreme Court’s property was considered an act of demonstration, and therefore illegal. Eventually, Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas would embrace Schenck, he says, and pray with him in various corners of the high court’s grounds — including, occasionally, in their chambers. (Chief Justice John Roberts, meanwhile, remained more guarded and skeptical of such groups’ influence.)</span>
To pray with the justices was to perform a sort of “spiritual conditioning,” Schenck explains. “The intention all along was to embolden the conservative justices by loaning them a kind of spiritual moral support — to give them an assurance that not only was there a large number of people behind them, but in fact, there was divine support for very strong and unapologetic opinions from them.” Prayer is a powerful communication tool in the evangelical tradition: The speaker assumes the mantle of the divine, and to disagree with an offered prayer is akin to sin. “It’s just not common to interrupt or challenge a prayer,” Schenck explains. “That’s not something a devout Supreme Court justice would ever consider doing.” That was true even for the devout Catholic justices, such as Scalia, who joined the evangelical Faith and Action members in prayer, Schenck says.
Sometimes the prayers would be general; other times, on specific subjects, such as ending abortion, according to Schenck. He says Faith and Action took assiduous care to avoid speaking blatantly about cases in the Supreme Court’s pipeline, discussing the political agenda only in broad strokes. Even so, under the time period Schenck describes, prayers with the justices occurred as Faith and Action signed onto several amicus briefs for landmark SCOTUS cases such as Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, which ultimately upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Schenck walked away from his life on the Hill after receiving a late-career doctorate on the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who questioned the collaborative relationship between Adolf Hitler and 1930s German evangelicals. He drew parallels between the Republican Party and American evangelicalism, concerned that he’d weaponized worship to fuel a hate-filled agenda. No longer an anti-abortion activist, Schenck views his past efforts with regret. “Prayer is a positive exercise, until it’s politicized — and too many prayers that I and my colleagues offered in the presence of the justices were political prayers,” he explains. He also believes the work “contributed to the internal moral and ethical corruption of the justices at the court,” he says.
“I was sure, while we were doing it, it would be a positive contribution to our public life,” Schenck says. “It didn’t have the effect I thought it would. In some ways, it set the stage for the reversal of Roe, which I now think of as a social catastrophe.”</span>
When Liberty Counsel absorbed Faith and Action in 2018, Peggy Nienaber, who had worked alongside Schenck since at least 2005, continued with the group. In a July 2021 conversation with Staver, Liberty Counsel’s founder, Nienaber described the group’s new incarnation as similar to Faith and Action’s mission. It’s “the ministry right here on Capitol Hill,” she said, devoted to “changing the hearts and minds of not only our elected officials, but the staffers all the way down.” Nienaber highlighted Faith & Liberty’s proximity to the court by pointing to the window of the conference room where the justices decide their cases. ”When you’re sitting in that conference room, you cannot miss those Ten Commandments,” she said. (Faith & Liberty sits so close to the Supreme Court, in fact, that it has been included in the “buffer zone” surrounding the high court, shut off to protesters and the public. There’s irony here, given that Liberty Counsel has for decades litigated to abolish buffer zones near abortion clinics.)
“There’s a lot of things that Faith & Liberty does — and that you do — that obviously we can’t put in an email, can’t put in a newsletter, can’t put in a press release,” Staver said to Nienaber during their chat, “because it’s private relationships that are spiritually transformative.” Nienaber’s social media accounts show her hobnobbing with high-profile Republicans such as Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and former Vice President Mike Pence. She hung close to the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018: She posted photographs from inside the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing room, as well as a screenshot of her invitation to Kavanaugh’s swearing-in ceremony.
Nienaber told Rolling Stone, “I do not socialize with the justices.” Yet she has posed for photos with Justices Kavanaugh and Thomas, calling the latter a “friend” in a Facebook post, praising him for “passing by our ministry center to attend church and always taking time to say hello.”
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In addition to her proximity to conservative power players, Nienaber has championed the plaintiffs who have brought right-wing religious causes before the Supreme Court. Ahead of oral arguments, she prayed with Joe Kennedy, the football coach who recently succeeded in his suit to allow prayer during football games. Liberty Counsel also filed an amicus brief in that case, calling on the court to rule that the school district “engaged in viewpoint discrimination against<b> Coach Kennedy</b>’s private speech.”</span>
Nienaber was recorded telling the livestreamer that she prayed with Supreme Court justices on June 27, the Monday after the high court issued the Dobbs ruling. She was at a celebration she helped organize with Sean Feucht, a prominent Christian-worship musician. Nienaber identifies herself only as “Peggy” in the footage, but she references the ministry she runs behind the court and its 850-pound replica of the Ten Commandments. For most of the interview, Nienaber is not on camera. But when the video pans on her briefly, she can be seen wearing the same dress and necklace she has on in a selfie with Feucht posted to Faith & Liberty’s website.
Last week, Rolling Stone spoke to Patty Bills, the director of constituency affairs at Faith & Liberty. Bills did not want to discuss Faith & Liberty’s ministry practices, citing privacy concerns. Bills would not, however, deny that Faith & Liberty ministers to Supreme Court justices. “I never said we didn’t — I just said we provide privacy,” she said.
Staver, in denying that members of Faith & Liberty prayed with Supreme Court justices, says that such prayers would have been inappropriate, especially given Liberty Counsel’s litigation efforts. “That’s why we wouldn’t do that,” he says. “And especially on cases that are pending before the Supreme Court, we would make a very clear firewall. We just would never do something like that.”
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a written statement to Rolling Stone, Nienaber says of her hot-mic comments: “I do not recall making such a statement. I listened to the livestream, and I did not hear such a statement.” She adds that Covid restrictions have limited public access to the Supreme Court: “The public has not been allowed access, and I am no different.” When she has had access to public areas of the court, she says, “I will generally silently pray for the justices, their staff, and the Court.”</span>
But after this story was published, Nienaber acknowledged her remarks and conceded she has prayed personally with Supreme Court justices. Despite speaking in the present tense on the livestream, Nienaber asserted, “My comment was referring to past history and not practice of the past several years.” Nienaber added: “During most of the history up to early 2020, I met with many people who wanted or needed prayer. Since early 2020, access to the Supreme Court has been restricted due to COVID. It has been many years since I prayed with a Justice.”
Liberty Counsel was founded in 1989 by Staver. The organization is an uncommon hybrid of religious ministry and legal practice, dedicated to “advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family through strategic litigation.” Staver is the organization’s senior pastor as well as its top litigator. This mix of law and religion is central to Staver’s career; he previously served as dean of the law school at Liberty University, founded by the televangelist Jerry Falwell.
Staver has argued numerous cases in front of the Supreme Court. He started in 1994 in a case that struck a blow against protest-limiting buffer zones near abortion clinics. In the court’s most recent term, Staver argued and won a 9-0 judgment in Shurtleff v. Boston, a case in which the court ruled a Christian flag couldn’t be excluded from a public flagpole that displayed a rotating assortment of secular flags.
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Staver also wrote an amicus brief in the Dobbs case that purports to tie abortion and birth control to eugenics</span>. Calling Roe “the low watermark in this Court’s history,” it argued that Dobbs was ”an ideal vehicle for the Court to finally overrule Roe v. Wade and its progeny, which have constitutionalized eugenic abortions as a fundamental right.”
In the Dobbs majority opinion written by Justice Alito, he cited this brief to impugn the motives of pro-abortion-rights advocates, arguing that “some such supporters have been motivated by a desire to suppress the size of the African American population,” adding, “it is beyond dispute that Roe has had that demographic effect,” because “a highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are Black.”
When Roe v. Wade was reversed, Staver was triumphant: “I have dedicated my life to defend life and overturn the bloody decisions of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey,” he wrote. “This global earthquake will impact the world.”
Prayer unto itself in no way presents a conflict of interest for the justices, says Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, not even with a group like Faith & Liberty that has business before the court. Justices are allowed to visit there with whomever they’d like in their private chambers, and have socialized with interested parties throughout the court’s history. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for example, routinely played cards with the high court’s magistrates, and Scalia went duck hunting with former Vice President Dick Cheney. What would amount to an ethical concern would be if they’re discussing those cases as they pray — “or if the prayer sessions would influence how justices rule in a particular case,” says Adam Winkler, a Supreme Court expert at the University of California Los Angeles.
But even among legal experts troubled by the court’s ties, they acknowledge there are few remedies to address ethical conflicts. A federal statute governs when judges and justices should step away from cases, but the Constitution leaves questions of partiality to the justices themselves. Their general unwillingness to step aside isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Virelli, the Stetson law professor, says: When justices recuse themselves from a case, no one replaces them, a scenario that can create more problems than it solves. “The court changes shape,” he explains. “That makes the decision to recuse difficult.”
That the justices are their own keepers in regard to those rules creates complications, however, says Steve Vladeck, a constitutional-law expert at the University of Texas Law School. The relationship between Faith & Liberty and Liberty Counsel, as described by Rolling Stone, “could make a reasonable observer worry about the appearance of partiality,” he says. But the concerns the scenario raised shouldn’t be about recusal. “What that really reveals is how problematic it is that there isn’t an objective mechanism to resolve these sorts of questions.”
For Winkler, the greater concern is not prayers, but the “religious-themed” decisions he’s seen come down from the high court this term, pointing to not only the Roe reversal but also opinions that permit unchecked free exercise of First Amendment rights. “The problematic aspect isn’t whether they’re praying,” Winkler says, “but that several justices seem committed to reading their religion into the Constitution.”
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://documented.net/investigations/documented-obtains-list-of-2020-donors-to-ginni-thomas-group-that-supported-trumps-attempted-coup">https://documented.net/investigations/documented-obtains-list-of-2020-donors-to-ginni-thomas-group-that-supported-trumps-attempted-coup</a></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<b>Documented Obtains List of 2020 Donors to Ginni Thomas Group That Supported Trump’s Attempted Coup</b>
Documented is revealing a list of CNP Action's 2020 donors, and can confirm that Ginni Thomas remained on the board of the group as it laid the groundwork for January 6.
Published On<b> APR 12, 2022</b>
New documents reveal that Ginni Thomas remained on the board of Council for National Policy Action (“CNP Action”) in 2020 as it worked to support former President Donald Trump’s attempted election coup.
Documented has additionally obtained a list of funders to the organization that year, as well as recordings, documents, and other materials that provide further evidence of Thomas’ advocacy related to the 2020 election.
According to a tax filing obtained by Documented, Thomas remained on CNP Action's nine-member board of directors in 2020, as the group promoted baseless election fraud conspiracies, urged Republican legislatures in swing states to reject Biden's win, and pressed Congress to only count Trump electors from those states. Thomas’ 2020 role in CNP Action has not been confirmed until now.
Separate materials obtained by Documented describe the 2020 donors who bankrolled CNP Action's activities that year. Those donors include:
<b> Leonard Leo</b>, the longtime Federalist Society officer who shaped Trump’s judicial nominations, and who plays a key role in a network of interlinked dark money groups. Leo and Thomas have a long relationship: for example, in 2009, Leo helped Thomas create Liberty Central, a tea party themed nonprofit, with Leo serving as a founding board member, and Thomas as the group's President.
<b> Michael Farris, who “played a critical behind-the-scenes role in the lawsuit that Republican state attorneys general filed in December [2020] in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election of President Biden,”</b> according to the New York Times. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Farris is CEO of the Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which regularly litigates before the U.S. Supreme Court, including the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, where Clarence Thomas was part of the 5-4 majority that backed a Colorado cake shop owner’s refusal to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple.</span>
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Floyd G. Brown,</span> who produced the infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad and founded the sensationalist right-wing website Western Journal, which published an op-ed in December 2020 from Trump ally Michael Flynn declaring “It’s time for god-fearing Americans to fight.”
Other CNP Action donors include <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Paige Patterson, the controversial former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and executives from groups like Susan B. Anthony List and Independent Women’s Voice, which regularly participate in litigation before the Supreme Court.</span> The amount contributed by each donor is not known.</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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document
CNP Action 2020 Donors</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[rich bott bob carlstrom; ken cribb; marj dann; heather higgins; wm d morgan; aug petrone; ann quest; jc white...]This document, a slide from a presentation at a CNP Action event, identifies 21 contributors to CNP Action in 2020.
Published: April 12, 2022</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[[</font></strong></strong><div data-v-0a00c98b="" data-v-f327fc52=""><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></strong></strong><p><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So who is William D. Morgan and what does he have to do with all of this? Morgan is the chair of the Family Action Coalition of Tennessee, an anti-gay group and one of the bill’s biggest supporters. Morgan is also president of John Bouchard & Sons, a privately held business and major contractor with Metro Davidson County Government (where Nashville is located). John Bouchard & Sons has a contract to repair electrical equipment, one for machine shop services for Metro Water Services, one for cast iron sewer boxes for Metro Water Services, and one for construction services.</font></font></font></font></strong></strong></p></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Metro Davidson County Government just passed an ordinance requiring businesses that contract with the local government to provide workplace protection for LGBT employees. That ordinance would be repealed if SB0632 is signed into law by Governor Bill Haslam.]]</font></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Additionally, as described in the timeline below, Documented has obtained several years of recordings and other materials that show Thomas’s long history with CNP Action and its sister organization, the Council for National Policy (“CNP”).
These CNP recordings and materials document the group's efforts both before and after the 2020 election to narrow access to the ballot and to lay the groundwork for Trump’s attempted coup. They show Thomas' close working relationship with CNP member Cleta Mitchell, the Trump legal advisor who was on the call where the president pressured the Georgia Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes.” They also show CNP’s attempts after January 6 to thwart the work of the bipartisan committee examining the attack on the Capitol.
Thomas has already faced scrutiny for dozens of texts that she had sent White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in late 2020 urging him to overturn the election. Taken together, these materials provide further evidence of Thomas' ties to the attempted election coup, and may deepen pressure for her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to recuse from cases relating to the election and the violence on January 6.
CNP, Ginni Thomas, and Election 2020
2019
2020
2021
2022
2019
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 153);">18 May 2019
<b>Thomas and Cleta Mitchell Announce Project to “Protect President Trump”</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In May of 2019, Thomas jointly addressed a CNP conference with Mitchell, who would later join President Trump’s legal team and peddle election fraud myths. “I’m so thankful that CNP put Charlie Kirk and Cleta and I all together—it really goes very well,” Thomas said. “Watch what happens.”</span>
At the event, Thomas described a new project called Crowdsourcers, as well as a separate PAC and nonprofit to “protect President Trump,” both of which were to be set up by Mitchell. The PAC/nonprofit venture was slated to do business under the name “American D-Day.” There is no record of a PAC or nonprofit having been registered with the Federal Election Commission or IRS under that name, although it is not known whether the project advanced under a different name. Documented first reported on the details of this project in 2019, in partnership with The Intercept.
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2020
28 Feb 2020
CNP Action Pre-Election Session Alleging Voter Fraud
On February 28, 2020, CNP Action sponsored a session at a CNP conference that described the upcoming election in nearly apocalyptic terms and—before a single ballot had even been cast—warned that Democrats were planning to engage in widespread fraud through practices like vote by mail.
One panelist, True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht, warned that Democrats would use “mob rule” to siege the 2020 elections with fraudulent votes: “The swarming tactics of a radicalized socialist mindset is a dangerous thing to behold.” Another panelist, Save Our States’ Trent England, warned that the “inner city” is “where the fraud happens,” and stressed the need to find Republican poll watchers in urban and tribal precincts. This was another CNP story that Documented first reported on in partnership with The Intercept.
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">28 Feb 2020
ALEC CEO Discusses Steps State Legislatures "Can Take to Question the Validity of an Election"
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the question-and-answer portion of the<b> February 2020 session, American Legislative Exchange Council (“ALEC”) CEO Lisa Nelson stated that ALEC had been working on “action items that [state] legislators can take to question the validity of an election.</b>” Nelson told the group, “obviously we all want President Trump to win, and win the national vote. But it's very clear from all the comments and all the suggestions up front that really what it comes down to is the states, and the state legislators.”</span>
The idea that Republican-led state legislatures could overturn their state’s popular vote and appoint Trump electors would be a key part of Trump’s attempted coup strategy.
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11 Nov 2020
CNP Action Post-Election Strategy Session
Cleta Mitchel Speaking at the May 2019 CNP Meeting Credit: CNP. Obtained By Documented.
In the days after the 2020 election, CNP Action sponsored a session at the CNP conference titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” According to the conference agenda, the panel included Cleta Mitchell, who at the time was advising the Trump campaign, and publicly making voter fraud claims too absurd even for Fox News hosts. The other panelists, Heritage Action’s Hans von Spakovsky and the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF)’s J. Christian Adams, were also top purveyors of voter fraud myths.</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CNP Action Steps Doc Published by the Center for Media and Democracy
Following the November 11, 2020 session, CNP Action circulated an “Action Steps” document urging the group’s powerful members to contact state lawmakers in three swing states that tipped the balance for Joe Biden—Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania—and press them to reject the election results and appoint Trump electors. </span>“Demand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities during a time such as this,” the document advised. The “Action Steps” document additionally urged state legislators to contact lawmakers in other states to “amplify” that it is state legislators’ “duty to appoint electors to the Electoral College.”
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Those “Action Steps” tracked efforts by Trump’s legal team to overturn the election. As Barton Gellman concluded at The Atlantic:
[T]he strategic objective of nearly every move by the Trump team after the networks called the election for Joe Biden on November 7 was to induce Republican legislatures in states that Biden won to seize control of the results and appoint Trump electors instead. Every other objective—in courtrooms, on state election panels, in the Justice Department, and in the office of the vice president—was instrumental to that end.</span>
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8 Dec 2020
CNP Action Distributes Memo Written by Cleta Mitchell on Overturning Election Results
Cleta Memo CNP Published by the Center for Media and Democracy
In December 2020, CNP Action circulated a newsletter that included a<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> 21-page report titled “Five States and the Election Irregularities and Issues,” which also described steps that state legislatures or Congress could take to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Metadata shows that Cleta Mitchell—who was still advising the Trump campaign—created the report.</span> The report focused on alleged “irregularities” in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where Trump and his allies were pressing litigation, but where time was running out for courts to “declare the elections null and void.”
As was the case with the “Action Steps” document, the December 8 report backed the Trump campaign’s effort to pressure state lawmakers to ignore vote counts and appoint Trump electors. The report asserted that, in light of the fraud that the Trump campaign (falsely) alleged in its lawsuits, in each of those five states, “the State Legislature must <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">reclaim </span>its constitutional authority and responsibility to do what the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">constitution</span> requires: appoint the presidential electors.”
In addition to backing the Trump campaign’s unlawful call for state legislatures to ignore voters and appoint Trump electors, the report additionally declared that “Congress has the ultimate responsibility for receiving and counting the electoral college votes,” and that “[t]here is no constitutional obligation for Congress to accept fraudulent vote and electoral votes.”
This argument helped set the stage for members of Congress to make spurious objections to the electoral vote count. Additionally, during the same period that Thomas’ CNP Action was advocating for Congress to count false electors, Thomas was in contact with multiple Congressional offices about supporting Trump.
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10 Dec 2020
CNP's Conservative Action Project Calls on "State Legislators to Appoint New Electors"
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CNP’s Conservative Action Project publicly called for state legislatures and Congress to overturn the results of the election in a letter signed by dozens of high-profile CNP members. The letter, which cited the December 8 “Five States and the Election Irregularities” report, asserted that “There is no doubt President Donald J. Trump is the lawful winner of the presidential election. Joe Biden is not president-elect.”
[L]egislatures in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan should exercise their plenary power under the Constitution and appoint clean slates of electors to the Electoral College to support President Trump. Similarly, both the House and Senate should accept only these clean Electoral College slates and object to and reject any competing slates in favor of Vice President Biden from these states."
Again, CNP was asking state and federal legislatures to ignore the law and the constitution. After voters have already cast ballots, state legislatures cannot simply ignore the will of voters and choose their own electors. And Congress cannot just count the “alternate electors” selected for Trump. Republicans in battleground states did try to appoint themselves as illegitimate “alternate electors,” as part of a scheme orchestrated by Trump campaign officials and Rudy Giuliani, but the plot ultimately failed.
CNP’s December 10 letter was signed by at least two individuals who would go on to organize the Jan. 6 rally: Tea Party Patriots Chair Jenny Beth Martin and conservative activist Ed Martin.
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">30 Dec 2020
CNP's Conservative Action Project Calls on U.S. Senate to "Rescue Our Republic"
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As the January 6 electoral count drew near, on December 30, 2020, CNP's Conservative Action Project sent the U.S. Senate a letter demanding "a public hearing prior to the counting of electoral votes on January 6," and that the Senate "review the evidence of the problems of the state elections, particularly in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona. We ask you to study carefully and consider the Constitutional obligations and duties conferred upon you as Senators. Be willing to stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law, and contest the electoral votes from these states."
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The letter came the same day that Sen. Josh Hawley announced that he would be contesting election results in Pennsylvania.</span></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
2021</b>
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">14 Jan 2021
CNP's Conservative Action Project: "<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cruz, Hawley, Brooks and Colleagues Follow the Constitution"</span>
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Just over a week after the January 6 attack, CNP's Conservative Action Project issued a statement condemning violence, but declaring that "the actions of 8 Senators and 139 House members, including Sen. Josh Hawley, Sen. Ted Cruz, and many others, who intended to or did debate the certification of certain states’ 2020 electors is not, and never will be, tantamount to violence. The right and ability to object to electoral certification is written into the Constitution and housed in the procedural rights of those who represent us."
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">15 Dec 2021
Thomas Signs CNP Conservative Action Project Letter Attacking Jan. 6 Committee
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<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On December 15, 2021, CNP’s Conservative Action Project distributed another letter—this one signed by Thomas—calling the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack an “overtly partisan political persecution,” and demanding that the two Republican lawmakers on the panel, Reps. Lynn Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, be stripped from their membership in the Republican conference.</span>
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>2022</b>
3 Jan 2022
CNP Conservative Action Project Opposes "the Gross Abuse of Authority by the January 6 Committee"
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Days before the anniversary of the January 6 attack, on January 3, 2022, CNP's Conservative Action Project sent another letter attacking the January 6 committee, calling its efforts to investigate the Capitol attack an “assault on the rule of law which is a bedrock principle of our form of government.”
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3257600-ginni-thomas-unpacking-potential-conflicts-of-interest-on-the-supreme-court/">https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3257600-ginni-thomas-unpacking-potential-conflicts-of-interest-on-the-supreme-court/</a></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection would like to speak with Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Committee Chairman Rep. <span data-nid="24187" class="person-popover"><a class="person-popoverlink" href="https://thehill.com/people/bennie-thompson/">Bennie Thompson </a></span>(D-Miss.) recently announced <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1089263653/ginni-thomas-jan-6-committee-text-messages-meadows">plans</a> to invite her to appear.</font></strong></strong><p><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congress wants to hear more about her <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/politics/ginni-thomas-mark-meadows-text-messages/index.html">bombshell texts</a> with former President Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows in which she urged that something be done to thwart Joe Biden’s White House win. Her husband, a sitting justice, is now under intense pressure to recuse himself from cases relating to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 violence, short of resignation or possibly even <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/30/impeach-supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-00021480">impeachment</a>.</font></strong></strong></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an interview with the Jan. 6 committee is vitally important, not just for what Ginni Thomas has to say about the texts, but because her testimony could reveal even deeper conflicts of interest infecting the nation’s highest court — and thus its very legitimacy writ large.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/03/25/supreme-court-considered-these-cases-on-the-2020-election---as-justice-thomas-wife-ginni-wanted-to-overturn-it/?sh=299b72401e59">three</a> election-related cases, <span data-nid="11934" class="person-popover"><a class="person-popoverlink" href="https://thehill.com/people/clarence-thomas/">Clarence Thomas </a></span>voted in a manner seemingly consistent with his wife’s far-right activism, and failed to recuse himself in contravention of a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455">federal law</a> mandating disqualification from any proceeding in which his impartiality may be questioned, including due to the interests of a spouse</span>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most disturbingly, he was the sole dissenter in a decision requiring the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/01/court-rebuffs-trumps-bid-to-block-release-of-documents-related-to-jan-6-riot/">National Archives to turn over to the Jan. 6 committee White House records</a> relating to the subject matter of its inquiry. Ginni Thomas’s texts were provided voluntarily by Meadows before he stopped cooperating. It’s reported that Ginni Thomas may have communicated with others in the White House, too — if her husband’s vote reflected a desire to keep his wife’s involvement in Jan. 6 from public scrutiny, he was clearly flouting his ethical and legal obligation of actual — let alone perceived — neutrality.</font></p><div class="teads-inread sm-screen" style="margin: 16px auto; max-width: 550px; transition-duration: 0s; height: 363px;"><div style="position: relative; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in January of this year,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court">exposed</a> a litany of potential conflicts arising from Ginni Thomas’ tightness with radical ideologues, noting even back then </span>— before the text scandal — that “the claim that the Justices’ opinions are politically neutral is becoming increasingly hard to accept.” <b>Ginni Thomas, a lawyer herself, runs a lobbying firm called Liberty Consulting, and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court">is on record as declaring</a> the “deep state” a danger to America because of “transsexual fascists” on the left.</b></font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="position: relative; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/ginni-thomas-attended-stop-the-steal-rally">attended a “Stop the Steal” rally</a> in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, and posted a since-removed “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/ginni-thomas-attended-stop-the-steal-rally">message on Facebook</a> that went viral. She complained about Trump’s Nov. 4 loss on a private Listserv called Thomas Clerk World, which includes a number of her husband’s former Supreme Court law clerks, including attorney John Eastman.</font></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Eastman penned the infamous memos outlining a bogus theory for justifying former Vice President Pence’s stalling of the Electoral College certification.</b> Pence ultimately refused, and a federal judge <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/a-federal-judge-found-that-trump-likely-committed-serious-crimes-now-what/">just this week</a> pinged Eastman as “likely” having committed three federal crimes along with his client Trump, in that connection. (The court’s opinion specifically had to do with attorney-client privilege and work product claims, and thus has no bearing on actual criminal liability, which would have to come through the Justice Department.0</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ginni Thomas also served as a director of C.N.P. Action, a dark money group that, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court">according to Mayer</a>, “behind closed doors, connects wealthy donors with some of the most radical right-wing figures in America.” She’s also on the advisory board of <b>Turning Point USA,</b> a pro-<span data-nid="42836" class="person-popover"><a class="person-popoverlink" href="https://thehill.com/people/trump/">Trump </a></span>student group that reportedly sent protestors to the Jan. 6 rally.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She has partnerships with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/11/media/project-veritas-new-york-times/index.html">right-wing groups</a> that have other Supreme Court business, including <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/clarence-thomas-justice-wife-award-project-veritas-james-okeefe/">Project Veritas</a>, which is known for making secret videotapes of progressive public officials, and Cleta Mitchell, who was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/cleta-mitchell-election-assistance-commission-advisor/index.html">on the call</a> in which Trump urged Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to swing the state’s electors to him — ostensibly illegally.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas was also a paid consultant to a group that filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of Trump’s Muslim travel ban, which was ultimately <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf">upheld</a> over the dissenting votes of Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Sonya Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg</span>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NAS: And she serves on the board of a conservative group that filed an <a href="https://www.nas.org/blogs/press_release/scholars_file_amicus_brief_in_students_for_fair_admissions_v_harvard_colleg">amicus brief</a> in a Supreme Court case involving race-conscious affirmative action at Harvard. (Although during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson pledged to <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/3/24/ketanji-brown-jackson-recuse-sffa/">recuse herself</a> from that case, due to a six-year role on the Harvard Board of Overseers, Thomas has not.)....</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><span id="docs-internal-guid-c9208a0a-dd49-651b-1750-c995eff742fe">nEW YORK, NY, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">July 30, 2018</span></span></strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> - The<b> National Association of Scholars</b> has filed an <a href="https://nas.org/storage/app/media/images/documents/Amicus_Memo.pdf" target="blank">amicus brief in support</a> of Students for Fair Admissions' (SFFA) motion for summary judgment against the President and Fellows of<b> Harvard College.</b> </span>SFFA’s motion documents Harvard’s racially motivated admissions policies and calls on the college to release admissions data and to adopt race-blind admissions policies.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“NAS supports the principle that students should be admitted to colleges on the basis of academic achievement, proven ability, ambition, and commitment to learning," said NAS President Peter Wood. "Racial identity should play no role in determining who should or should not be admitted, and the same standards should be applied to all individuals. Judgments about good character may be appropriate, but not when they serve as subterfuges to favor or disfavor whole categories of students. Harvard is guilty of racially stereotyping Asian students as lacking ‘positive personality,’ likeability, courage, and kindness, and not being ‘widely respected.’ These are not true judgments of character, but ways of disguising an animus against Asian students."</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c9208a0a-dd49-651b-1750-c995eff742fe">The National Association of Scholars has opposed racial preferences in admissions policies since its founding in 1988. NAS members wrote the text of California Proposition 209, which made race-based admissions policies such as Harvard’s illegal in 1996. NAS previously </span><a href="https://www.nas.org/articles/legislation_not_litigation_can_repeal_racial_preferences_say_nas" target="blank">urged legislation, not litigation</a>, to end race-based preferences, and still desires such an outcome. Transparency in admissions policies is an important step toward that goal.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wood noted: “By filing this amicus brief, we hope to throw the weight of evidence behind SFFA and sway the court toward transparency so that the public may decide if race-based admissions are for the greater good.”</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c9208a0a-dd49-651b-1750-c995eff742fe">NAS is a network of scholars and citizens united by a commitment to academic freedom, disinterested scholarship, and excellence in American higher education. Membership in NAS is open to all who share a commitment to these broad principles. NAS publishes a journal and has state and regional affiliates. Visit NAS at </span><a href="https://www.nas.org/" target="blank">www.nas.org</a>.</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">###</font></p><p dir="ltr"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you would like more information about this issue, please call Chance Layton at 917-551-6770, or email layton@nas.org.</font></p></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=
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</a></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/</a></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<b>Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice, pressed Ariz. lawmakers to help reverse Trump’s loss, emails show </b>By Emma Brown
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</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Published May 20, 2022
</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, attends the swearing-in ceremony for Justice Amy Coney Barrett at the White House on Oct. 26, 2020. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers after the 2020 election to set aside Joe Biden’s popular-vote victory and choose “a clean slate of Electors,” according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.
The emails, sent by Ginni Thomas to a pair of lawmakers on Nov. 9, 2020, argued that legislators needed to intervene because the vote had been marred by fraud. Though she did not mention either candidate by name, the context was clear.
Just days after media organizations called the race for Biden in Arizona and nationwide, Thomas urged the lawmakers to “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure.” She told the lawmakers that the responsibility to choose electors was “yours and yours alone” and said they had “power to fight back against fraud.”
Thomas sent the messages via an online platform designed to make it easy to send prewritten form emails to multiple elected officials, according to a review of the emails, obtained under the state’s public-records law.
The messages show that Thomas, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, was more deeply involved in the effort to overturn Biden’s win than has been previously reported. In sending the emails, Thomas played a role in the extraordinary scheme to keep Trump in office by substituting the will of legislatures for the will of voters.
Thomas’s actions also underline concerns about potential conflicts of interest that her husband has already faced — and may face in the future — in deciding cases related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Those questions intensified in March, when The Post and CBS News obtained<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> text messages that Thomas sent in late 2020 to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, pressing him to help reverse the election.
The emails were sent to Russell “Rusty” Bowers, a veteran legislator and speaker of the Arizona House, and Shawnna Bolick, who was first elected to the chamber in 2018 and served on the House Elections Committee during the 2020 session.
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<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Article II of the United States Constitution gives you an awesome responsibility: to choose our state’s Electors,” read the Nov. 9 email. “… [P]lease take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
Thomas’s name also appears on an email to the two representatives on Dec. 13, the day before members of the electoral college met to cast their votes and seal Biden’s victory. “Before you choose your state’s Electors … consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead,” the email said.
It included a link to a video of a man delivering a message meant for swing-state lawmakers, urging them to “put things right” and “not give in to cowardice.”</span>
“You have only hours to act,” said the speaker, who is not identified in the video.
By December, the claim that legislators should override the popular vote in key states and appoint Trump’s electors was also being pushed publicly b<b>y John C. Eastman, a former law clerk to Clarence Thomas, </b>and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer.
Trump allies argued that pandemic-era changes in election administration and supposedly widespread fraud meant that elections had not been conducted in accordance with state legislatures’ directions and that, under the U.S. Constitution, the results therefore could be cast aside. Many legal experts have called those arguments unpersuasive and anti-democratic, and no state legislature complied. Efforts to persuade state lawmakers to name new electors are among the issues under examination by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Courts turned back dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies in an attempt to challenge the 2020 election outcome, and there is no evidence of voting machine manipulation or other widespread fraud.
Ginni Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court did not respond to messages seeking comment from Clarence Thomas.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas has insisted that she and her husband have kept their work separate, but her political activism has set her apart from other Supreme Court spouses. About a decade ago, she and Stephen K. Bannon — who later became chief strategist in the Trump White House — were among the organizers of Groundswell, a group formed to battle liberals and establishment Republicans. Groundswell dedicated itself to “a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation,” according to emails uncovered by Mother Jones at the time. “Election integrity” was among the topics discussed in the group’s first months, the emails show.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thomas’s influence in Washington grew during the Trump presidency as her views moved into the GOP mainstream. Clarence and Ginni Thomas had lunch with Trump at the White House in 2018, then attended a state dinner the following year. Also in 2019, she and fellow right-wing activists attended a White House luncheon, where the New York Times reported that they told Trump his aides were blocking their preferred candidates for administration appointments.</span>
Over those same years, at annual luncheons, Thomas handed out “Impact Awards” to right-wing figures. Recipients have included Meadows, then a congressman chairing the hard-right Freedom Caucus; Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe; and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Thomas is a member of the Council for National Policy, a network of prominent conservative activists, some of whom helped press claims of election fraud. She recently said she attended the pro-Trump rally at the Ellipse in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
Thomas sent the emails via freeroots.com, a website meant to give political organizers an efficient means of conducting email campaigns. The email address of the sender in Thomas’s emails is displayed as <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Ginni Thomas<noreply /></span>@freeroots.com>.”
<b>A representative of FreeRoots did not respond to a message seeking comment.</b>
The Nov. 9 email carried the subject line, “Please do your Constitutional duty!” In addition to pushing the lawmakers to appoint electors, the email asked for a meeting to discuss pursuing an “audit” of the vote.
Under the U.S. Constitution, states appoint presidential electors “in such manner” as the legislatures direct. Historically, some state legislatures appointed electors directly, but in the modern era states have delegated that responsibility to voters. In urging Arizona lawmakers to “choose” electors after Biden had already prevailed, Thomas’s messages claimed lawmakers could intervene in that process.
The records obtained by The Post do not show any response from Bowers, whose refusal to help overturn Biden’s victory in Arizona made him the target of a recall campaign. When Trump’s legal team pressed to replace Biden electors with Trump electors, Bowers released a public statement explaining that they were asking legislators to do something forbidden by state law.
“As a conservative Republican, I don’t like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him,” it said. “But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election.”
A spokesman for Bowers told The Post that hundreds of thousands of messages were sent to the speaker’s office in the post-election period. “Speaker Bowers did not see, much less read, the vast majority of those messages, including the form email sent by Mrs. Thomas,” said the spokesman, Andrew Wilder.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Bolick is married to Clint Bolick</b>, an associate justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, who worked with Clarence Thomas early in his career and has said he considers the justice a mentor.
Shawnna Bolick wrote back to Ginni Thomas on Nov. 10, 2020, “I hope you and Clarence are doing great!” She gave Thomas guidance on how to submit complaints about any of her experiences with voter fraud in Arizona.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bolick, who is now seeking the Republican nomination to be Arizona’s secretary of state, told The Post that she received tens of thousands of emails in the months after the election and responded to Thomas in the same way she responded to everyone else.
Thomas replied: “Fun that this came to you! Just part of our campaign to help states feel America’s eyes!!!”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the reply, Thomas’s personal email address is visible, and it matches an address she has used previously, The Post confirmed. Under her message is an unusual tag line that has appeared in other emails that are confirmed to have been sent by Thomas, including in 2021 to the staff of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): “Sent from Ginni’s iPhone, a by-product of entrepreneurial free market capitalism. Competition, hard work, innovations and lack of government interference make great things possible! God bless America!”</span>
Thomas was then serving on the board of CNP Action, the political advocacy arm of the Council for National Policy. CNP Action was using its influence in Republican circles at the time to try to keep Trump in office.</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> On Nov. 13, 2020, CNP Action held a workshop titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” featuring, among other speakers, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Cleta Mitchell, </span>according to an agenda that researcher Brent Allpress provided to the left-leaning watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy, which published it that same month. Mitchell, a lawyer, assisted Trump in his efforts to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia.
<b>After that workshop, the group circulated guidance to focus efforts on legislators in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona</b>. “Demand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities at a time such as this,” read the guidance, which was also obtained by Allpress and first published by the Center for Media and Democracy. It said to push for new electors “in states where constitutional rights have been violated and evidence of substantial fraud has been established.”
The guidance advised visiting the website everylegalvote.com “to report fraud and take action.”
Visitors to the site could click a button and be taken to freeroots.com, according to webpages preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. That landing page urged visitors to press the “take action” button to “email every swing House and Senate leader in one easy click.”
Because that landing page is no longer online, it is no longer possible to click through on the link. But language in Thomas’s first email aligns closely with language that appears in a preview when a FreeRoots link that was archived several days after that email is shared on messaging platforms.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The site <b>everylegalvote.com initially said that it was produced in partnership with United in Purpose</b>, a nonprofit group known for gathering and deploying data to galvanize conservative Christian voters. That organization has hosted the luncheons where Thomas presents her “Impact Awards.”</span>
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</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>But the reference to United in Purpose was deleted within days</b>. It was replaced with language identifying three “Founding Sponsors”: the Texas security firm Allied Security Operations Group, the Texas nonprofit group Liberty Center for God and Country, and the online talk show “Economic War Room.”</span>
Representatives of United in Purpose and the three sponsors of everylegalvote.com did not respond to messages seeking comment. All three sponsors have promoted election-fraud claims, according to previous Post reports.
In the month after the election, the Trump campaign and other Republicans filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the outcome. By early December, Eastman and Giuliani were telling lawmakers in key swing states won by Biden that they had the authority and even the obligation to disregard the vote and select their own electors.
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Your argument is that essentially we have a failed election that would require the legislature to step in and assign electors. Am I correct?” a Georgia senator asked Eastman during a Dec. 3 hearing.
“Yes,” Eastman said</span>.
<b>The Dec. 13 emails repeated the claim that legislators could “choose” electors.</b>
“As state lawmakers, you have the Constitutional power and authority to protect the integrity of our elections — and we need you to exercise that power now!” the email said. “Never before in our nation’s history have our elections been so threatened by fraud and unconstitutional procedures.”
The two-minute video it linked to, titled “A Word To Heroic Legislators,” has since been removed from YouTube for violating community guidelines. The video’s Web address, which is visible in the email, was included in a December 2020 newsletter written by activist <b>Geoffrey Botkin, </b>who appears to be the person featured in the video.
Botkin, who has published numerous podcasts and videos about the election and other matters, wrote in the newsletter that he had uploaded “A Word To Heroic Legislators” to another video hosting service. The video remains visible there.
“I’m asking you to stand up and lead heroically,” Botkin says in the video, urging lawmakers to appoint electors.
“We have to admit, legally and politically it’s way too late for other people to do it. Clever lawyers or the Supreme Court, they cannot now come to the rescue,” he continues. “This is a moment, a unique moment in American history, demanding that state legislators set America back on her foundations by using a power that you may never have known that you had — but you do have it.”
Botkin did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The video link and some of the language in the email match language that appears in an archived version of the landing page for a freeroots.com email campaign organized by Act for America, a group that has accused U.S. Muslim organizations of supporting terrorism and of trying to impose Islamic law across the country.
A representative of Act for America did not respond to requests for comment.
On Dec. 14, 2020, Biden electors in Arizona cast their votes, after the election results were certified by Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> On that same day, Bolick was among dozens of Arizona lawmakers who signed on to a letter to Congress calling for the state’s electoral votes to go to Trump or “be nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted.”</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
Bolick told The Post she signed on to that effort because she backed the idea of an audit, not because of any communication she received from Thomas.</span>
Jacqueline Alemany and Alice Crites contributed to this report.
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</strong></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 6 22</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">legal experts are encouraging the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack to subpoena far right-wing activist and lobbyist <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ginni Thomas</a>, now that she is backing out from appearing barely weeks after saying she<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/06/cant-wait-ginni-thomas-says-she-looks-forward-to-testifying-before-jan-6-committee/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"> “looks forward” and “can’t wait”</a> to testify.</font></font></strong></strong></div><p align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In an 8-page letter, her attorney says he needs “a better justification for why Mrs. Thomas’s testimony is relevant,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/29/ginni-thomas-cassidy-hutchinson-trump/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Washington Post</a> reports.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Committee has been interested in speaking with her since at least last summer but had declined to invite or subpoena Thomas, the spouse of a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice. After evidence of email correspondence between her and the infamous “coup memo” author John Eastman, the Committee said they would like to talk with her. She quickly told the right-wing Daily Caller she “can’t wait to clear up misconceptions. I look forward to talking to them.”</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/ginni-thomas-2657538725/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="self" title="view post: Ginni Thomas continued to associate with Big Lie promoters even after Trump left office: report" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Read more: Ginni Thomas continued to associate with Big Lie promoters even after Trump left office: report</a></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virginia Thomas, who goes by “Ginni,” is a longtime and powerful name in Washington who actively, according to reports, pushed dozens of state and federal officials to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Her attorney says he sees no reason for her to speak with the Committee.</font></strong></strong></p><p align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Mrs. Thomas has expressed a willingness to try to come before the Committee as a means of clearing her name,” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Thomas’ attorney Mark Paoletta </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">wrote in a letter, </span><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ginni-thomas-lawyer-house-jan-6-panel_n_62bbc8dfe4b080fb670bb8c9" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">HuffPost</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> adds. “But, based on my understanding of the facts … I do not believe there is currently a sufficient basis to speak with Mrs. Thomas.”</span></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, now a law professor and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, is calling for Thomas to be subpoenaed.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Thomas said she’d testify during the uproar,” Vance said via <a href="https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1542140856056020992" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Twitter</a>. “Now, she’s hoping to duck under the radar with so much other news. She should be subpoenaed like any other witness & if she fails to appear, treated like Bannon and Navarro, as she has no privilege to avoid testimony.”</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Attorney, MSNBC anchor, and legal analyst Katie Phang <a href="https://twitter.com/KatiePhang/status/1541946123786620929" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tweeted</a>, “SUBPOENA her. Now.”</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seth Abramson, an attorney and author <a href="https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1541948078101504001" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">said</a>: “Only by issuing a subpoena to Ginni Thomas now does Congress have a chance of being able to work through her inevitable legal challenges and refer her to DOJ for a Criminal Contempt indictment before a possible handover of Congress to the insurrectionists in early 2023.”</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Miranda Yaver, PhD, a political science professor who teaches courses on law at Wheaton also <a href="https://twitter.com/mirandayaver/status/1541950369319616512" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">tweeted</a>, “Subpoena Ginni Thomas.”</font></strong></strong></p><div align="left"><div><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/06/the-glue-that-connects-jeffrey-clark-john-eastman-ginni-thomas-and-the-guy-who-was-air-dropped-into-the-doj-is-charles-kochs-money/">
</a></font></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/06/the-glue-that-connects-jeffrey-clark-john-eastman-ginni-thomas-and-the-guy-who-was-air-dropped-into-the-doj-is-charles-kochs-money/">https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/06/the-glue-that-connects-jeffrey-clark-john-eastman-ginni-thomas-and-the-guy-who-was-air-dropped-into-the-doj-is-charles-kochs-money/</a></font></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">September 1999 the U.S. Department of Justice</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://www.justice.gov/civil/case-4" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">filed racketeering charges</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">against the major tobacco companies and two of their front groups. The court filings in that case carefully pieced together a half century of conspiratorial conduct and lies that gravely harmed the health of the American people, while lining the pockets of the tobacco industry, its lawyers and its paid shills.</span></font></strong></strong></div><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The January 6 Select House Committee has that same, once-in-a-lifetime power in its hands. But that window of opportunity will close soon. The January 6 Committee can connect all the dots of the attempted coup leading to the doorstep of Charles Koch and expose his four decades of establishing front groups to shill for the fossil fuels industry and anti-climate change groups, or it can present a false and narrow view that this was all about the ego and narcissism of Donald Trump.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charles Koch is the Chairman and CEO of one of the largest private companies in the world, Koch Industries, a fossil fuels and chemicals conglomerate that has been a serial polluter of the air and water for decades. According to Forbes, Koch has a net worth of $59.8 billion, making him the 17<span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 1; position: relative; bottom: 1ex;">th</span> richest man in the world. Charles Koch, and his late brother, David, functioned as backroom party bosses, <a href="http://wallstreetonparade.com/2015/04/faux-democracy-and-the-tea-party-how-far-back-does-it-go/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">behind the veil of a sprawling network of tax-exempt front groups</a>, for 40 years.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wall Street On Parade</span> </b>has already produced the evidence tying the groups involved in the planning of the January 6 event to Charles Koch. See our report: <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/01/the-money-trail-to-the-siege-at-the-capitol-leads-to-charles-koch-and-koch-industries/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Money Trail to the Siege at the Capitol Leads to Charles Koch and Koch Industries</a>.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>We have already <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2018/07/how-did-koch-industries-law-firm-grab-control-at-the-white-house/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">written about</a> how the Trump administration was staffed up with Koch-related people and took its marching orders from a Koch-related entity, Freedom Partners.</b></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is also documented evidence that the Koch network engaged in a multi-faceted strategy to discourage progressives and liberals from turning out in the 2016 presidential election, thus tipping the victory to Trump. Not only did the Koch network fund Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners Action Fund ads portraying Democrats as tax and spend bureaucrats but the <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/23/koch-industries-is-staffing-up-with-voter-data-scientists-to-tip-the-november-election-to-the-extreme-right/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Koch-controlled i360 voter database and voter-targeting operations</a> may have demoralized the progressive base from turning out while those same operations spurred Republicans to the polls.</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And, today, we will show how key collaborators in the attempted coup on January 6 – Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Ginni Thomas, Cleta Mitchell, and </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Kenneth Klukowski –</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> the attorney who was air-dropped into the U.S. Department of Justice j</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ust 35 days before the end of Trump’s term – all have ties to front groups funded by Charles Koch or his related nonprofits.</span></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Let’s start with</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Jeffrey Clark,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the environmental lawyer at the Department of Justice with no criminal experience that Trump wanted to name U.S. Attorney General because he was willing to go all-in with the attempted coup. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After the failed coup, Clark was out of a job at the Department of Justice. He was, in short order, <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/07/21/2266634/0/en/NCLA-Hires-Former-Asst-Atty-Gen-Jeff-Clark-to-Join-Battle-Against-Unlawful-Administrative-Power.html" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">named Chief of Litigation and Director of Strategy</a> at a group called the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA).</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> That’s a curious hire for someone likely facing a long criminal investigation and possible conviction.</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>NCLA has received millions of dollars from Charles Koch related entities.</b> The Charles G. Koch Foundation gave NCLA $1 million in 2017, $1 million again in 2018, and $1 million again in 2019 for “general operating support,” according to its publicly-available 990 tax filings with the IRS. The Charles Koch Institute gave NCLA $1 million in 2020. Donors Trust, a dark money nonprofit with Charles Koch’s fingerprints all over it, gave NCLA more than $2 million from 2018 through 2020, according to its 990 filings.</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In addition to needing a job after the failed coup attempt, Jeffrey Clark needed a plugged-in attorney. Somehow, he found his way to</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Harry MacDougald</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, </span><a href="https://ccedlaw.com/personnel/harry-macdougald/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">a Managing Partner at Caldwell, Carlson, Elliott & DeLoach</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The fossil fuels industry watchdog, DeSmog, describes MacDougald as follows:</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“MacDougald was part of the legal team that worked with the Southeastern Legal Foundation to challenge the EPA‘s endangerment finding on greenhouse gases. </b>In its lawsuit against the EPA, Southeastern Legal identified its allies in the effort as ‘like-minded organizations’ including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and the Independent Women’s Forum, among others.”</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DeSmog notes that MacDougald spoke at the Heartland Institute’s “America First Energy Conference” in New Orleans in 2018. The Heartland Institute is a climate science denier that has received more than $26 million from two Koch-related groups, Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust, according to the Conservative Transparency Project using publicly available 990 IRS tax filings. The conference was promoted as follows:</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The purpose of this event is to promote and expand energy freedom in the United States, as outlined in President Donald Trump’s bold America First Energy Plan, a proposal first released during the 2016 presidential campaign. The president’s plan marks a decisive change in direction from the Obama administration’s ‘war on fossil fuels’…”</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Two of the allied groups mentioned above, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, have long histories with Koch money. </b>Charles Koch and his late brother, David, were actually <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/secret-owners-of-cato-institute-surface-as-koch-brothers-move-to-take-control/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">secret owners of the Cato Institute for decades</a>. Greenpeace has called the Heritage Foundation “<a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/climate-deniers/front-groups/the-heritage-foundation/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Koch Industries’ Climate Denial Front Group</a>” and reports that it has received $6,130,201 from Koch foundations from 1997 through 2017.</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">who was firing off all of those emails to Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, to press for the attempted coup, had previously received $1,051,214 in compensation from the Heritage Foundation </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">over a number of years. Clarence Thomas failed to report that compensation on his financial disclosure forms at the Supreme Court, even though he was required to do so.</span></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The ties between Ginni Thomas and another attempted coup collaborator, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cleta Mitchell</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, run deep</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> – with all roads leading to Koch money. As we reported in March:</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the emails that Ginni Thomas sent to Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, one of the people that she told Meadows to listen to was attorney Cleta Mitchell – a woman who has both a longstanding association with Ginni Thomas as well as with Koch front groups. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/jan-6-call-logs-white-house/daily-diary-of-president-donald-trump.pdf?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_10" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Trump’s phone log</a> for January 6 shows that Cleta Mitchell was one of the people that Trump spoke with at 7 :53 p.m. on the evening of the attack on the Capitol.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cleta Mitchell has been in the news previously as the lawyer who was on the January 2, 2021 call with Donald Trump when he phoned the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, and told him: “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/audio-trump-berates-georgia-secretary-of-state-urges-him-to-find-votes/2021/01/03/aba64f5f-8c3c-490f-af34-618ccea732d7_video.html" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break</a>.” That call took place two months after the presidential election. (Mitchell stepped down from her long-term employment at law firm Foley & Lardner after her presence on that call was made public.)</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cleta Mitchell is also the attorney who filed an amicus brief in the Citizens United case before the Supreme Court that was decided on January 21, 2010. That case would be the tipping point to allow unlimited sums from corporations – like Koch Industries — in U.S. elections.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Just eight days after Justice Thomas voted in favor of that decision to open the floodgates to corporate money in campaigns, Cleta Mitchell made a move that looked very much like a quid pro quo to Ginni Thomas. </b>Mitchell, then still a partner at Foley & Lardner, filed an application with the Internal Revenue Service to set up a nonprofit called Liberty Central, Inc. on behalf of Ginni Thomas. According to <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/271222875" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">IRS tax filings</a>, Liberty Central received a combined $1.478 million from dark money donors in 2009 and 2010.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the IRS tax filings for Liberty Central for 2009 and 2010, Ginni (Virginia) Thomas is listed as President and CEO. The 2010 tax filing shows that Ginni Thomas received $120,511 in compensation from Liberty Central that year. She eventually stepped down from an official post at the nonprofit, stating she would serve as a consultant.</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Liberty Central </b>had the fingerprints of Charles Koch all over it. Acting as General Counsel in 2010 for Liberty Central was a former lawyer for the Charles G. Koch Foundation, Sarah Field. A former Koch lobbyist, Matt Schlapp, served on the Board of Liberty Central at inception.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mitchell’s law firm, Foley & Lardner, <a href="https://bdgrdemocracy.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/rep-vos-e-mail-reveals-koch-industry-lobbyists-authored-policy-pushing-milwaukee-initiative-now-to-be-implemented-statewide/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">employed three attorneys working as lobbyists for a Koch Industries affiliate</a>, Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC in Madison, Wisconsin in 2011. The Koch-related lobbyists were Ray Carey, Jason Childress and Kathleen Walby.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mitchell was a former lobbyist at the federal level in years 2005 through 2008 for the Alliance for Charitable Reform, a project of The Philanthropy Roundtable, another tax-exempt organization. Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, two dark money groups which also have Charles Koch’s fingerprints all over them, were spun off from the Philanthropy Roundtable in 1999. (See our report: <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/koch-footprints-lead-to-secret-slush-fund-to-keep-fear-alive/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Koch Footprints Lead to Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive</a>.)</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The </span><a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/person/3200/disclosure/30783/clarence-thomas/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">financial disclosure forms</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> filed by Clarence Thomas show that from 2011 through 2017, Ginni Thomas received a “salary” from the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Daily Caller,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> a right-wing spin organization founded in 2010 by Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson and former Dick Cheney aide Neil Patel. Its creation was announced at a gathering at the Heritage Foundation</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. <b>The Daily Caller’s affiliated News Foundation has received funding from the Koch Family Foundations and the Charles Koch Institute.</b></span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Despite the previous scandal over Clarence Thomas failing to report that Ginni Thomas had received income from the Heritage Foundation, there are no dollar ranges listed on his financial disclosure forms to show the range of “salary” Ginni Thomas actually received from the Daily Caller from 2011 to 2017.</b></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">From 2011 through 2020, Clarence Thomas shows that his wife was receiving “salary and benefits” from <b>Liberty Consulting.</b> But again, there is no range of salary and benefits shown. Instead, Liberty Consulting is listed under “Investments” and shows a “book value” of $100,000 to $250,000 in 2019, which then drops to $15,000 to $50,000 in 2020.</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Then there is<b> Ken Klukowski,</b> the man air-dropped into the Department of Justice just 35 days before Trump’s term ended to work at the elbow of Jeffrey Clark</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The Select Committee believes that Klukowski may have been involved in drafting the proposed letter to state officials which falsely claimed that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote totals in those states and the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump.”</span></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Klukowski had been a writer at the right-wing outlet, Breitbart, which was formerly led by former Trump White House advisor, Steve Bannon. Bannon was the long-tenured filmmaker for Citizens United, the nonprofit involved in the history-making case at the U.S. Supreme Court that opened the floodgates to corporate money in campaigns. Bannon made right-wing propaganda documentaries for Citizens United like “Fire from the Heartland,” a </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">glowing tribute to Michele Bachmann; “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1961604/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Undefeated</a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,” profiling the rise of </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sarah Palin </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">to national prominence and the darling of the T</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ea Party movement; “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1624385/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Generation Zero</a>,” blaming the 2008 financial crash on liberals instead of the Wall Street bank executives who presided over the unprecedented frauds; and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUvGQWAxJI8" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Occupy Unmasked</a>,” demonizing the young people attempting to remove their democracy from the <a href="http://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/09/freedom-of-the-press-under-assault-in-new-york-city/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">iron grip of the one percent</a> as sinister criminals.</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Klukowski got his law degree from George Mason University, one of the largest and longest recipients of Koch money</b>. In just the three most recent years that public 990 tax filings are available, they show that the Charles G. Koch Foundation gave a total of $46.89 million to George Mason University from 2017 through 2019.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2018, New York Times reporters Erica L. Green and Stephanie Saul <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/us/koch-donors-george-mason.html" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">wrote about</a> how newly-released documents showed tha<b>t Koch’s money came with strings attached at George Mason University:</b></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The documents reveal in surprising detail that for years, as George Mason grew from a little-known commuter school to a major public university and a center of libertarian scholarship, millions of dollars in donations from conservative-leaning donors like the Charles Koch Foundation had come with strings attached.</span></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“As early as 1990, entities controlled by the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch were given a seat on a committee to pick candidates for a professorship that they funded,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the records show. Similar arrangements that continued through 2009 gave donors decision-making roles in selecting candidates for key economics appointments at the <b>Mercatus Center, </b>a Koch-funded think tank on campus that studies markets and regulation. The appointments, which also created faculty lines at George Mason, were steered to professors who, like the Kochs, embraced unconstrained free markets.”</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And, finally, there is <b>John Eastman,</b> the Trump lawyer who ranted on the stage before the crowd at the Capitol on January 6 about widespread voter fraud in the election and, according to the Select Committee, played a key role in the attempted coup.</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Both Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman are tied to the Public Interest Legal Foundation. </span><a href="https://publicinterestlegal.org/about/board-of-directors/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mitchell is the Chair of the Board and Eastman is a Director</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The New York Times has reported that it was Mitchell who “enlisted John Eastman, the lawyer who crafted specious legal theories claiming Vice President Mike Pence could keep Mr. Trump in power.”</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Eastman is also Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM</b>) according to its website, a group opposing same-sex marriage. <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wall Street On Parade</em> looked into that group in 2011. We found multiple ties to the Koch network’s pursuit of the Citizens United decision at the U.S. Supreme Court.</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">When Ginni Thomas filed her registration statement for her own tea party group, Liberty Central</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Inc., with the state of West Virginia on December 31, 2009, she listed her accountant as </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);"><b>Neil Corkery</b> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">with an address of 8665 Sudley Road, Suite 182 in Manassas, Virginia. According to a UPS store employee located there, there was no other business located at this site; just post office boxes. When Ginni Thomas filed her first IRS 990 form for tax year 2009 for Liberty Central, she listed her tax preparer as Conlon and Associates LLC.</span></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">These same two names,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Neil Corkery and</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Conlon and Associates LLC,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">would end up on the 2009 tax filings of the National Organization for Marriage.</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The IRS 2009 tax filing for the National Organization for Marriage, Inc. shows it took in $7.1 million and made five grants totaling $2,105,000. Stand for Marriage Maine received 93 percent of those funds, or $1,960,000. Stand for Marriage Maine waged the successful 2009 repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine, using the same tactics and, indeed, the <b>same ad and marketing firm that was used in the California Proposition 8 battle.</b></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Secret donors washing money through a 501(c)(4) tax exempt organization and then funneling it to a Political Action Committee in Maine brought a request for an investigation to the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices by Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate. The Commission initiated an investigation. Stepping forward to represent both the National Organization for Marriage and Stand for Marriage Maine PAC was the law firm <b>Bopp,</b> Coleson & Bostrom.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James Bopp of Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom is (wait for it) the lawyer who represented Citizens United in the lower courts and, hoping to gut campaign financing reform, maneuvered the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The law firm Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom is located in Terre Haute, Indiana. What is the statistical probability of it being sheer coincidence that an Indiana law firm is involved in a nonprofit advocacy group case in Maine involving secret donors; also involved in the Citizens United case before the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. involving secret donors; and the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas is using the same Neil Corkery and Conlon and Associates for her Tea Party nonprofit as Bopp’s anti same-sex marriage clients in the Maine case?</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We strongly urge the January 6 Select Committee to provide the full, unvarnished truth to the American people.</font></p></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong></strong></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/guest-words/24209-the-money-trail-ginni-thomas-emails-to-overturn-biden-s-election-leads-to-charles-koch">https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/guest-words/24209-the-money-trail-ginni-thomas-emails-to-overturn-biden-s-election-leads-to-charles-koch</a></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><blockquote class="article-intro" itemprop="description" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 24px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2020 ELECTION CONSPIRACY - The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Bob Costa of CBS News have unleashed a fury of renewed interest in the work of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.</font></strong></strong></p></blockquote><section class="article-content" itemprop="articleBody" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last Thursday, <b>Woodward and Costa set off a political firestorm when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/24/virginia-thomas-mark-meadows-texts/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">they released the contents of emails</a> that Ginni Thomas, wife of the sitting Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, had sent to President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows</b>, in 2020, urging him to overturn the Biden election win and attempting to steer his efforts in that regard.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A total of 29 emails were obtained by Woodward and Costa, with the bulk of the emails occurring in just the month of November 2020, raising questions as to how many more emails are still out there from Thomas to the White House from December 1, 2020 through January 20, 2021 when Biden was sworn in.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of the current news debate around the emails is focusing on whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases involving groups with which his wife is involved and whether the Select Committee should subpoena Ginni Thomas to testify. While those are certainly important issues, what has thus far been ignored is the smoking gun trail that leads directly to the doorstep of billionaire and right-wing Republican political mastermind, Charles Koch, the Chairman, CEO (and majority owner with the heirs of his deceased brother David) of the fossil fuels conglomerate Koch Industries.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wall Street On Parade has </span><a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/01/the-money-trail-to-the-siege-at-the-capitol-leads-to-charles-koch-and-koch-industries/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">previously documented</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that at least three of the front groups that fomented the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump and that actively solicited thousands of people to turn out for the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> January 6 event at the Capitol, were funded by Koch Industries or its front groups.</span></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The smoking gun in the Ginni Thomas email thread occurs in an email dated November 10, 2020 when she tells Meadows to “Listen to Rush. Mark Steyn, Bongino, Cleta.” Thomas is clearly referring to conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn and Dan Bongino, and lawyer, Cleta Mitchell.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Cleta Mitchell</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is best known in the Trump election saga as the lawyer who was on the January 2, 2021 call with Donald Trump when he phoned the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, and told him this: “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/audio-trump-berates-georgia-secretary-of-state-urges-him-to-find-votes/2021/01/03/aba64f5f-8c3c-490f-af34-618ccea732d7_video.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.” That call took place two months after the presidential election. (Mitchell stepped down from her long-term employment at law firm Foley & Lardner after her presence on that call made the news cycle.)</span></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">But Cleta Mitchell’s relationship with Ginni Thomas dates back at least a decade earlier – and not in a good way.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Cleta Mitchell had filed an amicus brief in the <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Citizens United</span> case before the Supreme Court that was decided on January 21, 2010. That case would be the tipping point to allow unlimited sums from corporations – like Koch Industries — in U.S. elections.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Just eight days after Justice Thomas voted in favor of that decision to open the floodgates to corporate money in campaigns, Cleta Mitchell made a move that looked very much like a<b> quid pro quo to Ginni Thomas.</b> Mitchell, then still a partner at Foley & Lardner, filed an application with the Internal Revenue Service to set up a nonprofit called Liberty Central, Inc. on behalf of Ginni Thomas. According to <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/271222875" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">IRS tax filings</a>, Liberty Central received a combined $1.478 million from dark money donors in 2009 and 2010.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On the IRS tax filings for Liberty Central for 2009 and 2010, Ginni (Virginia) Thomas is listed as President and CEO. The 2010 tax filing shows that Ginni Thomas received $120,511 in compensation from Liberty Central that year. She eventually stepped down from an official post at the nonprofit, stating she would serve as a consultant.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Liberty Central had the fingerprints of Charles Koch all over it. Acting as General Counsel in 2010 for Liberty Central was a former lawyer for the Charles G. Koch Foundation, Sarah Field. A former Koch lobbyist, Matt Schlapp, served on the Board of Liberty Central at inception.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mitchell’s law firm, Foley & Lardner, <a href="https://bdgrdemocracy.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/rep-vos-e-mail-reveals-koch-industry-lobbyists-authored-policy-pushing-milwaukee-initiative-now-to-be-implemented-statewide/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">employed three attorneys working as lobbyists for a Koch Industries affiliate</a>, Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC in Madison, Wisconsin in 2011. The Koch-related lobbyists were Ray Carey, Jason Childress and Kathleen Walby.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mitchell, herself, was a former lobbyist at the federal level in years 2005 through 2008 for the Alliance for Charitable Reform, a project of The Philanthropy Roundtable, another tax-exempt organization. Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, two dark money groups which also have Charles Koch’s fingerprints all over them, were spun off from the Philanthropy Roundtable in 1999. (See our report: <a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/koch-footprints-lead-to-secret-slush-fund-to-keep-fear-alive/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Koch Footprints Lead to Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive</a>.)</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Mitchell is listed on the 2018 federal tax filing for Steve Bannon’s charity, Citizens of the American Republic, <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/823509136/201933209349301103/IRS990" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">as an officer of the organization, holding the position of Secretary</a>. Bannon and others were <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/leaders-we-build-wall-online-fundraising-campaign-charged-defrauding-hundreds-thousands" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">charged in August of 2021 by the Department of Justice</a> with bilking donors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars through that charity.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, was one of those pushing the narrative on television that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, lawyers and staff of<b> Foley & Lardner were the third largest donor to Johnson’s campaign c</b>ommittees since 2015. Employees and officials of Koch Industries ranked fifth.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There were only eight Republican Senators who refused to certify the votes for the challenged states of Arizona and/or Pennsylvania. Those Republican Senators were: Ted Cruz of Texas; Josh Hawley of Missouri; Rick Scott of Florida; Tommy Tuberville of Alabama; Roger Marshall of Kansas; Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi; John Kennedy of Louisiana; and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. Every Republican Senator who refused to certify the election results on January 6 received funding from Koch Industries PAC.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, whom Ginni Thomas enlisted in the White House to help overturn Biden’s election win, was previously a member of the House of Representatives from North Carolina from 2013 to 2020. He also received campaign funding from the Koch Industries PAC throughout his time in Congress.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Charles Koch is usually very careful in keeping an arm’s length relationship between himself and his political operations. But on at least one occasion Koch conducted a dinner meeting directly with sitting Justice Clarence Thomas at a private club in California.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In January 2008, Justice Thomas attended an all-expenses-paid, four-day trip to the Koch brothers’ semi-annual political gathering in the Palm Springs area of California. (According to his 2008 disclosure form and the Supreme Court’s public information office, Thomas’ expenses for that trip were paid by the Federalist Society, a conservative nonprofit that Koch foundations have generously supported.)</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Justice Thomas’ trip to the Koch event occurred in the same year that the <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Citizens United </span>case was accepted by the Supreme Court. The Court accepts less than two percent of all cases appealed to it.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Wall Street On Parade</span> was previously able to confirm with Scott Markley, Public Information Specialist at the Supreme Court, that during that January 2008 visit to the Koch political gathering, Justice Thomas was hosted by Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, at the private Vintage Club where Charles Koch is a member.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Citizens United</span> decision did not pass the smell test when it was approved in a 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court. Four of the nine justices wrote a scathing dissent that raised the issue of unprincipled behavior, writing that the majority had ruled on issues that were not even legally before the court.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The money that the Koch political machine pumped into putting Trump in the Oval Office quickly paid big dividends in his first term (and made it clear as to why Charles Koch would have wanted to see a second Trump term).</font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch Industries’ law firm, Jones Day, sent 12 of its law partners to staff up key positions in the Trump administration on the very day Trump was inaugurated. Jones Day has since sacked the press release it issued at the time but you can read the <a href="https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/a_dozen_jones_day_lawyers_are_joining_the_trump_administration" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">reporting on it at the American Bar Association Journal</a>.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Once Trump was settled in the Oval Office, a Koch front group, then known as Freedom Partners, mapped out the agenda it expected Trump to march to. In a document titled “<a href="https://kochdocs.org/2019/06/06/freedom-partners-roadmap-repeal/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none;">Roadmap to Repeal: Removing Regulatory Barriers to Opportunity</a>,” the group listed the laws and regulations it expected to be repealed in the first 100 days of Trump’s administration. The Trump administration dutifully marched to the beat. Repeal the Paris Climate Accord – done. Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy – done. Gutting federal regulations and the Environmental Protection Agency – done.</font></font></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By the spring of 2018, 12 people who previously worked at Freedom Partners were working in the Trump administration</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Freedom Partners has since disbanded but when we last took a look at the nonprofit in July 2018, we found that all but one of Freedom Partners’ 9-member Board of Directors was a current or former Koch company employee.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The Board Chair of Freedom Partners at that time was the same Mark Holden that was the General Counsel of Koch Industries.</span></font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s time for the House Select Committee to subpoena not just Ginni Thomas and Cleta Mitchell. It’s time to hear from Charles Koch directly on how so much money bearing his fingerprints ended up fomenting the attack on the Capitol on January 6.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There will never be a better time than now for the American people to finally get at the truth.</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">(Pam Martens & Russ Martens are authors at CounterPunch.org. This originally appeared on</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/03/the-money-trail-to-the-ginni-thomas-emails-to-overturn-bidens-election-leads-to-charles-koch/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Wall Street on Parade</a>.)</span></font></strong></strong></p></section></div><div align="left"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$500K <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CU ?</span> <b>2009</b> no lnx</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/=sob%20on%20felon%20disenfranchise%20by%20pal=https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/justice-thomass-wife-now-lobbyist-048812...now,%20Virginia%20%E2%80%9CGinni%E2%80%9D%20Thomas,%20wife%20of%20Justice%20Clarence%20Thomas,%20has%20recast%20herself%20yet%20again,%20this%20time%20as%20the%20head%20of%20a%20firm,%20Liberty%20Consulting,%20which%20boasts%20on%20its%20website%20using%20her%20%E2%80%9Cexperience%20and%20connections%E2%80%9D%20to%20help%20clients%20%E2%80%9Cwith%20%E2%80%9Cgovernmental%20affairs%20efforts%E2%80%9D%20and%20political%20donation%20strategies.Thomas%20already%20has%20met%20with%20nearly%20half%20of%20the%2099%20GOP%20freshmen%20in%20the%20House%20and%20Senate,%20according%20to%20an%20e-mail%20she%20sent%20last%20week%20to%20congressional%20chiefs%20of%20staff,%20in%20which%20she%20branded%20herself%20%E2%80%9Ca%20self-appointed,%20ambassador%20to%20the%20freshmen%20class%20and%20an%20ambassador%20to%20the%20tea%20party%20movement.%E2%80%9DBut%20her%20latest%20career%20incarnation%20is%20sparking%20controversy%20again.Thomas%E2%80%99s%20role%20as%20a%20de%20facto%20tea%20party%20lobbyist%20and%20%E2%80%94%20until%20recently%20%E2%80%94%20as%20head%20of%20a%20teano%20lnx%20%20%20party%20group%20that%20worked%20to%20defeat%20Democrats%20last%20November%20%E2%80%9Cshow%20a%20new%20level%20of%20arrogance%20of%20just%20not%20caring%20that%20the%20court%20is%20being%20politicized%20and%20how%20that%20undermines%20the%20historic%20image%20of%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20as%20being%20above%20the%20political%20fray,%E2%80%9D%20said%20Arn%20Pearson,%20a%20lawyer%20for%20Common%20Cause,%20the%20left-leaning%20government%20watchdog%20group.%E2%80%9CIt%20raises%20additional%20questions%20about%20whether%20Justice%20Thomas%20can%20be%20unbiased%20and%20appear%20to%20be%20unbiased%20in%20cases%20dealing%20with%20the%20repeal%20of%20the%20health%20care%20reform%20law%20or%20corporate%20political%20spending%20when%20his%20wife%20is%20working%20to%20elect%20members%20of%20the%20tea%20party%20and%20also%20advocating%20for%20their%20policies.%E2%80%9DEven%20among%20congressional%20Republicans,%20with%20whom%20Thomas%20boasts%20she%20has%20close%20ties,%20the%20reaction%20to%20the%20entreaties%20from%20her%20new%20firm,%20Liberty%20Consulting%20ranged%20from%20puzzlement%20to%20annoyance,%20with%20a%20senior%20House%20Republican%20aide%20who%20provided%20Thomas%E2%80%99s%20e-mail%20to%20POLITICO,%20blasting%20her%20for%20trying%20to%20%E2%80%9Ccash%20in%E2%80%9D%20on%20her%20ties%20to%20the%20tea%20party%20movement.]]Freshman%20Rep.%20David%20Schweikert%20(R-Ariz.)%20%E2%80%94%20who%20courted%20tea%20party%20activists%20and%20who%20was%20endorsed%20by%20Liberty%20Central,%20the%20tea%20party%20nonprofit%20group%20she%20headed%20until%20December%20%E2%80%94%20was%20unaware%20of%20Thomas%E2%80%99s%20new%20effort.%E2%80%9CThis%20is%20the%20spouse%20of%20Justice%20Thomas?%E2%80%9D%20he%20said,%20when%20asked%20by%20POLITICO%20on%20Tuesday%20about%20her%20outreach.%20%E2%80%9CNo,%20I%E2%80%99ve%20never%20met%20her.%20It%E2%80%99s%20not%20something%20I%E2%80%99ve%20heard%20about.%20And%20I%20hang%20out%20with%20a%20lot%20of%20freshman,%E2%80%9D%20he%20said.While%20Thomas%20was%20well-known%20in%20conservative%20circles%20as%20an%20aide%20to%20former%20House%20Majority%20Leader%20Dick%20Armey,%20as%20a%20midlevel%20staffer%20at%20the%20U.S.%20Chamber%20of%20Commerce%20and%20at%20The%20Heritage%20Foundation%20and%20as%20the%20spouse%20of%20one%20of%20the%20court%E2%80%99s%20most%20conservative%20justices,%20she%20did%20not%20draw%20much%20attention%20until%202009,%20when%20she%20started%20speaking%20at%20tea%20party%20rallies.Late%20that%20year,%20she%20establishedLiberty%20Central,%20a%20group%20she%20envisioned%20as%20forming%20a%20bridge%20between%20the%20conservative%20establishment%20and%20the%20anti-establishment%20tea%20party%20movement.%20It%20was%20a%20new%20role%20and%20a%20new%20measure%20of%20prominence%20for%20Thomas,%20and%20it%20marked%20the%20beginning%20of%20a%20string%20of%20headaches%20for%20her%20and%20her%20husband.Legal%20ethicists%20asserted%20that%20Thomas%E2%80%99s%20role%20could%20compromise%20her%20husband%E2%80%99s%20impartiality,%20especially%20since%20the%20group%20is%20not%20required%20to%20report%20its%20donors%20and%20could%20have%20benefitted%20from%20the%20Supreme%20Court%E2%80%99s%20Citizens%20United%20ruling%20last%20year%20in%20which%20Justice%20Thomas%20sided%20with%20the%20majority%20in%20a%20decision%20that%20allowed%20corporations%20to%20fund%20campaign%20ads,%20often%20without%20disclosing%20their%20contributions.To%20be%20sure,%20other%20federal%20judges%20have%20politically%20active%20spouses,%20including%20federal%20appeals%20court%20Judge%20Marjorie%20Rendell,%20whose%20husband%20is%20former%20Pennsylvania%20Gov.%20Ed%20Rendell,%20and%209th%20Circuit%20Court%20of%20Appeals%20Judge%20Stephen%20Reinhardt,%20whose%20wife,%20Ramona%20Ripston,%20will%20step%20down%20this%20month%20after%20decades%20running%20the%20Southern%20California%20branch%20of%20the%20American%20Civil%20Liberties%20Union.Rendell%E2%80%99s%20political%20committees%20were%20required%20to%20reveal%20all%20donations.%20But%20the%20ACLU%20is%20registered%20under%20sections%20of%20the%20tax%20code%20that%20do%20not%20require%20public%20disclosure%20of%20donors,%20as%20is%20Liberty%20Central%20%E2%80%94%20and%20Common%20Cause,%20for%20that%20matter.But%20the%20Thomases%20came%20under%20particular%20scrutiny%20after%20POLITICO%20revealed%20that,%20while%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20was%20deliberating%20over%20the%20Citizens%20United%20case,%20Liberty%20Central%20had%20received%20a%20$550,000%20anonymous%20contribution.Common%20Cause,%20in%20a%20letter%20to%20the%20Justice%20Department,%20suggested%20that%20Thomas%20should%20have%20recused%20himself%20from%20the%20case%20and%20charged%20that%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20complete%20lack%20of%20transparency%20of%20Liberty%20Central%E2%80%99s%20finances%20makes%20it%20difficult%20to%20assess%20the%20full%20scope%20of%20the%20ethics%20issues%20raised%20by%20Ms.%20Thomas%E2%80%99s%20role%20in%20founding%20and%20leading%20the%20group.%E2%80%9DIn%20addition,%20in%20a%20letterto%20the%20Judicial%20Conference,%20Common%20Cause%20pointed%20out%20that%20Justice%20Thomas%20had%20failed%20to%20report%20on%20his%20disclosure%20filings%20his%20wife%E2%80%99s%20income%20over%20the%20past%20decade,%20prompting%20the%20judge%20to%20amend13%20years%20of%20reports%20to%20indicate%20sources%20%E2%80%94%20though%20not%20amounts%20%E2%80%94%20of%20his%20wife%E2%80%99s%20income.At%20first,%20it%20didn%E2%80%99t%20seem%20that%20the%20attention%20affected%20Thomas%E2%80%99s%20efforts%20to%20build%20Liberty%20Central.%20She%20assembled%20an%20impressive%20staff%20and%20board,%20while%20circulating%20among%20major%20conservative%20establishment%20donors%20with%20whom%20she%20and%20her%20husband%20had%20long,%20close%20relationships.POLITICO%20has%20learned,%20for%20instance,%20that%20the%20initial%20$500,000%20contribution%20came%20from%20Dallas%20real%20estate%20investor%20Harlan%20Crow,%20a%20major%20GOP%20donor%20who%20held%20an%20event%20for%20Liberty%20Central%20at%20his%20home%20a%20few%20months%20after%20the%20group%20launched.%20He%20also%20once%20gave%20Justice%20Thomas%20a%20$19,000%20%E2%80%9CFrederick%20Douglass%20Bible%E2%80%9D%20as%20a%20gift%20and%20donated%20$150,000%20to%20build%20a%20new%20wing%20named%20for%20Thomas%20on%20a%20Savannah,%20Ga.,%20library%20that%20Clarence%20Thomas%20visited%20frequently%20in%20his%20youth.But%20Thomas%20and%20Liberty%20Central%20ran%20into%20problems%20after%20it%20was%20revealed%20in%20October%20that%20she%20had%20left%20a%20voice%20mail,%20requesting%20an%20apology%20from%20Anita%20Hill,%20the%20woman%20who%20accused%20her%20husband%20of%20sexual%20harassment%20during%20his%20confirmation%20hearings%20for%20the%20high%20court%20in%201991.%20That%20prompted%20another%20surge%20of%20attention%20and%20%E2%80%94%20according%20to%20a%20conservative%20who%20knows%20Ginni%20Thomas%20and%20is%20familiar%20with%20her%20work%20at%20Liberty%20Central%20%E2%80%94%20it%20%E2%80%9Cspooked%E2%80%9D%20at%20least%20one%20donor.About%20a%20month%20later,%20Thomas%20stepped%20down%20from%20her%20leadership%20post%20at%20Liberty%20Central,%20and%20it%20was%20announced%20that%20the%20group%20was%20merging%20with%20another%20conservative%20nonprofit%20group%20called%20the%20Patrick%20Henry%20Center%20for%20Individual%20Liberty.%20Sources%20told%20POLITICO%20that%20Thomas%20essentially%20put%20Liberty%20Central%20on%20the%20block%20because%20it%20was%20struggling%20to%20raise%20enough%20money%20to%20support%20its%20big%20staff%20and%20high%20overhead.Liberty%20Consulting%20filed%20incorporation%20papers%20in%20Virginia%20only%20a%20day%20after%20news%20broke%20of%20the%20changes%20at%20Liberty%20Central.reached%20by%20phone%20on%20Wednesday,%20Thomas%20said%20she%20was%20having%20trouble%20with%20the%20signal,%20telling%20a%20POLITICO%20reporter:%20%E2%80%9CI%20would%20be%20happy%20to%20talk%20with%20you,%20but%20I%20really%20can%E2%80%99t%20understand%20clearly%20what%20you%E2%80%99re%20asking,%20so%20maybe%20this%20is%20not%20a%20good%20time%20to%20talk.%E2%80%9DShe%20did%20not%20respond%20to%20subsequent%20voice%20mail%20or%20e-mail%20messages.In%20a%20December%20interview%20with%20the%20conservative%20Daily%20Caller,%20though,%20Thomas%20said%20she%20planned%20to%20spend%20the%20bulk%20of%20her%20time%20working%20as%20a%20consultant%20for%20Liberty%20Central%20and%20the%20Patrick%20Henry%20Center,%20and%20would%20%E2%80%9Chelp%20them%20in%20any%20way%20I%20can%20think%20of,%20whether%20it%E2%80%99s%20lobbying%20on%20the%20Hill%20or%20connecting%20with%20the%20grass%20roots,%20or%20helping%20speak%20or%20write%20or%20fundraise.%E2%80%9DBut%20lobbying%20records%20show%20no%20registrations%20for%20Thomas,%20Liberty%20Consulting,%20Liberty%20Central%20or%20the%20Patrick%20Henry%20Center.When%20asked%20whether%20Thomas%20was%20being%20paid%20through%20Liberty%20Consulting%20as%20a%20consultant,%20Liberty%20Central%20general%20counsel%20Sarah%20Field%20did%20not%20answer%20directly.%20%E2%80%9CShe%20was%20and%20continues%20to%20be%20the%20founder%20of%20Liberty%20Central,%20and%20we%20look%20forward%20to%20working%20with%20her%20and%20with%20other%20passionate%20conservative%20activists,%20and%20that%E2%80%99s%20all%20there%20is%20to%20it,%E2%80%9D%20Field%20said.Thomas%20and%20her%20friends%20reject%20the%20suggestion%20that%20the%20call%20to%20Anita%20Hill%20precipitated%20Ginni%20Thomas%E2%80%99s%20stepping%20down%20from%20Liberty%20Central%20%E2%80%94%20Thomas%20told%20The%20Daily%20Caller%20that%20the%20story%20line%20was%20%E2%80%9Claughable.%E2%80%9D%20She%20did,%20however,%20concede%20that%20the%20call%20was%20%E2%80%9Cprobably%20a%20mistake%20on%20my%20part,%E2%80%9D%20adding%20that,%20if%20her%20move%20to%20an%20outside%20consulting%20role%20%E2%80%9Chas%20the%20extra%20benefit%20of%20helping%20reduce%20distractions,%20that%E2%80%99s%20fine%20with%20me.%E2%80%9DAnd%20Leonard%20Leo,%20an%20executive%20at%20the%20conservative%20Federalist%20Society%20who%20is%20a%20longtime%20friend%20of%20the%20Thomases%20and%20sits%20on%20Liberty%20Central%E2%80%99s%20board,%20told%20POLITICO%20in%20November%20that%20the%20call%20had%20no%20impact%20on%20Liberty%20Central%E2%80%99s%20fundraising%20or%20on%20Thomas.%E2%80%9CThe%20people%20that%20were%20supportive%20of%20Liberty%20Central%20were%20supportive%20of%20her,%E2%80%9D%20he%20said,%20adding,%20%E2%80%9CI%20don%E2%80%99t%20think%20that%20they%20were%20going%20to%20pull%20back%20from%20her%20at%20a%20time%20when%20she%20needed%20support%20more%20than%20anything%20else.%E2%80%9DHe%20called%20the%20controversy%20over%20the%20Hill%20call%20%E2%80%9Ca%20nothing%20burger%E2%80%9D%20for%20Thomas.%20%E2%80%9CThis%20is%20a%20woman%20who%20has%20been%20through%20it%20all.%20There%20are%20few%20women%20in%20Washington%20who%20have%20had%20to%20put%20up%20with%20what%20she%20has.%E2%80%9Dbut%20the%20source%20who%20knows%20Thomas%20and%20is%20familiar%20with%20her%20work%20at%20Liberty%20Central%20said%20her%20continuing%20reinvention%20of%20herself%20%E2%80%94%20especially%20so%20soon%20after%20raising%20big%20money%20and%20assembling%20a%20staff%20for%20a%20new%20nonprofit%20%E2%80%94%20has%20hurt%20her%20standing%20in%20conservative%20circles.%E2%80%9CGinni%E2%80%99s%20reputation%20around%20town%20is%20now%20even%20more%20of%20a%20fake%20entitled%20woman%20who%20is%20only%20here%20because%20of%20her%20husband,%E2%80%9D%20the%20source%20said.%20%E2%80%9CNow%20she%20has%20opened%20her%20own%20lobbying%20shop%20...%20not%20sure%20how%20(the)%20conservative%20circle%20will%20feel%20when%20they%20find%20that%20out,%20or%20if%20they%E2%80%99ll%20care%20or%20not.%E2%80%9DSo%20far,%20they%20don%E2%80%99t.Roughly%20half%20a%20dozen%20aides%20for%20new%20members%20told%20POLITICO%20that%20their%20offices%20received%20handwritten%20meeting%20requests%20from%20Thomas%20the%20day%20after%20they%20were%20sworn%20in,%20as%20well%20as%20follow-up%20e-mails%20requesting%20a%20meeting%20with%20her%20%E2%80%94%20but%20only%20one%20of%20them%20had%20met%20with%20her.%20The%20rest%20had%20no%20plans%20to%20do%20so.FILED%20UNDER:%20POLITICS,%20HOUSE%20REPUBLICANS,%20DAVID%20SCHWEIKERT,%20CLARENCE%20THOMAS....=ref%20doc%20550K$https://www.politico.com/static/PPM156_liberty_central.html404%20in%202%20browserhttp://web.archive.org/web/20120225023040/https://www.politico.com/static/PPM156_liberty_central.html990diann%20huber%20dirLLmatt%20schlbob%20russell%20dirsue%20hamblen%20secrtracy%20price%20treasvt%20prez501c4500k%20and%2050Klib%20central%20inc5765-f%20burke%20ctr%20pkwy%20burke%20va%2022015-2264%20#%20302ein%2027%201222875703-691-2012200828k%20$%20liabilities?=">https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/justice-thomass-wife-now-lobbyist-048812</a></font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...now, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has recast herself yet again, this time as the head of a firm, </font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and political donation strategies.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But her latest career incarnation is sparking controversy again.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas’s role as a de facto tea party lobbyist and — until recently — as head of a tea</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx party group that worked to defeat Democrats last November “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,” said Arn Pearson, a lawyer for Common Cause, the left-leaning government watchdog group.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even among congressional Republicans, with whom Thomas boasts she has close ties, the reaction to the entreaties from her new firm, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Liberty Consulting</span> ranged from puzzlement to annoyance, with a senior House Republican aide who provided Thomas’s e-mail to POLITICO, blasting her for trying to “cash in” on her ties to the tea party movement.]]</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freshman Rep.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) — who courted tea party activists and who was endorsed by Liberty Central,</span> the tea party nonprofit group she headed until December — was unaware of Thomas’s new effort.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is the spouse of Justice Thomas?” he said, when asked by POLITICO on Tuesday about her outreach. “No, I’ve never met her. It’s not something I’ve heard about. And I hang out with a lot of freshman,” he said.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Late that year, she established Liberty Central, a group she envisioned as forming a bridge between the conservative establishment and the anti-establishment tea party movement. It was a new role and a new measure of prominence for Thomas, and it marked the beginning of a string of headaches for her and her husband.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legal ethicists asserted that Thomas’s role could compromise her husband’s impartiality, especially since the group is not required to report its donors and could have benefitted from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling last year in which Justice Thomas sided with the majority in a decision that allowed corporations to fund campaign ads, often without disclosing their contributions.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To be sure, other federal judges have politically active spouses, including federal appeals court Judge Marjorie Rendell, whose husband is former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, and 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt, whose wife, Ramona Ripston, will step down this month after decades running the Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rendell’s political committees were required to reveal all donations. But the ACLU is registered under sections of the tax code that do not require public disclosure of donors, as is Liberty Central — and Common Cause, for that matter.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the Thomases came under particular scrutiny after POLITICO revealed that, while the Supreme Court was deliberating over the Citizens United case,<b> Liberty Central had received a $550,000 anonymous contribution.[harlan crow?]</b></font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Common Cause, in a letter to the Justice Department, suggested that Thomas should have recused himself from the case and charged 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’s role in founding and leading the group.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, in a letter to the Judicial Conference, Common Cause pointed out that Justice Thomas had failed to report on his disclosure filings his wife’s income over the past decade, prompting the judge to amend13 years of reports to indicate sources — though not amounts — of his wife’s income.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At first, it didn’t seem that the attention affected Thomas’s efforts to build Liberty Central. She assembled an impressive staff and board, while circulating among major conservative establishment donors with whom she and her husband had long, close relationships.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>POLITICO has learned, for instance, that the initial $500,000 contribution came from Dallas real estate investor Harlan Crow, </b>a major GOP donor who held an event for Liberty Central at his home a few months after the group launched. He also once gave Justice Thomas a $19,000 “Frederick Douglass Bible” as a gift and donated $150,000 to build a new wing named for Thomas on a Savannah, Ga., library that Clarence Thomas visited frequently in his youth.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Thomas and Liberty Central ran into problems after it was revealed in October that she had left a voice mail, requesting an apology from Anita Hill, the woman who accused her husband of sexual harassment during his confirmation hearings for the high court in 1991. That prompted another surge of attention and — according to a conservative who knows Ginni Thomas and is familiar with her work at Liberty Central — it “spooked” at least one donor.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About a month later, Thomas stepped down from her leadership post at Liberty Central, and it was announced that the group was merging with another conservative nonprofit group called the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty. Sources told POLITICO that Thomas essentially put Liberty Central on the block because it was struggling to raise enough money to support its big staff and high overhead.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Liberty Consulting filed incorporation papers in Virginia only a day after news broke of the changes at Liberty Central.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reached by phone on Wednesday, Thomas said she was having trouble with the signal, telling a POLITICO reporter: “I would be happy to talk with you, but I really can’t understand clearly what you’re asking, so maybe this is not a good time to talk.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She did not respond to subsequent voice mail or e-mail messages.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a December interview with the conservative Daily Caller, though, Thomas said she planned to spend the bulk of her time working as a consultant for Liberty Central and the Patrick Henry Center, and would “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.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But lobbying records show no registrations for Thomas, Liberty Consulting, Liberty Central or the Patrick Henry Center.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When asked whether Thomas was being paid through Liberty Consulting as a consultant, Liberty Central general counsel Sarah Field did not answer directly. “She was and continues to be the founder of Liberty Central, and we look forward to working with her and with other passionate conservative activists, and that’s all there is to it,” Field said.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas and her friends reject the suggestion that the call to Anita Hill precipitated Ginni Thomas’s stepping down from Liberty Central — Thomas told The Daily Caller that the story line was “laughable.” She did, however, concede that the call was “probably a mistake on my part,” adding that, if her move to an outside consulting role “has the extra benefit of helping reduce distractions, that’s fine with me.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And Leonard Leo</b>, an executive at the conservative Federalist Society who is a longtime friend of the Thomases and sits on Liberty Central’s board, told POLITICO in November that the call had no impact on Liberty Central’s fundraising or on Thomas.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The people that were supportive of Liberty Central were supportive of her,” he said, adding, “I don’t think that they were going to pull back from her at a time when she needed support more than anything else.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He called the controversy over the Hill call “a nothing burger” for Thomas. “This is a woman who has been through it all. There are few women in Washington who have had to put up with what she has.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">but the source who knows Thomas and is familiar with her work at Liberty Central said her continuing reinvention of herself </font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— especially so soon after raising big money and assembling a staff for a new nonprofit — has hurt her standing in conservative circles.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Ginni’s reputation around town is now even more of a fake entitled woman who is only here because of her husband,” the source said. “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.”</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So far, they don’t.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roughly half a dozen aides for new members told POLITICO that their offices received handwritten meeting requests from Thomas the day after they were sworn in, as well as follow-up e-mails requesting a meeting with her — but only one of them had met with her. The rest had no plans to do so.</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FILED UNDER: POLITICS, HOUSE REPUBLICANS, DAVID SCHWEIKERT, CLARENCE THOMAS....</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref doc 550K$</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.politico.com/static/PPM156_liberty_central.html</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120225023040/https://www.politico.com/static/PPM156_liberty_central.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20120225023040/https://www.politico.com/static/PPM156_liberty_central.html</a></font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">990</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</span></font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">500k and 50K</span></font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lib central inc</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5765-f burke ctr pkwy burke va 22015-2264 # 302</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ein 27 1222875</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">703-691-2012</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2008</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">28k $ liabilities?</font></strong></strong></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></strong></strong></div></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html</a></strong></font></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
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</strong></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div><strong>[pix Clarence and Ginni Thomas at a Heritage Foundation event to celebrate his 30 years on the Supreme Court last October.</strong></div><div><strong>
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</strong></div><div><strong><b>The Long Crusade of Clarence and Ginni Thomas</b></strong></div><div><strong>The Supreme Court justice and his wife battled for years for a more conservative America. New reporting shows how far she was willing to go after Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>By Danny Hakim and Jo Becker</strong></div><div><strong>Published Feb. 22, 2022</strong></div><div><strong>Updated<b> Feb. 23, 2022</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>The call to action was titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?</b>” Shared in the days after the 2020 presidential election, it urged the members of an influential if secretive right-wing group to contact legislators in three of the swing states that tipped the balance for Joe Biden — Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The aim was audacious: Keep President Donald J. Trump in power.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The group, the<b> Council for National Policy, brings together</b> old-school Republican luminaries, Christian conservatives, Tea Party activists and MAGA operatives, with more than 400 members who include leaders of organizations like the Federalist Society, the National Rifle Association and the Family Research Council. Founded in 1981 as a counterweight to liberalism, the group was hailed by President Ronald Reagan as seeking the “return of righteousness, justice and truth” to America.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>As Trump insisted, without evidence, that fraud had cheated him of victory, conservative groups rushed to rally behind him. </b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The council stood out, however, not only because of its pedigree but also because <b>one of its newest leaders was Virginia Thomas, t</b>he wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and a longtime activist in right-wing circles. She had taken on a prominent role at the council during the Trump years and<b> by 2019 had joined the nine-member board of C.N.P. Action,</b> an arm of the council organized as a 501(c)4 under a provision of the tax code that<b> allows for direct political advocacy</b>. It was C.N.P. Action that circulated the November “action steps” document, the existence of which has not been widely known. It <b>instructed members to pressure Republican lawmakers into challenging the election results and appointing alternate slates of electors: </b>“Demand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities during a time such as this.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Such a plan, if carried out successfully, would have almost certainly landed before the Supreme Court — and Ginni Thomas’s husband.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In fact, Trump was already calling for that to happen. In a Dec. 2 speech at the White House, the president falsely claimed that “millions of votes were cast illegally in swing states alone” and said he hoped “the Supreme Court of the United States will see it” and “will do what’s right for our country, because our country cannot live with this kind of an election.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>The Thomases have long posed a unique quandary in Washington. Because Supreme Court justices do not want to be perceived as partisan, they tend to avoid political events and entanglements, and their spouses often keep low profiles. But the Thomases have defied such norms</b>.<b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Since the founding of the nation, no spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice has been as overt a political activist as Ginni Thomas</span>. In addition to her perch at the Council for National Policy, she founded a group called Groundswell with the support of Stephen K. Bannon, the hard-line nationalist and former Trump adviser. It holds a weekly meeting of influential conservatives, many of whom work directly on issues that have come before the court.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Ginni Thomas insists, in her council biography, that she and her husband operate in “separate professional lanes,” but those lanes in fact merge with notable frequency.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the three decades he has sat on the Supreme Court, they have worked in tandem from the bench and the political trenches to take aim at targets like Roe v. Wade and affirmative action<b>. </b></span><b>Together they believe that “America is in a vicious battle for its founding principles,</b>” as Ginni Thomas has put it. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Her views, once seen as on the fringe, have come to dominate the Republican Party. And with Trump’s three appointments reshaping the Supreme Court, her husband finds himself at the center of a new conservative majority poised to shake the foundations of settled law. In a nation freighted with division and upheaval, the Thomases have found their moment.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>This article draws on hours of recordings and internal documents from groups affiliated with the Thomases; dozens of interviews with the Thomases’ classmates, friends, colleagues and critics, as well as more than a dozen Trump White House aides and supporters and some of Justice Thomas’s former clerks; and an archive of Council for National Policy videos and internal documents provided by an academic researcher in Australia, Brent Allpress.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>The reporting uncovered new details on the Thomases’ ascent: how Trump courted Justice Thomas; how Ginni Thomas used that courtship to gain access to the Oval Office, where her insistent policy and personnel suggestions so aggravated aides that one called her a “wrecking ball”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> while others put together an opposition-research-style report on her </span>that was obtained by The Times; and the extent to which J<b>ustice Thomas flouted judicial-ethics guidance by participating in events hosted by conservative organizations with matters before the court. Those organizations showered the couple with accolades and, in at least one case, used their appearances to attract event fees, donations and new members.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>New reporting also shows just how blurred the lines between the couple’s interests became during the effort to overturn the 2020 election, which culminated in the rally held at the Ellipse,</b> just outside the White House grounds, aimed at stopping Congress from certifying the state votes that gave Joe Biden his victory. Many of the rally organizers and those advising Trump had connections to the Thomases, but little has been known about what role, if any, Ginni Thomas played, beyond the fact that o<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">n the morning of the March to Save America, as the rally was called, she urged her Facebook followers to watch how the day unfolded. “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” she posted before the march turned violent. “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING!”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>[ImagePresident Donald J. Trump greeting Justice Thomas during Trump’s inauguration ceremony in 2017. </strong></div><div><strong>President Donald J. Trump greeting Justice Thomas during Trump’s inauguration ceremony in 2017. Credit...Alex Wong/Getty Images]</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>But her role went deeper, and beyond C.N.P. Action. Dustin Stockton, an organizer who worked with Women for America First, which held the permit for the Ellipse rally, said he was told that Ginni Thomas played a peacemaking role between feuding factions of rally organizers “so that there wouldn’t be any division around January 6</b>.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>“The way it was presented to me was that Ginni was uniting these different factions around a singular mission on January 6,” said Stockton, who previously worked for Bannon. “That Ginni was involved made sense — she’s pretty neutral, and she doesn’t have a lot of enemies in the movement.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Ginni Thomas, who turns 65 on April 25, did not respond to requests for comment, and Justice Thomas, who is 73, declined to comment through a court spokesperson. In a posting on a private Facebook group for her high school classmates, Ginni Thomas wrote that “<b>a NYT reporter” might have “contacted you looking for stories, etc on me. This reporter seems to have been told to write a hit piece</b>” and “has knocked on many doors and written many emails. <b>They all contact me and are not responding.</b> ” she wrote. “Whatever. ♀️” (The message was forwarded by one of those classmates to the reporter in question.)</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the weeks that followed Jan. 6, as public condemnation of the insurrection grew to include some Republican leaders like Senator Mitch McConnell, the <b>Council for National Policy circulated in its newsletter another previously unreported memo, written by one of its members, that outlined strategies to make the Capitol riot seem more palatable. “Drive the narrative that it was mostly peaceful protests,” </b>a leading member of the group advised, according to a copy reviewed by The Times. “<b>Amplify the concerns of the protestors and give them legitimacy.”</b></span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>In the year since the insurrection, a number of friends and allies of the Thomases, and even a former Thomas clerk, have received subpoenas from the congressional committee investigating the events of Jan. 6. Ginni Thomas co-signed a letter in December calling for House Republicans to expel Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from their conference for joining the <b>Jan. 6 committee. Thomas and her co-authors said the investigation “brings disrespect to our country’s rule of law” and “legal harassment to private citizens who have done nothing wrong,” adding that they would begin “a nationwide movement to add citizens’ voices to this effort.”</b></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">A few weeks later, the Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 to allow the release of records from the Trump White House related to the Jan. 6 attack. Justice Thomas was the sole dissenter.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Nearly 10 months after the dramatic events at the Capitol, Ginni Thomas ventured out onto a small balcony inside the Heritage Foundation, the conservative redoubt that stands on Massachusetts Avenue a few blocks from the Capitol. In a bright red dress, she beamed and waved to friends in the crowd who gathered last October to celebrate her husband’s three decades on the Supreme Court. Beyond a sweeping bank of windows, the sun had sunk to just above the horizon, next to the Washington Monument.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The attendees represented the cream of Washington’s Republican legal establishment, “really a who’s who of all-stars,” as one of them, <b>Donald F. McGahn II</b>, the first White House counsel under Trump, would say when the speeches started. Many had clerked for Justice Thomas, including a number of Trump-appointed judges who are themselves touchstones on the right, like Neomi Rao and James Ho. Others were activists who had worked alongside Ginni Thomas, a Tea Party veteran.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Though efforts to overturn the election had failed and Joe Biden was deep into his first year as president, the mood in the room was buoyant, even triumphal. Justice Thomas, who for years labored at the margins of the court, now found himself with a new 6-to-3 conservative majority.<b> At the Heritage tribute, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, called Thomas “a legal titan</b>” and “the brightest possible north star.” <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Playing to the crowd of nearly 250 of his party’s elite, he dryly asked: “What could I, Mitch McConnell, possibly know about a notable leader who is parsimonious with his public statements? Who shuns the performative aspect of public life? And who is viewed as a boogeyman by the radical left? What would I know about that?” Among the crowd’s laughter, Thomas’s deep baritone was most audible.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>‘He has charted a very radical approach to judging — it’s surprising, actually, how far the court has moved in his direction.’</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong>Much has changed since Thomas joined the court in 1991, when the judicial orthodoxy of the right had little traction — including the belief that Roe v. Wade, which established a right to abortion, relied on a phantom “right to privacy” that isn’t explicit in the Constitution, or that there was “no device more destructive to the notion of equality” than affirmative action and racial quotas, as former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist once wrote in a dissenting opinion. During his first decade on the court, Thomas was often characterized by his critics as a cipher who almost never asked questions from the bench and was an<b> underwhelming understudy to Justice Antonin Scalia.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>But on the right, Thomas has come to be regarded as an epochal justice. The man who succeeded Thurgood Marshall, becoming the second Black justice, may end up with a legacy just as consequential.</b> Trump’s conservative appointments have tipped the balance of the Supreme Court toward Thomas and his originalist philosophy, which purports to interpret the Constitution as it would have been in the era in which it was written, transforming him into a shadow chief justice. When the consensus-seeking justice who formally holds that title, John G. Roberts Jr., sides with the court’s shrunken liberal wing, as is increasingly the case, it falls to Thomas, who has served the longest on the court, to assign who will write the majority opinion.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Three decades into his lifetime term, Thomas has not built his reputation by writing landmark majority rulings. Instead, he has been setting the stage for a shift in influence, writing solo opinions on issues like free speech, guns and abortion that are now poised to become majority opinions.</b> “Take his jurisprudence on unborn life,” McConnell told the Heritage Foundation crowd. “Every time, without fail, Justice Thomas writes a separate, concise opinion to cut through the 50-year tangle of made-up tests and shifting standards and calmly reminds everybody that the whole house of cards lacks a constitutional foundation.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>“Justice Thomas does not break, or bend, or bow,” he said. “We need a federal judiciary full of men and women who are as bright as Justice Thomas, as expertly trained as Justice Thomas, but most importantly, most importantly, as committed to total unflinching judicial independence.” But in Thomas’s own remarks, he alluded to the shared purpose of those gathered. “It is a joy, an absolute joy, to be able to stand here and celebrate this moment,” he said, “not because of me but because of you all and what we’re trying to defend in this great country.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If Thomas has been laying the groundwork for a conservative revolution, so has his wife, who once worked at Heritage herself. Groundswell, the group she founded, plotted what it called a “30-front war” on hot-button issues and <b>seeded talking points throughout the right-wing media, including with Bannon’s own publication at the time, Breitbart News.</b> “She’s an operator; she stays behind the scenes,” Bannon said in an interview. “Unlike a lot of people who just talk, she gets shit done.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The Thomases have long emphasized how little distance there is between them. As Justice Thomas once wrote, his searing 1991 confirmation, buffeted by sexual-harassment allegations, brought them closer together: “The fiery trial through which we passed had the effect of melding us into one being — an amalgam, as we like to say.” At the Heritage Foundation celebration, he made it clear that bruised feelings about the “very, very dark time” of his confirmation have lingered, thanking “the senators who voted for me, all 52 of them.” He named supporters who had stuck by him, including Heritage’s president at the time, Kay Coles James, who he said was “among my prayer partners 30 years ago.” And he called his wife “the rock of my life.”</strong></div><div><strong>[The Thomases during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.Credit...Doug Mills/AP Photo</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>While no one suggests that Thomas is writing his opinions to please his wife, he does speak of a shared Thomas philosophy.</b> And his wife has advocated hard-line positions on many of the cultural and political issues that come before the justices, presenting an unprecedented conundrum for the Supreme Court. Orin Kerr, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said that while there are no clear-cut rules outlining when justices need to recuse themselves, there are appearance concerns. <b>“I’m sure there are justices’ spouses who have had strong opinions about politics,” Kerr said. “What’s unusual here is that Justice Thomas’s wife is an activist in politics. Historically, this is the first example of something like this that I can think of at the Supreme Court.”</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Justice Thomas has flipped such criticisms on their head, saying that those who raise such issues were “bent on undermining” the court. And he defended “my bride” in a 2011 speech at an event sponsored by the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, as reported by Politico at the time. He said she worked “24/7 every day in defense of liberty,” adding, “We are equally yoked, and we love being with each other because we love the same things.” If the Thomases are at the height of their powers, the question, now, is how they will use that power in the years to come.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>“He has charted a very radical approach to judging — it’s surprising, actually, how far the court has moved in his direction,” John Yoo, </b>a law professor at U.C.-Berkeley and former Thomas clerk known for drafting some of the “torture memos” under President George W. Bush, said during a discussion at the Heritage event. (<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Yoo also advised former Vice President Mike Pence that he did not have the authority to reject electoral votes on Jan. 6.) </span>“What do you think is going to happen in the next 10 years when he might have a workable majority of originalists? I think we’re going to see the fruition of the last 30 years in the next 10.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The founders saw the courts as the guardians of the Constitution. In Federalist No. 78, which laid out the role of American courts, Alexander Hamilton wrote that they “were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature” and “keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.” But at the same time, he wrote, the judiciary would be the weakest of the new government’s three branches. While the executive “holds the sword” and the legislature “commands the purse,” the judiciary “will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.”</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>The Supreme Court must rely on public acceptance of its decisions</b>. For decades, the desire to shield the court from charges of partisanship has given rise to institutionalist justices who uphold certain norms.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> They avoid opinions that get too far out ahead of public opinion or too blithely overturn precedents. Instead they adhere to the doctrine of stare decisis, for the most part treating prior decisions as settled law, and prefer to rule in ways that win broad support. They also steer clear of attending openly partisan events</span>.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>But as the court has taken a hard right turn with Trump’s appointments, it is also increasingly seen as composed of clashing ideologues, both liberal and conservative, rather than independent jurists. Even the court’s newest justice, Amy Coney Barrett, is sensitive to the charge.</b> “My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” she said during a speech last year, accompanying Mitch McConnell at a center named for him at the University of Louisville. And as the court signals an appetite to take up cases that may well overturn settled law, including Roe v. Wade, more Americans view it as increasingly politicized, with a steep decline over the past year to a 40 percent approval rating, a new low in Gallup polling.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>[Image</strong></div><div><strong>Justice Thomas administering the Constitutional Oath to the newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, on Oct. 26, 2020, as her husband, Jesse Barrett, and President Trump looked on.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>This dynamic has left Chief Justice John Roberts in an increasingly isolated position as the Supreme Court’s leading institutionalist.</b> He refrains from attending partisan legal forums, like those at the Federalist Society. And his wife, Jane, stepped down as a litigator at her law firm after his appointment. <b>Justice Thomas, however, “believes that human beings have free will to chart our own course,”</b> said Helgi Walker, a former Thomas clerk and a partner at Gibson Dunn. “And I have no doubt that applies, perhaps especially so, to his wife.” That said, she added, he “takes direction from no one but the law.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Thomas has also rejected the institutionalist approach when it comes to the doctrine of stare decisis. “When faced with a demonstrably erroneous precedent, my rule is simple,” he wrote in a 2019 opinion. “We should not follow it.” When he has cited Federalist No. 78, he has underscored Hamilton’s comment that judges “would require an uncommon portion of fortitude” to defend constitutional principles when they are unpopular. “The trait that Hamilton singles out — fortitude — is fundamental to my philosophy of life,” Thomas said in a 2001 speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute.</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>He has said the route to safeguarding the Supreme Court is simply through stricter adherence to the Constitution, and he warned at a recent speech at the University of Notre Dame that judges have been exceeding their authority. </b>“There’s always a temptation, I think, to go beyond,” he said, adding that when judges “begin to venture into political, legislative or executive-branch lanes,” they “are asking for trouble.” He laid out the consequences: “I think the court was thought to be the least dangerous branch, and we may have become the most dangerous.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>But more than any other sitting justice, Thomas has stoked concerns of a hyperpartisan court.</b> He has frequently appeared at highly political events hosted by advocates hoping to sway the court. He and his wife sometimes appear together at such events, and their appeal is apparent: He fulfills the hard right’s longing for a judge — and especially a Black judge — oblivious to the howls of the left, while she serves up the red meat the base wants to hear in her speeches. <b>They often portray themselves as standing in the breach amid a crumbling society. “It’s very exciting,” Ginni Thomas said during a 2018 Council for National Policy meeting, “the fact that there’s a resistance on our side to their side.</b>”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Her role became increasingly public in the Trump era, when she started emceeing an annual awards ceremony celebrating some of the best-known Trump allies. The awards are handed out in conjunction with United in Purpose, a group created by Bill Dallas, an evangelical political activist<b>. Some recipients lead organizations that have business before the Supreme Court.</b></span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>“When the Batphone rings and it’s Commissioner Ginni Gordon, otherwise known as Ginni Thomas, of course you have to show up,” said Dan Bongino,</b> a former Secret Service agent turned popular pro-Trump radio host, after receiving one of Thomas’s Impact Awards in 2017. “I can’t say enough about Ginni,” Bongino told the audience at the event, which included the Fox News pundit Sean Hannity and Ed Meese, a Reagan administration attorney general. “I idolize her husband — he’s an icon to me,” Bongino said, but added that it was Ginni Thomas who connected him with right-wing leaders when he was making several unsuccessful congressional bids. “I think in the long run, when you look at the impact on the conservative movement and the principles we hold dear, I think her and her husband stand toe to toe.”</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>The federal judicial code of conduct, adopted in 1973, restricts judges from being “a speaker, a guest of honor or featured on the program” at fund-raising events. While the code doesn’t officially apply to the nine justices, Roberts said in a 2011 report that the justices “do in fact consult” it when “assessing their ethical obligations”</b> — a statement reiterated by a spokeswoman for the court when we asked for comment. But according to documents and recordings of such events reviewed by The Times<b>, Justice Thomas has at least twice headlined annual conferences at the Eagle Forum,</b> a conservative grass-roots group opposed to abortion and modern feminism. </strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The first was in 1996 when he received an Eagle award. “He’s better than Rehnquist, he’s better than Scalia, he’s just wonderful,” Phyllis Schlafly, the founder of the Eagle Forum and one of the most influential conservative activists of her generation, told the audience, according to a cassette recording of the speech. She even recited a poem in his honor, which began: “No high court justice shows such promise/As our favorite, Clarence Thomas/You’re a jurist for the ages/Who sends liberals into rages.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>The couple returned to the Eagle Forum years later, in 2017; this time his wife received the Eagle award. </b>It was the year after Schlafly died, and the organization, which is dependent on member and conference fees, was struggling. They were featured on the event program, and documents show that Ginni Thomas urged attendees to come hear her and “my amazing husband” in a personal letter that was part of the event’s promotional materials, adding, “God can use such an occasion for encouragement and insights!” (<b>Full registration for the group’s annual conference cost $350 as of 2019</b>.) Afterward, the organization tweeted a promotional video aimed at prospective members that included footage of the couple’s appearance.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Image</strong></div><div><strong>The Thomases at an <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Eagle Forum</span> event in 2017.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>In 2008, Justice Thomas delivered a keynote speech to donors to the Manhattan Institute and spoke at a secretive political retreat hosted by the billionaire Charles Koch.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> And he has had a long relationship with the Heritage Foundation, which employed his wife as a liaison to the George W. Bush White House</span>. <b>The group once invoked Justice Thomas’s speech at one of its Leadership for America fund-raisers in a direct appeal that it sent to Philip Morris seeking a $50,000 contribution. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And in 2020, he objected to an ethics proposal circulated by the policymaking body of the federal court system that would have barred judges from membership in ideological legal groups like the Federalist Society, while he was speaking at the group’s convention.<b> “I think they’re about to silence </b>the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Federalist Society,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">” he said. “So I guess I can’t come back.”</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Perhaps most important in understanding the couple’s far-reaching philosophy and project is their <b>long relationship with the Council for National Policy, </b>aspects of which have not been previously reported. Justice Thomas headlined an event for the group in 2002, and in 2008 he attended one of its meetings and was photographed with a gavel behind a lectern bearing the group’s name.</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Justice Thomas at a Council for National Policy meeting in 2008.</span></strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>Just over a decade later, Ginni Thomas would join the board of the council’s action arm. During a presentation in 2019, she warned that “conservatives and Republicans are tired of being the oppressed minority,” adding that they were being “falsely vilified, slandered and defamed as extremists and bigots and haters.” <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The left, she said, was “making it justifiable and normalized to fight us, to hurt us, to kill us even.</span>” For her, this was a fight decades in the making.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Before introducing Justice Thomas at the Eagle Forum in 1996, Schlafly spoke about his mother-in-law. “Now, first I want to present the wife of our distinguished speaker, Ginni Thomas, and I want to tell you that she is, I’m very proud to say, a second-generation Eagle,”</b> she said. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It was back in 1973 that a little group in Omaha, Nebraska, decided that they would<b> rescind Nebraska’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment,</b> and it was just about half a dozen of them, but Ginni’s mother was in that group,” she added, calling it “a real turning point in our long battle” against the amendment, which the forum said would not “celebrate womanhood” but “erase it.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>“And then later on,” Schlafly continued, “after the feminists moved on to another goal, after we beat them on E.R.A., they took up the goal of comparable worth” — a reference to a largely unsuccessful movement in the 1980s to require <b>equal pay for men and women, which Schlafly called “an effort to give us wage and price control.</b>”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“Ginni was then with the Chamber of Commerce, and she was a great help in that, and now she is a major assistant for our good friend Dick Armey,” Schlafly said, referring to the Republican congressman from Texas who was then the House majority leader. “So, Ginni, stand up. We appreciate your being with us tonight.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Virginia Thomas is the daughter of a president of a Nebraska architecture firm; the well-to-do family had two houses, one in Omaha and one in a nearby lakeside development called Ginger Cove that her father built. Ginni Lamp, as she was known then, was on a cheer squad for taller girls known as the Squires, brandishing a sword and a shield before football games. “She would march in front with that; she loved doing that,” said Sue Norby, a classmate. “My other friends were on the pompom squad because they were so short, but Ginni was on a different squad because she was tall, with other tall girls. She was the warrior woman.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Ginni’s mother, Marjorie Lamp, was an outspoken Republican activist and became a towering figure in her daughter’s life. When Schlafly lost a bid to become president of the National Federation of Republican Women in 1967, Marjorie Lamp withdrew from the organization and called the voting “rigged</b>.” She ran unsuccessfully for the Nebraska Legislature in 1972 and was a 1976 Reagan delegate, railing against Gerald Ford’s lack of leadership; “Reagan people are more hard-core,” she once said. She warned in a local paper that<b> if Jimmy Carter was elected, “we’d be heading toward socialism</b>.” <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Democrats, she wrote in a 1983 letter to The Lincoln Journal Star, “almost brought our great country to its knees with their wild spending policies.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Ginni Thomas has underscored her parents’ resolve in her own remarks. “<b>Our family didn’t believe Nixon did anything wrong in Watergate until way after he admitted guilt,”</b> she once said. “We believed any Republican until all the evidence was in, and then a little more.” She joined her high school’s Republican club in 1974, the year it started, and she and her mother attended the 1976 Republican National Convention together. It was her mother, she would later say, who “modeled conservative political feminism for her daughters.” She attended Creighton University in Omaha and earned her law degree there while working for a Nebraska congressman, Hal Daub, the first of a string of political jobs that took her far from Omaha.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Clarence Thomas’s journey to Washington was far different. He grew up in poverty, first in Pin Point, Ga., a tiny enclave, now part of Savannah, that was established by formerly enslaved Black people after the Civil War. He and his mother and brother then moved to Savannah itself — his father left the family when he was 2 — and he was largely raised by an exceedingly strict and temperamental grandfather.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>For the future justice, conservatism was part of an ideological journey, much of it forged at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where he was among a small group of Black men that did the difficult work of integrating the institution in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He and other students, including the prominent defense attorney Ted Wells, started a Black Student Union, and for a time Thomas <b>protested the Vietnam War. A pivotal moment came after a demonstration in Cambridge, Mass., turned into “a full-scale riot,” he wrote in his memoir. “Horrified,” he rejected what he saw as a posture of anger and resentment and threw himself into his studies.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>“Just about every evening, a few minutes after 11, there Clarence would be coming through the door from the library, every single evening,” recalled Edward P. Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer known for his work chronicling Black lives in Washington, who lived down the hall from Thomas as a sophomore. “There was a fierce determination I sensed from him, that he was going to get as much as he could and get as far, ultimately, as he could.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Thomas got his law degree from Yale but stuck a 15-cent cigar sticker to the frame of his diploma after failing to get a big law job — such firms, he would write, attributed his academic pedigree to preferential treatment. Instead, he took the only job offer he received and went to work for Missouri’s Republican attorney general, John Danforth</b>, and discovered the writings of the Black conservative<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Thomas Sowell,</span> who assailed affirmative action as undercutting self-reliance; Thomas wrote that he “felt like a thirsty man gulping down a glass of cool water” to see his own beliefs articulated. A few years later, after he was appointed by Reagan to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, he would complain that Black civil rights leaders “bitch, bitch, bitch, moan and moan, whine and whine.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Image</strong></div><div><strong>President Ronald Reagan and Clarence Thomas in the Oval Office in 1986.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Thomas venerated his grandfather, Myers Anderson, who was as influential in his life as his wife’s mother was in hers, and titled his memoir “My Grandfather’s Son.” But the relationship was often fractious. Anderson, who donated to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, “wasn’t happy with his grandson’s choices,” Kevin Merida, now the executive editor of The Los Angeles Times, and Michael A. Fletcher wrote in a 2007 biography, “Supreme Discomfort.” The authors quoted Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Black former clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer whom Biden is now considering for the vacancy being created by Breyer’s retirement. She remembered sitting across from Thomas at lunch and thinking: “ ‘I don’t understand you. You sound like my parents. You sound like people I grew up with.’ But the lessons he tended to draw from the experiences of the segregated South seemed to be different than those of everybody I know.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Clarence and Ginni met in 1986 at a conference on affirmative action, which they both opposed.</b> After a stint at the civil rights office of the Education Department, he was running the E.E.O.C.; she was an attorney at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and mused that year to Good Housekeeping about someday running for Congress. She had extracted herself from a New Age-y self-help group called <b>Lifespring, which she would denounce as a cult, </b>but was still attending meetings held by a cult-deprogramming organization, and she took him along to one. He would describe her as a “gift from God,” and they married in 1987 at a Methodist church in Omaha; it was her first marriage, his second. “There’s no other way to politely say this, but the fact she married a Black man must’ve caused an uproar in that family, I can’t even imagine,” said Scott Bange, who dated Ginni in high school. In 1991, one of Ginni Thomas’s aunts told The Washington Post that the future justice “was so nice, we forgot he was Black,” adding, “He treated her so well, all of his other qualities made up for his being Black.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Thomas had custody of a teenage son, Jamal, from his previous marriage to Kathy Ambush, his college girlfriend. For several years, the couple also raised his great-nephew, Mark Martin. Jamal Thomas, who did not return requests for comment, has spoken warmly, if rarely, of his father on Facebook, writing in a 2015 Father’s Day post: “Dad showed me that you can enjoy all sorts of music. His album collection is legendary. Country, R&B, Classical, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, and yes, even Culture Club. But I kind of compare that to his ability to relate and connect with anyone.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Together, the Thomases considered themselves happy warriors. If he was estranged in some ways from his own upbringing, he embraced her world, and even became an ardent fan of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. “They have this happy-kindness, Nebraska thing going on,” one longtime friend of the couple’s said. “Ginni can be annoying and obnoxious with the happy talk, but when you’re with her one on one, she can be very kind. And with Clarence too, there’s a kindness too; it’s not just the manipulative happy talk. But there’s an underbelly of pain, and they turn it against other people.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Clarence Thomas has always maintained that he had to be talked into accepting an appointment to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit when he was nominated as a federal judge in 1989. “I was minding my business,” he said, recounting the story in his remarks at the Heritage celebration. He was championed by Danforth, by then a senator, who said on the Senate floor: “I hope that people would not attack Clarence Thomas because of some stereotype of what they think a Black lawyer should believe.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement from the Supreme Court in 1991, and President George H.W. Bush turned to Thomas. </b>His confirmation hearings, presided over by Joe Biden, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, began with an attempt to determine his views on Roe v. Wade. Then, after an F.B.I. report was leaked, Anita Hill, a law professor who worked under Thomas at the Department of Education and the E.E.O.C., testified that he made numerous unwelcome advances, persisted in workplace conversations about his “sexual prowess,” described graphic pornography and said he found a pubic hair on a cola can and asked who had put it there. The future justice flatly rejected the allegations, calling the public inquiry “a high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Asked during the hearing whether he wanted to withdraw, he said, “I’d rather die.” He did not watch Hill’s testimony. “I was the one that tried to watch what was going on for as long as I could,” Ginni Thomas said in a 2020 documentary on Justice Thomas’s life and legal philosophy, “Created Equal,” made with the Thomases’ participation and funded by the far-right Charles Koch and Bradley Foundations. “It was all so wrong,” she continued. “It was so untrue.” When Biden informed Thomas in a phone call that he would vote against him, he tried to reassure him about the process. As she listened in, Ginni Thomas took a spoon from a kitchen drawer and pretended to gag herself, her husband later recounted. (Biden was also criticized for excluding testimony favorable to Hill and, much later, expressed regret.) Friends and associates said that the couple’s rage over the confirmation battle came to both define and unify them.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>“He was in a state of shock,” said Armstrong Williams, a Black conservative pundit and longtime friend of Justice Thomas’s</b>, who worked for him at the E.E.O.C. and served as an adviser during the hearings. “Everything that he ever worked so hard for, everything that his grandparents and his mother were proud of him for, was reduced to sexual innuendos. And no one knew anything about his career except for those innuendos. The first time people were hearing about him were these salacious allegations.” And so, Williams said, “he threw himself into the court and becoming the best justice he could be, and that still remains his refuge.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thomas’s early years on the court were distinguished by vigorous dissents and iconoclastic opinions. While some justices seek a narrow enough argument to garner five votes, he often staked out a lonelier, more oppositional role as a dissenter. In a 1997 <b>Second Amendment c</b>ase, he opened the door for future challenges to local gun laws. In a 2000 Nebraska abortion case, he assailed Roe v. Wade, which he called “grievously wrong.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>“He was tilling the ground,” said Leonard Leo, </b>a former executive vice president of the Federalist Society, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">a Council for National Policy member and a close family friend of the couple’s.</span> “In other words, the field’s not ready for things to blossom or flourish, but he’s doing what he can to prepare it. And that’s what he’s been doing.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Leo, a Catholic like the justice, first met him when he was clerking on the District of Columbia Circuit. Thomas, then a judge on that court, became a mentor.</b> The justice has spent time at Leo’s New England vacation home, is godfather to one of his children and has supported him through hardships, including the death of his 14-year-old daughter from spina bifida. The two men often discussed religion — Thomas once recommended he read “A History of Christianity” by Paul Johnson — and Leo says Justice Thomas saw parallels between how the church grew and how to build a body of conservative jurisprudence.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>“It’s very similar to what happened with the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages,” he said of the justice’s approach, adding that the church and its institutions “did their work during that time, laying the foundations for future Catholic thinking and Catholic thought to sort of grow the church and preserve its traditions. It happened quietly; it did not happen in the grand chambers of the Vatican, but it happened.”</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>Thomas has described his judicial philosophy as one of natural law, in which liberty and equality are endowed by God.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In the Thomas view, slavery and Jim Crow segregation were betrayals of the ideals enshrined in the nation’s founding documents — and so are progressive programs like affirmative action: He is equally opposed to government imposing obstacles or providing special protections.</span> “Whether deemed inferior by the crudest bigots or considered a victim by the most educated elites, being dismissed as anything other than inherently equal is still, at bottom, a reduction of our human worth,” he said in a recent speech. In an essay called “Clarence X?” Stephen F. Smith, a Notre Dame professor and former Thomas clerk who is also Black, argues that his former boss “frequently (if not invariably) seeks to demonstrate that his conservative positions on matters of race are beneficial for Black Americans, as well as legally required.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>But those positions are often out of step with a majority of Black Americans, and in his autobiography, Thomas laments being “branded a traitor to my race” for “daring to reject the ideological orthodoxy that was prescribed for blacks by liberal whites.” Such rejection of orthodoxy was evident in a 1995 concurring opinion on desegregation, when he questioned why majority-Black schools were necessarily a problem: “It never ceases to amaze me that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior,” he wrote.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>During these years, the couple were embraced on the right; they even hosted Rush Limbaugh’s third wedding at their Virginia home in 1994,</b> with Justice Thomas officiating. </span>Ginni Thomas was laboring in establishment Republican circles, but an ideological ferocity akin to her mother’s simmered. “I’ve been on a mission for a long time,” she told U.S. News & World Report in 1995. “I wouldn’t be in this town if I wasn’t on a mission.” B<b>y the time the Tea Party movement arose in opposition to the Obama presidency, her sense of mission was redoubled</b>. “Over the last 30 years, I have worked and struggled inside this Beltway, waiting for you people to show up,” she told Tea Party activists in a 2010 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “I adore all of the new citizen patriots who are rising up across this country, and I am happy to help show you the ropes in the Washington area, ’cause we need help.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Newly emboldened, that same year Ginni Thomas called Anita Hill, leaving a voice mail message on a Saturday morning. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something.<b> I would love you to consider an apology </b>sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband,” she said. “So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day.” (Ginni Thomas characterized the call by saying she was “extending an olive branch.”)</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>When asked if Justice Thomas agreed with making the call, Armstrong Williams was quick to answer. “Of course not! But he had to deal with it,” he said. “It’s his wife, it’s his best friend, his most trusted confidante, and he loves her unconditionally. He doesn’t agree with everything, but they work it out privately.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Hill was taken aback and made the call public</b>: <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“She can’t ask for an apology without suggesting that I did something wrong, and that is offensive.” Hill had not been the only woman to level accusations against Clarence Thomas: At the time of his confirmation hearing, another former E.E.O.C. employee, Angela Wright, who was fired by him, detailed inappropriate sexual comments she said he made, including remarking on her bra size. A third former agency employee said, “If you were young, Black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female.” Neither was called to testify.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2010, shortly after news broke of Ginni Thomas’s call to Hill, Lillian McEwen, a former assistant U.S. attorney who dated Clarence Thomas for several years after his separation from his first wife, spoke out: “He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners,” she told The Washington Post in support of Hill’s account. “I have no hostility toward him,” she said. “It is just that he has manufactured a different reality over time.” In 2016, Moira Smith, the general counsel at an Alaska natural-gas company, said she was groped in 1999 by Justice Thomas while she was a 23-year-old Truman Foundation scholar, eight years after he joined the court.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The Thomases have rejected all such allegations. “I think, and I’ve said this only a few times publicly, one of the best things that could have happened to me was to have gone through the kind of confirmation I went through,” he told the conservative activists at the Eagle Forum in 1996. “I am the freest person on the court. I have no illusions, no desires for accolades, no desires for praise. I’m there to do a job. I will do it, and I will go home.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>A few weeks after Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election, Ginni Thomas called Steve Bannon, then the chairman of Breitbart, and they had lunch at the Washington townhouse that was both Bannon’s residence and Breitbart’s headquarters</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Romney’s loss presaged a battle for the Republican Party’s direction, and Thomas wanted to start a hard-right round table to serve as an alternative to an establishment meeting run on Wednesdays by Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader.</span> “She had the idea, ‘I think we need something to counter Grover’s Wednesday meeting,’” recalled Bannon, who didn’t know her well at the time. “And I said, ‘That’s a brilliant idea.’”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>The previous year, Thomas’s activism drew scrutiny of her and her husband, when Common Cause, an advocacy group, reviewed I.R.S. filings and criticized Justice Thomas for failing to disclose his wife’s income — nearly $700,000 over five years from the Heritage Foundation — as required by federal law.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He subsequently amended 20 years of filings. </span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>After her stint at Heritage, Ginni Thomas ran a Washington-based constitutional studies center for Michigan’s Hillsdale College, </b>a conservative bastion that her husband has called “a shining city on a hill.”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> She also briefly ran her own advocacy group called Liberty Central, which campaigned against a planned Islamic community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan near ground zero; that group was funded in large measure by Harlan Crow, a friend of the Thomases’ and board member of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank whose work Justice Thomas has cited. Crow, a major Republican donor, gave $500,000 to Liberty Central. (Ginni Thomas’s 2010 pay of $120,511 was nearly 13 percent of the organization’s revenue that year, tax records show.) In the wake of the financial disclosures, more than <b>70 House Democrats asked the justice to recuse himself from deliberations about President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which Ginni Thomas lobbied against.</b> He declined.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>‘When you look at the impact on the conservative <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> movement and the principles we hold dear, I think her and her husband stand toe to toe.’</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Now her new group<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">, Groundswell</span>, took shape, coupling a theatrical cloak-and-dagger sensibility with an inability to keep secrets</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Early participants drew from a number of hard-line interest groups, including Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch and Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council, as well as Leonard Leo and Allen West, an outspoken former Florida congressman, and a number of right-wing journalists, including Mark Tapscott, then the executive editor of The Washington Examiner.</span> A trove of internal emails was promptly leaked to Mother Jones magazine, <b>highlighting the group’s use of tactical terms like “OpSec</b>” (“operations security”) and its <b>hatred of establishment Republican figures, in particular Karl Rove, whom they reviled as a moderating influence on the party.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Ginni Thomas oversaw the group’s plan for its “30-front war” as Groundswell became a platform for far-right leaders, donors and media figures — the people Bannon called the “honey badgers” of the movement — to exchange and amplify hard-line positions on immigration, abortion and gun control. It was, as Bannon put it, “all the stuff that became the foundational stuff of the Trump movement.”</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Voting was an early focus. Among the early Groundswell participants was Russell J.<b> Ramsland</b> Jr., an influential Texas-based backer of evidence-free voting-fraud claims who would make a failed congressional run. So was James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, a right-wing group that has used deception and hidden cameras to try to buttress claims of voter fraud. Another participant was Catherine Englebrecht, a Texas activist who in 2009 founded True the Vote, a group that says it is battling “groups who subvert our elections to serve their own purposes” and has pushed for voting restrictions.</span></strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>The activists were particularly inflamed after Obama signed an executive order on March 28, 2013, that created a commission to study elections. “OBAMA TAKES TOTAL CONTROL OF ELECTIONS,” one Groundswell member wrote in an email to the group.</b> Englebrecht warned in response that the commission, which had no authority beyond writing a report and making recommendations, “has the capacity to wipe out fair elections.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Bongino, </b>another Groundswell member, wrote: “We need to reframe this. The narrative of the Left has already taken hold.” He added, “The words ‘Voter ID’ are already lost & equated with racism.” Thomas weighed in, listing key House staff members working on elections matters, and asked, “Who else are key working group members on ELECTION LAW, ELECTION REFORM and THE LEFT’S NARRATIVES, Groundswell???”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Three months after the email exchange, Justice Thomas provided a critical vote in the court’s 5-to-4 <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Shelby County v. Holder</span> decision, which effectively stripped the Voting Rights Act of language that protected voters in places that had historically disenfranchised them on the basis of race</b>. The act had required states and counties with a history of discriminatory practices, mostly in the South, to get federal preclearance of such measures. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The case was led in part by one of Thomas’s own former clerks, William Consovoy</b>, whose arguments echoed the justice’s views. In fact, Thomas had advanced the argument for Shelby four years earlier, when he raised concerns about the constitutionality of preclearance in a case from Texas, arguing that there was no longer “a systematic campaign to deny black citizens access to the ballot through intimidation and violence.” Four years later, in his concurring opinion in Shelby, he wrote, “Our Nation has changed.”</span></strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>The ruling was cheered on the right, with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board calling it “a triumph of racial progress.”</b> Civil rights groups were dismayed. “The Shelby decision is one of the biggest affronts to our democracy in modern history,” said Janai Nelson, associate director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, arguing that it “unleashed a wave of voter suppression that is like what we witnessed in the Jim Crow era.” The decision freed states to enact restrictive laws, she added, that were “often based on mythical justifications” of supposed voter fraud and “by no coincidence disenfranchise minority voters at alarmingly disproportionate rates.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That same year, Ginni Thomas turned her attention to internal battles on the right. In 2013, the Republican National Committee came out with a<b> report after Romney’s loss that was known as the “autopsy” of the party’s failures. But its prescriptions — to broaden the base and appeal to minorities and gay people — were roundly rejected by Ginni Thomas and Bannon. </b>“It’s a joke, and it has nothing to do with what happened,” Bannon said in an interview, recalling how he reacted to the report. “We have to have something to counter it.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Groundswell, in a message circulated among its members after the autopsy, said that “Priebus is sending messages to the party,” referring to Reince Priebus, the R.N.C. chairman at the time. It continued: “If we were all gay illegal aliens, the party likes us. He is preparing the way for a change on social issues by giving a warning, ‘don’t go Old Testament.’”</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Thomases faced other headwinds. In addition to Groundswell, Ginni Thomas had started her own small firm, Liberty Consulting, but was often relegated to symbolic gestures, as when she wrote to the I.R.S. in 2014 <b>protesting that the Obama administration was “attempting to force the disclosure of donors to conservative organizations,”</b> amid criticism from the right that the agency was singling out conservative groups for scrutiny. Justice Thomas, meanwhile, wrote vigorous dissents from what seemed to be a narrowing conservative position; in 2015, he was the only justice to back Abercrombie & Fitch’s dress code, which prevented the hiring of a woman who wore a head scarf. (He said the store was not intentionally discriminating but simply refusing “to create an exception.”)</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>For their 28th wedding anniversary in May 2015, Justice Thomas bought his wife a charm bracelet. It had knots and ropes and a pixie, because, as she later recounted, he thinks of her as a pixieish troublemaker. But there was another charm too. “I said: ‘Wait, there’s a windmill here. What’s that mean?’” She was, after all, a former attorney for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a bastion of Big Oil, and has <b>fumed aloud that kids are being turned into “robots for climate change.</b>” But her husband had an explanation, she said: “He goes, ‘We both tilt at windmills.’”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016 left a void on the court and for Justice Thomas. He delivered an emotional eulogy for his friend, a longtime ideological ally, even if Scalia had once referred to his own brand of originalism as “fainthearted.” “For this, I feel quite inadequate to the task,” Thomas said, adding that the two had “many buck-each-other-up visits, too many to count.” He recounted gleefully chiding Scalia for excoriating an opinion he came across: “Nino, you wrote it.” For years, Thomas was overshadowed by his more voluble colleague, but a reconsideration followed. “For the first year or two, Justice Thomas was seen as Justice Scalia’s lap dog by some, which was wildly denigrating,” said John Malcolm, vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government. “Now, in books and notes that have been released, it seems that Justice Scalia was just as influenced by Justice Thomas as Justice Thomas was by Justice Scalia.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Image</strong></div><div><strong>Justice Thomas meeting with his clerks at the Supreme Court in 2002.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Thomas has warm relationships with many of his court colleagues; he called Ruth Bader Ginsburg “simply a joy to work with” and was often seen helping her navigate the courtroom’s steps. But after Scalia’s death, it seemed as if he might become even more ideologically isolated. Mitch McConnell made it clear that Scalia’s successor would be left to the next president, even though nearly a year remained in the Obama administration. But with Hillary Clinton leading in the polls, it seemed that the court could soon see its “first liberal majority in nearly 50 years,” USA Today wrote in October 2016.</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>Ginni Thomas attended the Republican National Convention as a Virginia delegate, this time on behalf of Senator Ted Cruz. There, she backed a convention-floor effort to overturn the will of Republican primary voters by awarding Trump’s delegates to Cruz. After the plot failed, </b>Thomas expressed her disapproval of the party’s nominee in Facebook posts later compiled by Trump aides. “Donald Trump will have to WIN my vote, along with many others in the Cruz movement,” she wrote. “We were devastated at how he treated Ted” (Trump had lobbed insults and insinuations at Cruz’s wife and father), adding that it “does not bode well for a President worthy to lead this nation.”</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>But like many others on the right who opposed Trump’s candidacy, she would become a believer. </b>Thomas and her colleagues at the Council for National Policy had for years pushed for the appointment of “constitutionalist” judges in her husband’s image, with some even advocating the impeachment of judges who did not meet that definition. Few things were more important to the conservative base than reshaping the closely divided Supreme Court, and Trump did not disappoint. First he replaced Scalia with another conservative, Neil Gorsuch. Then, in July 2018, Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to succeed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court’s swing vote, who was retiring<b>. The court’s balance of power was poised to shift. It was the moment both Thomases had awaited.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>The Kavanaugh nomination, however, was soon imperiled amid unexpected sexual assault and harassment allegations reminiscent of Thomas’s own confirmation hearings. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">With the nomination in the balance, Ginni Thomas addressed the Council for National Policy’s membership, mentioning her husband no less than four times. Before introducing an off-the-record session at a council conference in October 2018, Jerry Johnson, a member of the executive committee, reminded attendees to turn their cellphones off and “do not record.” (A video of the event later surfaced.)</span></strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>Ginni Thomas invoked the shooting of Representative Steve Scalise at a charity baseball practice and the Kavanaugh nomination fight to make a larger claim that conservatives were under attack</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“May we all have guns and concealed carry to handle what’s coming,”</span> she said. “And what they’ve done to Brett Kavanaugh,” she continued, “I’m feeling the pain, Clarence is feeling the pain of going through false charges against a good man, and what they’re doing is unbelievable. I thought it couldn’t get worse than Clarence’s, but it did.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Her anger building, she told the audience that there were signs all around them of existential threats. </b>“You see rainbow flags throughout businesses, sending powerful, subtle messages to all the customers that ‘We’re the kind, decent, compassionate, tolerant people, until the Republican evil conservatives show up, and those are all automatically hateful people,’” she said. “I see things in my veterinarian: ‘Spread Kindness,’ ‘Build Community,’ ‘Hate Is Not Welcome Here,’” she continued. “Look how defensive we are, because they have these cultural foundations.” Returning to the battle at hand, the Kavanaugh fight, she said, <b>“Even if he gets in — I believe he’ll get in, I’m hoping he gets in, but they’re not going to leave him alone.” It was clear it was personal: “They’re trying to impeach him. They’re coming for my husband. They’re coming for President Trump!”</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The invitation went out in the weeks following Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Would Justice Thomas care to join the president for what one former Trump aide described as a “working lunch”? Kavanaugh’s elevation had created an opening on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, considered a prime steppingstone to the S<b>upreme Court. The top contender for the post, Neomi Rao, then serving as the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, had been a Thomas clerk.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump had long been intrigued by Justice Thomas. During the transition, in a meeting to discuss the court with Leonard Leo, he expressed an interest in learning more about the justice. “At one point during the conversation, he said to me, ‘You know, when I was out on the campaign trail, you know, when I mentioned Clarence Thomas, his name, sometimes the guy would get more applause than I did,’” Leo recalled. “ ‘What was that all about?’ And I said, ‘Well, you know, he’s a hero to a lot of people.’</span>”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>A courting of Thomas followed</b>, prompted as well by rumors that he might retire. His roster of former clerks became a go-to list for Trump judicial picks</span>. (“You did appoint a lot of my kids,” the justice would later thank McGahn, Trump’s first White House counsel, in his Heritage speech.) Early on, there was also a photo-op with Thomas and his clerks, who went to the White House. And later, there was an invitation for the justice, along with his wife, to join the president and first lady for dinner.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>The lunch following the Kavanaugh battle, however, was supposed to be a private affair between the justice and the president. But when Thomas arrived, Trump aides said, they were surprised to see that he had brought an uninvited guest — his wife. Trump world was learning, as others have, that the two are a package deal.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The accounts of the Thomases’ meetings and conversations with the White House are based on interviews with nine former Trump aides and advisers, most of whom requested anonymity in order to speak frankly about how <b>the courtship of Thomas created an opening for his wife. (One said he didn’t want “the Ginni prayer warriors coming after me.</b>”) <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Several said they were never clear as to whether she was there as an activist or a paid consultant. They recounted how she aggressively pushed far-right candidates for various administration jobs and positioned herself as a voice of Trump’s grass-roots base. “Here’s what the peeps think,” she would say, according to one of the aides. “We have to listen to the peeps.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Shortly after the lunch meeting with her husband, she got a meeting of her own with the president, at her request, arriving in the Roosevelt Room on Jan. 25, 2019, with a delegation that included members of Groundswell in tow. “It was the craziest meeting I’ve ever been to,”</b> said a Trump aide who attended. “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">She started by leading the prayer.” When others began speaking, the aide remembers talk of “the transsexual agenda” and parents “chopping off their children’s breasts.” He said the president “tried to rein it in — it was hard to hear though,” because throughout the meeting attendees were audibly praying.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>It was an event with no precedent, and some of the details of what transpired soon leaked: the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice lobbying a president when several cases involving transgender rights were making their way through the federal courts. (The following year, Justice Thomas would join a dissent that asserted that the Civil Rights Act did not cover people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.)</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The meeting grew chaotic. Ginni Thomas and other attendees complained to the president that their favored hard-line job candidates were being blocked and that <b>his own personnel office should be purged, depicting some of his aides as closet liberals and Never Trumpers.</b></span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Before the meeting, Trump’s aides assembled the research document outlining concerns with Ginni Thomas and some of her preferred job candidates, the contents of which they shared with the president.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The document, obtained by The Times, detailed how<b> Crystal Clanton, a friend of Ginni Thomas</b>’s whose name had been advanced, had been forced out from Turning Point USA, a conservative student group on whose advisory board Ginni Thomas once served, after The New Yorker reported that she wrote in a text: “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like [expletive] them all. … I hate blacks. End of story.” (Ginni Thomas subsequently hired Clanton, and Justice Thomas, who has called the allegations against Clanton unfounded, helped her get a federal clerkship and wrote in a letter of support that he would consider her for a <b>Supreme Court clerkship.) Other names advanced by Ginni Thomas included Bongino, </b>whom she recommended for a counterterrorism position, and <b>David A. Clarke, </b>a Black former Milwaukee County sheriff whose oversight of a local jail was the subject of multiple investigations and lawsuits, whom she supported for a top post at the Department of Homeland Security.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>The report reminded the president that Ginni Thomas had once called him “a nonconservative candidate” whose populism was “untethered and dangerous” and whose tactics did “not bode well for a President worthy to lead this nation.”<b> It even included a photo of her at the 2016 Republican National Convention, where she supported the effort to strip Trump of his delegates</b>, holding her delegate badge, which was decorated with a yellow ribbon emblazoned with the words “trouble maker.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“In the White House, she was out of bounds many times,” one of Trump’s senior aides said. “It was always: ‘We need more MAGA people in government. We’re trying to get these résumés through, and we’re being blocked.’ I appreciated her energy,<b> but a lot of these people couldn’t pass background checks.” </b>Many of the people she pushed, another former Trump aide said, “had legitimate background issues, security-clearance issues or had done a lot of business overseas.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>The president continued to allow Ginni Thomas access, telling aides that if she were in the White House visiting with other officials, she was welcome to drop by to see him. And she did on several occasions, while also passing notes on her priorities through intermediaries,</b> multiple aides said. With her husband, she also attended a state dinner for the Australian prime minister, and she went to the White House when her husband administered the Constitutional Oath to Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s third appointment to the Supreme Court, as guests including Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host and former Thomas clerk, celebrated.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Image</strong></div><div><strong>The Thomases at the White House in 2019 for a state dinner honoring Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>With her place in the presidential orbit secure, Thomas became even more outspoken. In posts on Facebook, she shared a George Soros conspiracy-theory meme and criticized the teenage survivors of the school massacre in Parkland, Fla., for supporting gun contro</b>l. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">She complained when a town near her Virginia home put up a banner in support of Black Lives Matter,</span> saying the group was filled with extremists “seeking to foment a cultural revolution,” and traded barbs on her public Facebook page. “Hey, are you aware you married a black man?” one commenter wrote, to which she replied: “news tip, whitey, all blacks don’t think alike!”</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>By 2019, her influence in Republican circles was growing. She took on a leadership role at the Council for National Policy, joining the board of C.N.P. Action, which had become a key cog in the Trump messaging machine</b>. (The council declined to comment.) The board holds breakout sessions on “pressing issues,” then publishes “action steps” for members. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That year, she and her friend Cleta Mitchell, a council member and Republican elections lawyer, <b>conducted a joint session at which Mitchell discussed harnessing charitable dollars for political purposes </b>and Thomas spoke on the culture war. Thomas told her listeners that societal forces were arrayed against them, while flashing a slide depicting the left as black snakes coiled around cultural institutions. “Our house is on fire,” she declared, “and we are stomping ants in the driveway.”</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>During Trump’s presidency, documents obtained by The Times show, the council and its affiliates routinely took on issues that were likely to go before the Supreme Court. </b>Ginni Thomas personally co-moderated a panel called “The Pro-Life Movement on Offense” that laid out strategies to energize “low turnout pro-life voters” and “persuadable Democrats and Hispanics” by talking to them “about late-term abortion, taxpayer funding of abortion, and the Supreme Court,” one of the slides in the presentation read</span>.<b> Amid the pandemic and legal challenges to lockdown restrictions, the organization urged members to “pray for our churches to rise up.”</b> The scope of potential conflicts has little precedent beyond narrower episodes on lower federal courts, as when the wife of Judge Stephen Reinhardt was an A.C.L.U. executive but he did not always recuse himself from cases in which th<b>e A.C.L.U. had an interest. But unlike the Supreme Court, litigants there had the right to appeal.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>As the 2020 election neared, C.N.P. Action meetings and documents targeted Democratic strategies that make it easier to vote, including the practice of civic groups’ gathering ballot applications, derided by many on the right as “ballot harvesting</b>.”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Months later, the Supreme Court upheld an Arizona ban on the practice, with Thomas in the 6-to-3 majority. C.N.P. Action also pressed for mandatory voter-identification laws and even floated the idea of using former Navy SEALs to monitor polls.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Thomas was also busy with displays of devotion: She boasted in an online biography that she “set agendas with President Trump’s White House for quarterly conservative leader briefings” and started a group of Trump supporters called the Northern Virginia Deplorables. But it was after Trump’s November loss that she would<b> prove her loyalty beyond doubt, </b>when she and her group urged on efforts to overturn the election.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the weeks after Trump’s loss, court challenges began to pile up from his team, his allies and even Republican lawmakers. They echoed the call put out by C.N.P. Action to challenge swing-state outcomes, with one Republican congressman, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, filing a lawsuit against his own state to try to stop the certification of its votes. On Dec. 8, the Supreme Court refused a request to hear that case before the certification date in a one-sentence statement. It remains unknown whether the justices were unanimous in their decision.</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">By then, the network around the Thomases was lighting up. <b>On Dec. 10, a former Thomas clerk and close friend of the couple’s, John C. Eastman, went on “War Room,” a podcast and radio show hosted by Bannon</b></span><b>. Eastman argued that the country was already at the point of a constitutional crisis — and he urged the Supreme Court to intervene. Bannon eagerly agreed. </b>Behind the scenes, Eastman was advising Trump and his campaign on a new proposal to change the outcome of the election: Vice President Mike Pence, he asserted, could refuse to accept swing-state votes and send them back to the state legislatures when he presided over the certification of the election in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>As the Trump court challenges to the election multiplied, C.N.P. Action took up the charge once more, training its sights on the Jan. 6 certification.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In December, it circulated a newsletter that included a report titled “Five States and the Election Irregularities and Issues,” targeting five swing states where Trump and his allies were already pressing litigation. But time was running out for the courts to “declare the elections null and void,” the report warned. The newsletter advised: “There is historical, legal precedent for Congress to count a slate of electors different from that certified by the Governor of the state.”<b> One co-author of the “Five States” report was Cleta Mitchell, who by that time was among the lawyers advising Trump.</b></span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Soon a number of longtime friends and associates of the Thomases were involved in efforts to overturn the election results, or helping plan the Jan. 6 rallies. Besides Eastman and Bannon, there was Mitchell, who took part in <b>Trump’s Jan. 2 call in which he exhorted Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” the votes he needed to claim a victory. Turning Point USA, on whose advisory board Ginni Thomas had served, was a sponsor of the Jan. 6 event and provided buses for attendees. (</b>An early rumor suggesting that she paid for the buses was debunked.)</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Other sponsors included two more groups with which Ginni Thomas had long ties. One was the Tea Party Patriots, headed by Jenny Beth Martin, a fellow Council for National Policy activist.</b> The other was <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Women for America First, which held the permit for the rally at the Ellipse and was run by Amy Kremer.<b> </b></span><b>The two women, and Ginni Thomas, had all been early Tea Party activists,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">though Kremer and Martin had been engaged for years in a bitter legal dispute. “</span>That’s why it was interesting when I learned that they’d been working together on the January 6 coordination,”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Dustin Stockton said, adding that<b> he had been told by another organizer, Caroline Wren, on Jan. 5 that it was Ginni Thomas who worked to bring unity ahead of the rally.</b> </span>(Asked about Thomas’s mediating role, Kremer’s daughter Kylie Jane Kremer, the executive director of Women for America First, did not answer that question, instead painting Stockton as someone who makes “inaccurate and attention-seeking statements.” Martin similarly avoided the question, issuing a statement that condemned the violence at the Capitol. Wren disputed Stockton’s account but declined to elaborate.)</strong></div><div><strong><b>
</b></strong></div><div><strong><b>The spectacle of a Supreme Court justice’s spouse taking to Facebook to champion the attempt of a defeated president to stay in power, as Ginni Thomas did on the morning of Jan. 6, crossed a line for several people in the Thomases’ circle</b> who talked to The Times. “That’s what she does — it has nothing to do with him,” said Armstrong Williams, Justice Thomas’s longtime friend. “Should she use better judgment? Yes. You can quote me on that.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Ginni Thomas posted a disclaimer after the protests devolved into an insurrection — “[Note: written before violence in US Capitol]” — but she had also lamented Trump’s loss in a message to “Thomas Clerk World,” a private email group used by Ginni Thomas and former clerks and their spouses that is typically reserved for more anodyne pleasantries. Her use of the forum prompted a bitter debate among the former clerks that soon leaked. It started on Jan. 17, whe<b>n Smith, the Notre Dame professor, shared an article from Christianity Today denouncing the Jan. 6 violence. Among those who weighed in was Eastman, who was a speaker at the rally. “Rest assured that those of us involved in this are working diligently to ascertain the truth,” he wrote.</b></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Eastman then used the Thomas email group to invite “those of you interested in more information” to get in touch, prompting Smith to reply that he hoped everyone agreed “that the search for truth doesn’t in any way justify insurrection, trying to kidnap and assassinate elected officials, attacking police officers, or making common cause with racists and anti-Semites” because “such things are flatly contrary to authentic Christian faith.</span>” (Details of Eastman’s role continue to emerge, including a message he sent to Pence’s top lawyer during the Capitol attack blaming the vice president for refusing to overturn the election; he repeatedly cited the Fifth Amendment in refusing to answer questions from the Jan. 6 committee.)</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>By Jan. 18, Ginni Thomas felt compelled to issue a semi-apology on the forum, which also leaked. “I have likely imposed on you my lifetime passions,” she wrote. “My passions and beliefs are likely shared with the bulk of you, but certainly not all. And sometimes the smallest matters can divide loved ones for too long. Let’s pledge to not let politics divide THIS family, and learn to speak more gently and knowingly across the divide,” adding, “I am certainly on the humble side of awareness here. ”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>In the year that has passed, Ginni Thomas has deleted one of her two Facebook accounts and has taken a lower profile. But she remains active. Last year, she invited Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to join a Groundswell call</b>, describing her group as a “cone-of-silence coalition” in an email to his staff that was obtained by American Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group. She invoked her husband, telling DeSantis’s aides that the justice had been in contact with the governor “on various things of late.” (DeSantis, who did not respond to requests for comment, was in the midst of a number of high-profile federal court battles at the time.)</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The battle over the election did not land before the court as Bush v. Gore did in 2000. But in February 2021, as Trump and his associates continued pressing for state lawmakers to audit — and reverse — the 2020 election,<b> Justice Thomas sharply dissented when a 6-to-3 majority rejected the case brought by Pennsylvania Republicans</b> that the court had refused to take up in December. Echoing the arguments advanced by C.N.P. Action, he wrote that legislatures have the constitutional authority to determine how federal elections are held, yet in 2020, “nonlegislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set the rules instead.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>He called the refusal by his colleagues to hear the case “inexplicable,”</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">arguing that “allegations of systemic maladministration, voter suppression, or fraud” go “to the heart of public confidence in election results. That is obviously problematic for allegations backed by substantial evidence. But the same is true where allegations are incorrect.<b>” In other words, election disputes and claims of fraud carried as much weight — and should lead to court hearings, just as Trump and his supporters had wished — whether they were true or not.</b> “By doing nothing,” Thomas continued, “we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence.” He did concede in a footnote that the 2020 presidential election had been “free from strong evidence of systemic fraud.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>Though the battle for the presidency is over, the Thomases are winning in the war for the courts — and, some would argue, the country. Some of the most important issues Ginni Thomas has worked for are now barreling toward a Supreme Court redefined by Trump, where her husband is ascendant. Landmark cases loom.</b></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">
</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">One major test will be elections, particularly after Biden’s Justice Department sued Georgia over a new voting law that the department said discriminates against people of color.</span> The Supreme Court has already agreed to review race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, setting the stage for a dramatic reversal on affirmative action, as Justice Thomas has long sought. <b>And Roe v. Wade appears likely to be hollowed out, if not overturned: </b>The court, with Thomas as the lone dissenter, recently allowed abortion providers the right to challenge a Texas anti-abortion law, though a conservative majority, joined by Thomas, declined to block the law’s enforcement in the meantime. And oral arguments in another recent case suggest that there may be enough votes to uphold a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. Justice Thomas seemingly used his questions to press for a full reversal of Roe v. Wade, demanding: “If I were to ask you what constitutional right protects the right to abortion, is it privacy? Is it autonomy? What would it be?”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Such performances have made him a hero to many on the right. B<b>rigitte Gabriel, a Council for National Policy stalwart who once said that “every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim” </b>— and whose activism Ginni Thomas once praised in a glowing Daily Caller column — called Justice Thomas “the real chief justice” during December oral arguments and tweeted a doctored photo in which every justice had his face with the caption: “This would be a Supreme Court with Courage.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong><b>“I love calling it the Thomas court,” said Helgi Walker, the former Thomas clerk. “He didn’t change. That’s why it’s been wonderful to watch this arc. The influence he exerts comes from the power of his ideas,” she continued. “That’s what his legacy is built on.”</b></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In September, Justice Thomas stood before the audience at the University of Notre Dame. Asked what he thought was the biggest misconception the public has about the Supreme Court, he said: “I think that they think that we make policy. I think the media makes it sounds as though you are just always going right to your personal preference. So if they think you’re anti-abortion or something personally, they think that that’s the way you always will come out. They think you’re for this or for that. They think you become like a politician. And I think that’s a problem.”</span></strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>He told his audience that when he talked to his clerks about the real meaning of their work, “why we do what we do,” he insisted that “it’s not about us. It’s not about winning and losing at the court. It is about the entire country and the idea of this country.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>Last summer, the Thomases took a road trip in their 40-foot Prevost bus, repeating visits to R.V. parks and Walmart parking lots that they have made to 42 states over more than two decades. The couple find such journeys restorative, a way to travel semi-anonymously in places where they feel more politically at home. (“It’s the best of America,” Ginni Thomas once said.) Justice Thomas lamented at Notre Dame that “a notable pessimism about the state of our country” had taken hold, with some Americans believing that “America is a racist and irredeemable nation” and seeking to “cancel our founders.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>There are still people who have faith in the country and what it stands for, but it was on the road and beyond the East Coast elites that the couple found those Americans, at least in Justice Thomas’s telling. “My bride and I, Virginia, we were R.V.ing in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. And we noticed something there,” he said. “The large number of flags of people who still believe in the ideal of this country, in an environment when there’s so much criticism, antagonism, and actually people with disdain for the very same. It was very interesting to be with regular people for three weeks.” Here, far from Washington, far from the news media, far from “the interest groups,” far from anyone who recognized him at all, was where he — where they — were at home.</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div><div><strong>“There are many more of us, I think,” he told his listeners, “who feel that America is not so broken as it is adrift at sea.”</strong></div><div><strong>
</strong></div></div><div align="left"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cnn no lnx</font></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>
</strong></font></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></font></strong></strong><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>January 6 committee has emails between Ginni Thomas and John Eastman</strong></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Ryan Nobles, Zachary Cohen, Annie Grayer, Katelyn Polantz and Chandelis Duster, CNN</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Updated 2:38 PM ET, Thu</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> June 16, 2022</span></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In this February 23, 2017, file photo, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas moderates a panel discussion in National Harbor, Maryland.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>(CNN)The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack is in possession of email correspondence between conservative attorney John Eastman and Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a conservative activist who's the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a source familiar with the committee's investigation told CNN.</b></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The source who spoke with CNN would not provide details on the emails' contents or say if they were direct messages between the two or part of a larger group correspondence. The Washington Post first reported on the emails.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A separate source said the emails were part of a tranche of messages provided to the committee after a federal judge ruled that Eastman's correspondence was pertinent to the committee's work investigating former President Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the months leading up to January 6.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There is some discussion about adding Thomas' role in the effort to overturn the election results to some of the committee's upcoming public hearings, but the sources cautioned that the panel's schedule is already very full and there is currently no plan.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For her part, Thomas appears open to speaking with the panel should it seek an interview with her. "I can't wait to clear up misconceptions. I look forward to talking to them," she told the conservative outlet The Daily Caller in an interview published Thursday.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thomas did not respond to a CNN request for comment. Attorneys for Eastman declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for the House select committee.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">January 6 hearing will show Trump pressure campaign on Pence 'directly contributed' to Capitol attack, committee says</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, a member of the committee, would not confirm that it was in possession of the emails but told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night that the hearings would include only content the committee thought was specific to the focus of its investigation.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"The committee won't be shy about seeking additional information from people that have information relevant to the investigation," Aguilar told Cooper in response to a question about adding Thomas to the committee's hearings.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"We're not talking about specifics, but these hearings are pretty well firm and locked in, and we look forward to piecing this puzzle together for the American public and sharing what we know to date," the California Democrat continued.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Eastman was the architect of a pressure campaign surrounding then-Vice President Mike Pence. He argued that Pence had the legal authority to stand in the way of the certification of the election results. It was a theory Pence ultimately rejected -- to the ire of Trump and his supporters. Eastman also once served as a clerk to Clarence Thomas.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As previously reported by CNN, Ginni Thomas was in regular contact with then-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows between Election Day and January 6, encouraging him to keep up the effort to overturn the election results.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thomas has repeatedly said that her political activism has nothing to do with her husband's work on the Supreme Court.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clarence Thomas participated in Supreme Court cases related to 2020 election controversies and, in one February 2021 opinion, dissented as the full court declined to take up a challenge to Pennsylvania's mail-in voting procedures. He demonstrated support for the claim that election fraud is a threat to America.</font></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"We are fortunate that many of the cases we have seen alleged only improper rule changes, not fraud. But that observation provides only small comfort," he wrote. "An election free from strong evidence of systemic fraud is not alone sufficient for election confidence." No other justice joined his opinion.</strong></div><div><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></strong></div><div><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This past January, Thomas dissented alone as the court allowed the National Archives to release thousands of documents from the Trump White House to the January 6 committee</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, over the former President's attempt to assert executive privilege.</span></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thomas has refused to recuse himself in 2020 election-related cases.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sources said the House select committee has contemplated making Ginni Thomas' role in the attempt to overturn the election part of its investigation, but it has yet to call her in to testify or to issue her a subpoena.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>NYT: Eastman claimed insight into Supreme Court infighting over taking 2020 election case</b></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wednesday night, The New York Times reported that<b> Eastman claimed in December 2020 that there was a "heated fight" among Supreme Court justices over whether to hear arguments about efforts by the then-President to overturn the 2020 election results, </b>and another pro-Trump attorney suggested that "'wild' chaos" on January 6 could<b> prod the high court to take action.</b></font></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an exchange on December 24, 2020, John Eastman spoke of the supposed infighting in an email to<b> Kenneth Chesebro </b>and Trump campaign officials, hoping it would <b>encourage Supreme Court justices to hear an election case, </b>the Times reported, citing two people briefed on the contents of the email.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"So the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices' spines, and I understand that there is a heated fight underway</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">," Eastman reportedly wrote, referencing the process of at least four justices being needed to take up a case. He added, "For those willing to do their duty,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> we should help them by giving them a Wisconsin cert petition to add into the mix."</span></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the Times, Chesebro replied, "odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be 'wild' chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way."</font></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The exchange was part of a group of emails obtained by the House select committee investigating the riot at the US Capitol, the Times said, and it took place days after Trump himself called for a "wild" protest at the Ellipse near the White House on January 6, 2021, the day the electoral votes were set to be certified by Congress.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CNN has not confirmed the report and it is unclear what actual insight, if any, Eastman had into deliberations among Supreme Court justices.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CNN has reached out to the Supreme Court for comment, and the January 6 committee declined to comment Wednesday night. Chesebro and a lawyer for Eastman did not respond to the Times' requests for comment.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the email exchange, there was a request that the Trump campaign pay for the effort to get a case before the high court and it may have been denied, the Times also reported.</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Asked about the email exchange, Maryland Rep. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and member of the January 6 committee, said Thursday that the email "does suggest that there were at least some people maneuvering in right-wing legal circles to try to push the Supreme Court into action."</span></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Raskin also told CNN's "New Day" that if there is evidence of Eastman's comments about what was happening among the Supreme Court justices, "We will report that he said that."</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"That doesn't necessarily mean it's true," Raskin cautioned. "He could have been lying about what he knew on the inside. On the other hand, perhaps he had some backchannel connection to the Supreme Court, and we want to ferret that out if that's true. To determine whether, you know, the same people who were establishing a backchannel to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, and the domestic violent extremist movement also had a backchannel, somehow, to the Supreme Court of the United States of America."</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CNN's Devan Cole contributed to this report.</strong></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>=</strong></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2x? $</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/26/us/politics/ginni-thomas-donald-trump.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/26/us/politics/ginni-thomas-donald-trump.html</a></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div><div><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">texts Show Ginni Thomas's Embrace of Conspiracy Theories</font></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mar 26, 2022 — In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas was involved in a range of efforts to keep President ...</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nyt no lnx </font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Texts Show Ginni Thomas’s Embrace of Conspiracy Theories</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas was involved in a range of efforts to keep President Donald J. Trump in power.</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A hard-line conservative activist, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, had long been viewed with suspicion by the Republican establishment. Yet her influence rose during the Trump administration.</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Danny Hakim, Jo Becker and Alan Feuer</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">March 26, 2022</font></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two days after the 2020 election, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, texted an old friend, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff to President Donald J. Trump.</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She sent messages that had been making the rounds on pro-Trump sites, where anger over the election echoed her own raw feelings, including this passage: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...?</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas was involved in a range of efforts to keep President Donald J. Trump in power.</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two days after the 2020 election, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, texted an old friend, Mark Meadows, the chief of staff to President Donald J. Trump.</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She sent messages that had been making the rounds on pro-Trump sites, where anger over the election echoed her own raw feelings, including this passage: Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then she added of this fanciful, if chilling, set of conspiracy theories: I hope this is true.</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">She texted Mr. Meadows again the next day. Do not concede, she wrote. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.</font></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The messages were among a flurry of text traffic between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Meadows that was revealed this past week, part of a trove of documents previously turned over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. (Ms. Thomas has openly opposed the committee and called for Republicans who serve on it to be expelled from the House Republican conference.)</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">A hard-line conservative activist, Ms. Thomas had long been viewed with suspicion by the Republican establishment. Yet her influence had risen during the Trump administration, especially after Mr. Meadows, who like Ms. Thomas has roots in the Tea Party movement, became chief of staff. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Now, an examination of her texts, woven together with recent revelations of the depth of her efforts to overturn the election, shows how firmly she was embedded in the conspiratorial fringe of right-wing politics, even as that fringe was drawing ever closer to the center of Republican power....</span></font></strong></strong></strong></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></strong></div></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/ginni-thomas-republican-connections-raise-ethics-concerns-for-scotus">https://www.americanoversight.org/ginni-thomas-republican-connections-raise-ethics-concerns-for-scotus</a></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">As detailed in a recent </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/email-suggests-that-supreme-court-justice-thomas-had-been-in-regular-contact-with-florida-gov-desantis" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">update</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, emails</span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> between Ginni Thomas and DeSantis, obtained by American Oversight and reported on by <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/florida-playbook/2022/02/04/desantis-supreme-court-connection-00005583" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><i style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Politico</i></a>, suggest that Justice Thomas may have been in </span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/clarence-thomas-ron-desantis-communication-new-emails-1295354/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">regular contact</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> with the Republican governor.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> On June 10, 2021, Ginni Thomas </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p179/a2079095" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">reached out</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> to DeSantis’ scheduling office to invite him to speak to a “coalition” of “conservative patriots.” Thomas </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p178/a2079134" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">explained</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> that the governor would know her because her “husband has been in contact with him … on various things of late.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Ginni Thomas said the “cone of silence coalition” of “about 83 national leaders” was formerly known as </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Groundswell </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and included former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows among its attendees</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The group, now called the </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p184/a2079097" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Third Century Group</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> (TC Group), was focused on “the greatest threats and opportunities to constitutional governance,”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Thomas </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p179/a2079095" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">wrote</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> in her email</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, “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.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">DeSantis was eventually </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p181/a2079096" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">scheduled</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> to present during the group’s July 21 virtual meeting. According to an </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21197522-florida-office-of-the-governor-communications-with-voting-restriction-activists#document/p180/a2079098" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">email</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> 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.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">The Coalition Formerly Known as Groundswell<br role="presentation" data-uw-rm-sr="" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;" /></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">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 </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">nearly a decade</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">. Members have </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">included</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> former Trump chief strategist Stephen Bannon and former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton, among others. The network was </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/trumps-post-impeachment-authoritarian-purges" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">well-connected to the Trump administration</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> — in 2019, Thomas and others </span><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">compiled lists</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> of anti-Trump officials in executive agencies for the administration to dismiss and replace with Trump allies.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Public records obtained by American Oversight show the degree of access Thomas and her coalition had in the Trump administration. A calendar entry from </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20477798-omb-records-of-senior-staff-calendars-part-3#document/p1574" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">March 5, 2020</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, shows<b> Russ Vought, then the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, was scheduled to have “Breakfast with Ginni Thomas.”</b></span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">On </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p626" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Dec. 10, 2018</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, Thomas, on behalf of her lobbying firm Liberty Consulting, invited a Department of Health and Human Services official — likely </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p640" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Steven Wagner</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">, the director of the Administration for Children and Families — to a “Conversation and Strategic Discussion” with conservative commentator Jordan Peterson</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. 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 </span></span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540403-HHS-Records-Regarding-Anti-Abortion-Influence-on#document/p633" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">list of participants</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> included prominent conservatives.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">On </span><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20477798-omb-records-of-senior-staff-calendars-part-3#document/p1116" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Aug. 22, 2018</span></a></span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, 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</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. 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. </span></span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas’ Activism Raises Judicial Ethics Questions</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Ginni Thomas’ career as a prominent conservative activist, more heavily involved in politics </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">than any other spouse</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> of a Supreme Court justice in history, has for years raised concerns among </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/31/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-conflict-jan6-committee/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">legal experts</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> 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 </span><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/07/groundswell-rightwing-group-ginni-thomas/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Affordable Care Act</b></span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and recently took on major role in challenging Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Justice Thomas’ repeated </span></span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">failure to recuse himself</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> on multiple matters relevant to his wife’s advocacy, especially as the court hears increasingly politically polarized cases, has been the subject of scrutiny. </span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Recently, Ginni Thomas was among the conservatives who </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/31/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-conflict-jan6-committee/" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">signed a letter</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> 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. </span></font></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">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 </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><i style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">New York Times</i></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">. Following the November 2020 election, CNP directed its members to </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/briefing/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-russia-ukraine.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">spread misinformation about the election</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> 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 </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">advised</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">, “</span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">There is historical, legal precedent for Congress to count a slate of electors different from that certified by the Governor of the state.” </span><a href="https://www.americanoversight.org/fake-electoral-certificates-obtained-by-american-oversight-draw-renewed-scrutiny" data-uw-rm-brl="false" style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline-offset: 0.11765em; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(63, 165, 244);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Fake electoral certificates</span></a><span style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> submitted by Trump allies in swing states to Congress to dispute Biden’s victory were obtained by American Oversight last year.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>American Oversight </b>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.</font></strong></strong></strong></p></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2x? apr 2022</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/05/inside-the-consulting-firm-run-by-ginni-thomas-wife-of-supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/05/inside-the-consulting-firm-run-by-ginni-thomas-wife-of-supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas.html</a></font></strong></strong></strong></div><div align="left"><div class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.66; margin-bottom: 30px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: calc(14.2857% + 4.28571px); max-width: 100%; min-width: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">virginia “Ginni” Thomas runs a little-known consulting company that some campaign watchdog groups say could create yet another conflict of interest for her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas shot to national notoriety <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/24/wife-of-supreme-court-justice-thomas-texted-trump-chief-about-overturning-2020-election-report.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">after text messages surfaced last month</a> showing that she prodded former President <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/donald-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">Donald Trump’s</a> then chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in late 2020 to try to overturn the presidential election results. The messages prompted <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/29/democrats-urge-supreme-courts-clarence-thomas-to-recuse-himself-from-election-cases.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">calls</a> from top Democrats for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases reviewing the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill. It’s also led to calls by lawmakers on Capitol hill to create a formal Supreme Court <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/clarence-thomas-faces-growing-pressure-step-jan-6-cases-rcna22034" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">code of ethics.</a> The House select committee investigating what took place on Jan. 6 is reportedly seeking an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/28/politics/january-6-committee-ginni-thomas/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">interview</a> with Ginni Thomas. </font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[vid]</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court did not return requests for comment. Attempts to reach Ginni Thomas through an email listed on her website were not returned. The website appears to have been wiped since the recent reports on her texts with Meadows.</font></strong></strong></strong></p></div><div class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.66; margin-bottom: 30px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: calc(14.2857% + 4.28571px); max-width: 100%; min-width: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Very little is known about her company,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Liberty Consulting,</span> which is listed as an asset on her husband’s Supreme Court disclosures. CNBC was able to find some of her conservative-leaning clients by cross-checking Virginia business records, tax forms, Federal Election Commission filings, personal financial disclosure documents and through interviews with people familiar with her work. Even so, watchdogs say such documents may not entirely reveal who she’s represented and whether those groups have ties to any cases before the court, raising increasing calls for more transparency.</font></strong></strong></strong></p></div><h2 class="ArticleBody-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: 105.7px; max-width: 100%; min-width: auto; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="headline0" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: underline; font-weight: normal;">‘Very problematic’</a></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><div class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.66; margin-bottom: 30px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: calc(14.2857% + 4.28571px); max-width: 100%; min-width: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s very problematic,” Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said in a recent phone interview of Ginni Thomas’ work. The Supreme Court rules don’t require spouses to publicly disclose how much they earn or if they are working with anyone that could have a stake in a Supreme Court case — which could create a conflict for her husband and force him to recuse himself from certain cases, Painter said.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kedric Payne, general counsel of the watchdog Campaign Legal Center, similarly said any financial interest tied to a justice’s spouse that could make it’s way to the court might lead to the recusal by the judge.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The law is clear that a justice with questionable impartiality shall recuse from a case. Cases tied to the financial or other significant interests of a justice’s spouse always raise red flags that may trigger the recusal requirement,” Payne told CNBC. Clarence Thomas has recused himself 54 times since the 1990s, including 17 times to avoid a potential perception of a conflict of interest created by his son, according to <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clarence-thomas-recuse-jan-6_n_6243372ee4b03516d4288d1a?sw3" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">the Huffington Post.</a></font></strong></strong></strong></p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></font></strong></strong></strong></div><h2 class="ArticleBody-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: 105.7px; max-width: 100%; min-width: auto; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="headline1" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: underline; font-weight: normal;">Separate careers</a></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><div class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.66; margin-bottom: 30px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: calc(14.2857% + 4.28571px); max-width: 100%; min-width: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ginni Thomas, in a recent interview with the Washington Free Beacon, pushed back on any potential conflicts of interest from her work. “</span>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,” she recently told the <a href="https://freebeacon.com/courts/exclusive-ginni-thomas-sets-the-record-straight-on-january-6/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">publication</a>. She noted her work for Liberty Consulting in that interview but didn’t divulge her clients.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/chuck-schumer/" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">Chuck Schumer</a>, have said they want to move forward with <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/29/democrats-urge-supreme-courts-clarence-thomas-to-recuse-himself-from-election-cases.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">creating</a> an ethics code for Supreme Court justices that could include more specific disclosure requirements.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the case of Ginni Thomas, the court’s financial disclosure forms only show that she gets a salary and benefits from her firm, without disclosing the specifics, and it notes the book value of the business.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Located in a nondescript strip mall in suburban Virginia, Liberty Consulting’s few known clients range from the <b>Center for Security Policy,</b> a nonprofit founded by a conservative activist accused of anti-Muslim rhetoric, to a political action committee titled FedUp PAC, according to a review of public filings by CNBC and researchers at watchdog Documented. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The political action committee backed failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, </span>according to Center for Responsive Politics’ data. Moore was accused of sexual misconduct and has denied wrongdoing.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Center for Security Policy was founded by Frank<b> Gaffney</b> Jr., a former Reagan administration Defense official who has since been flagged by the Anti-Defamation League for pushing “a number of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.” Both Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy were among a group of advocates who filed an <a href="https://www.americanfreedomlawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16-1436-1540-National-Security-Experts-Brief-Final.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">amicus</a> brief with the Supreme Court backing Trump’s travel ban. The center paid Liberty Consulting more than $200,000 over the course of two years, from 2017 and through 2018, according to 990 tax disclosure reports from those years. The work by the firm for the Center for Security Policy was first <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">reported</a> by The New Yorker.</font></strong></strong></strong></p></div><h2 class="ArticleBody-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: 105.7px; max-width: 100%; min-width: auto; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="headline2" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: underline; font-weight: normal;">Liberty Central</a></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><div class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.66; margin-bottom: 30px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: calc(14.2857% + 4.28571px); max-width: 100%; min-width: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Thomas is also said to have done past work for companies tied to conservative judicial adviso<b>r Leonard Leo,</b> </span>according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named to speak freely on the matter. Ginni Thomas counts <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-is-ginni-thomas-saying-now-the-evolution-of-an-unusually-outspoken-supreme-court-spouse/2018/12/26/883da960-f753-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">Leo</a> as a mentor, according to The Washington Post. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Leo previously served as a director for a Ginni Thomas-led a conservative nonprofit named Liberty Central during former President Barack Obama’s administration, according to 990 tax disclosures. Ginni Thomas once boasted that she wanted the organization to be “bigger than the tea party,” and was taking aim at Obama’s agenda, including the Affordable Care Act, the Post reported.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2010, Ginni Thomas made more than $120,000 as president and CEO of Liberty Central that year,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">according to a 990 tax filing. The nonprofit has since been closed. Clarence Thomas was <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/06/28/155901105/live-blog-the-health-care-ruling" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">among</a> the group of Supreme Court justices who dissented in 2012 from the majority opinion, which upheld Obama’s signature health insurance law, the Affordable Care Act, as constitutional. He later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/us/obamacare-supreme-court.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">sided</a> with the majority to uphold the law against a Republican challenge in 2021.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo has been involved with helping shape the Supreme Court to what it is today, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFaFIzH2mLc" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">advising</a> Trump on who best to select for the high court. Trump’s court picks of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett saw support from groups backed by Leo and his allies when they were in the midst of Senate battles over their nominations. The Daily Beast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-strange-pick-to-promote-his-book-says-it-all" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">reported</a> that CRC Advisors, Leo’s firm, has been tasked at promoting a documentary on Clarence Thomas.</font></strong></strong></strong></p></div><h2 class="ArticleBody-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: 105.7px; max-width: 100%; min-width: auto; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="headline3" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: underline; font-weight: normal;">Supporting Trump</a></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><div class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.66; margin-bottom: 30px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: calc(14.2857% + 4.28571px); max-width: 100%; min-width: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Outside groups run by Leo’s allies advocated in support of Trump’s nominees and have since taken aim at President <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/joe-biden/" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">Joe Biden’s</a> court picks, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/25/supreme-court-democrats-raise-over-1-million-after-biden-picks-ketanji-brown-jackson.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">including</a> Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.</span> Like their opposing progressive groups, the Leo-tied organizations are known as “dark money” nonprofits who don’t reveal their donors to the public. Leo’s recently <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/18/trump-ally-leonard-leo-85-fund-received-20-million-in-2020.html?_source=sharebar|twitter&par=sharebar" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">created</a> 85 Fund is part of his extensive network of organizations that seek to influence policy, judicial nominations and the larger conservative movement.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The FedUp PAC, which is chaired by conservative political ad veteran Richard Viguerie, paid Liberty Consulting $5,000 during the 2018 election cycle for what it describes on the PAC’s filing as video production. </span>The name Liberty Consulting and the address listed on the Federal Election Commission disclosure matches that of the firm run by Ginni Thomas. The PAC later backed Trump during the 2020 election cycle, spending more than $100,000 supporting the then commander in chief. Liberty Consulting was not paid for any work by the PAC that cycle, federal campaign disclosure data shows.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bob Mills, who is listed as director for the super PAC on its website, did not recall what specific work Liberty Consulting conducted for the organization when initially reached by CNBC and didn’t respond to follow up emails requesting further details.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ginni Thomas’ LinkedIn profile says she’s worked since 2010 as the founder and president of Liberty Consulting with “citizen activists, leaders and nonprofits to succeed and have impact in defending the principles that have made America an exceptional nation. — offer strategic advice, build coalitions, connect people and projects (this is my passion and joy!).” Thomas notes on her page that she’s not a lobbyist, even though a Virginia state record shows that the firm was once called Liberty Lobby.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beth Rotman, national director of money in politics and ethics at watchdog Common Cause, told CNBC that new ethics laws governing Supreme Court justices should require them to disclose more details of their spouses’ consulting contracts.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Disclosure must be robust for it to be truly meaningful in this context so financial disclosures should include consulting contracts. As you have seen already, when justices complete their annual reports, they list information that does not give a complete view of their spouse’s financial ties,” Rotman said in an email. “It is key to meaningful disclosure that the rules be updated to include the source and amount of any spouse’s consulting contracts over a reasonable minimum threshold.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leo and representatives for most of the group’s mentioned in this story also did not return requests for comment. A spokesman for the Jan. 6 House Select Committee declined to comment.</font></strong></strong></strong></p></div><h2 class="ArticleBody-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: 105.7px; max-width: 100%; min-width: auto; padding: 0px 0px 0px 3px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="headline4" style="box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: underline; font-weight: normal;">Business boom</a></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><div class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.66; margin-bottom: 30px; -webkit-box-flex: 0; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; margin-left: calc(14.2857% + 4.28571px); max-width: 100%; min-width: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though it’s unclear how much Ginni Thomas has made from the consulting firm, Liberty Consulting appeared to see a boom in business in the run-up to Trump’s 2016 win.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 20px; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clarence Thomas’ financial disclosure reports show that in 2014, the firm’s cash market value was listed as being worth up to $15,000.</font></font></strong></strong></strong></p></div></div><div align="left"><p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"> =</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bold gone]</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><a href="https://goths.substack.com/p/ginni-thomas-ultimate-ride-or-die">https://goths.substack.com/p/ginni-thomas-ultimate-ride-or-die</a></span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tony g may 2020 no pix</font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Good morning Anita Hill, it's Ginni Thomas. I just want to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That's a voicemail from 2010 that today's subject left - unprompted! - at Anita Hill's work number. Virginia L. Thomas woke up one morning, nearly two decades after her husband's fiery Supreme Court confirmation hearing had ended, and decided to give Anita Hill a call and demand an apology for apparently trying to smear him back in 1991. And while this is completely insane, it is actually one of the more levelheaded and restrained things that Ginni Thomas, holding the Bible in the photo below, is known for.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Clarence Thomas is famously the most taciturn justice on the Supreme Court, his wife has only become more vocal as we enter each new era of increased political polarization, and she’s a big contributor to that polarization herself. With the Soul of a True Poster, this former cult member - this is the third time I’ve said that in this series, and the first time I’ve meant it - has spent decades pushing not only terrible retrograde policies, but completely unhinged conspiracy theories about the Deep State and liberal conspiracy to destroy everything Americans hold dear. She has a direct channel in to President Trump, and advises him on which White House staffers must be purged to save the country. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clarence may be doing a great deal to hurt our country through his judicial decisions and opinions, but Ginni is the one whose mental well-being and significant influence I’m more worried about.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><h2 class="header-with-anchor-widget" sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-weight="font-weight" var="var" font_weight_headings_preset="font_weight_headings_preset" bold="bold" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased" line-height="line-height" em="em" margin="margin" px="px" font-size="font-size" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="font-weight: normal;">CHAPTER ONE - A ROLLER COASTER NAMED AFTER DIARRHEA</font></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">To know Ginni Thomas only as Clarence Thomas’ wife is to do her a disservice, as she was a notable DC operator before meeting her husband. As a Congressional staffer and eventual lobbyist for the US Chamber of Commerce, Thomas was active in advocating for policies that appealed to the absolute worst instincts of business owners; most notably, she banged the drum </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">against</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> the Family and Medical Leave Act, taking a principled stand against everyone who wanted unpaid leave from their jobs - unpaid! - for some stupid reason like "giving birth and taking care of a newborn".</span></font></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">But whatever, all of that shit is boring, let's talk about how she was in a cult, a real cult this time. One of the stranger cultural phenomena from the 1980s was the explosion of weird self-help seminars where yuppies would scour their souls for humiliating things from their past, cry a bunch, and claim to have had a breakthrough and re-order their priorities. If you've seen </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">The Americans</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">, you remember that Phil went to “est” meetings, and est was a real thing and a sister organization to Lifespring in DC, where Ginni Thomas was once a member.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Lifespring</b>, though, was less a self-help seminar than an emotionally abusive multi-level marketing scheme,</span> breaking down the lanyard-wearing dorks in the District, ostensibly in the name of Living Your Best Life, but really. in the name of Giving Us Money And Finding Other People To Give Us Money. The </span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Washington Post</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> attended the entry-level "basic" weekend seminar in 1987, and there are almost too many good lines to quote from their piece on it. The weekend was facilitated by this man with an inspiring story about a roller coaster named after diarrhea:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"One time, [moderator] Jim's young nephews corralled him into taking them on a wild, stomach-turning roller coaster called Montezuma's Revenge. He was frightened, but he went on the ride seven times. "I made a commitment and took action because it was a risk. I expanded my comfort zone and I found the highs that we don't let ourselves experience in life." Lifespring will show us how to do that. Lifespring will teach us to be players in the game of life, spectators no more. "Showing up as your commitment in your life," they call it in Lifespring jargon, a language all their own."</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">And just like riding a roller coaster, Lifespring encouraged students to put aside their fears dive right in to seminars designed by John Hanley, a former toilet-cleaning service salesman convicted of six counts of felony mail fraud (“Hanley repeatedly asked The </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Post</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> not to report his conviction because it is irrelevant to his current business and because "it would blow us out of the water," he says. "I learned a lesson. I was just a kid. And that judge was a little crazy”) and copying wholesale from other seminars called shit like "Mind Dynamics" where sales reps would get waterboarded in order to develop their negotiation skills. That's not a joke, by the way:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Hanley attended Patrick's Leadership Dynamics Institute, a brutal training program in which salesmen were whipped, beaten, tied to crosses and forced to eat garbage and feces. Hanley made a name for himself at the institute when he reacted to being locked in a coffin for 14 hours by falling asleep. The trainers were so impressed by Hanley's will that they invited him to join their staff, according to former Lifespring vice president James Moore…Hanley moved to another Patrick-related company, Mind Dynamics...The course got very tough. In a class for Mind Dynamics trainers...he was held on the floor by four people with his nose and mouth covered by a wet washcloth until he nearly passed out.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As someone who has worked in corporate sales for over a decade myself, I pride myself in having been able to achieve a basic level of competence on the job without being either crucified or buried alive. Lifespring seminars weren’t as obviously brutal, but they still involved having participants live out their most humiliating fears in front of hundreds of others, in the name of overcoming internal barriers to success. After completing the “basic” course, participants were urged to drop hundreds of dollars on the spot and sign up for higher-level courses, although of course they got a discount if they recruited friends and family to sign up for basic instead. Lifespring made a big effort to recruit from both K Street and Capitol Hill, hoping to make connections in all of DC’s halls of power, and once hilariously tried to get an in with the military:</font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“In 1980, Lifespring trained hundreds of servicemen at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. In a letter to the Pentagon and in press reports, a captain there said that Lifespring was security risk because trainees would find their loyalties torn between military values and those taught by Lifespring. </span>A Harvard psychiatrist said servicemen would be "loyal to Lifespring." The Air Force stopped the training.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">I hope you all enjoyed, as much as I did, the mental image of a two-star general running to the phone yelling “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck” and trying to cancel the self-help seminar he booked for his airmen. The </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Post </em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">article also included plenty of testimonials from psychologists on how abusive Lifespring’s tactics were, details on all of the out-of-court settlements that Lifespring had to pay for inflicting so much emotional distress, and testimonials from disenchanted former participants, including one that will probably catch your eye:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Virginia Thomas, a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, took Lifespring a couple of years ago, when she was a congressional aide. She was confused and troubled by exercises such as one in which trainees listened to "The Stripper" while disrobing to skimpy bikinis and bathing suits. The group then stood in a U-shaped line, made fun of fat people's bodies and riddled one another with sexual questions. After talks with Garvey, Thomas decided she had been taken in. It took her months to break fully from Lifespring's "high-pressure tactics.”...Thomas felt guilty about breaking her Lifespring "commitments." She hid out in another part of the country to avoid constant phone calls from fellow trainees who were taught that it was their responsibility to make Thomas keep her commitment to Lifespring.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Yeah, that’s right, Thomas was interviewed for the piece, and her experience in Lifespring shaped her career to follow. Lifespring ostensibly taught its participants not to be passive victims, but to take charge of their lives and careers and more aggressively pursue what they wanted; as we’ll see, Thomas certainly has had no trouble doing this throughout her career. But her experience at Lifespring also led her to join an organization called the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), whose stated mission was to inform people on potentially dangerous cults, and in some cases rescue and deprogram cult members. While that may not cause you to bat an eye, that was apparently a controversial thing to be involved in back in 1991, when a different </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Washington Post</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> profile of Thomas highlighted the apparent shadiness of CAN:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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...“If Ginni is the wife of a Supreme Court justice, it's probably a little scary for the cults," [CAN President] Ryan said.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">I mean, sure, yes, but I was always under the impression that cults were bad. For instance, between 1991 and today, the image of the Church of Scientology has potentially taken a hit (‘potentially’ included for legal reasons). This particular profile of Thomas, as we’ll see, is from a completely different era in politics, and a completely different era of how the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Post</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">’s readers would view “fundamentalist Christian splinter groups”. But, though the piece presents CAN as shadier than it likely was, the actual shady thing that it points out was that in 1987, during her involvement with CAN, Ginni Thomas happened to get married to the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - and, incredibly, one of the “Most Eligible DC Bachelors” according to </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Jet </em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">magazine, a perfect match for Ginni who was one of “28 Women of Promise” according to </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Good Housekeeping</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> magazine. Very shortly after his wedding, that EEOC head began taking an interest in rooting out workplace “new age training programs which conflict with employees' religious beliefs”. It was almost as if a powerful government official had internalized his new wife’s pet project, and used his own power to make things happen for her, a pattern that would maybe start to repeat itself over the next few decades. And the reason that the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Post</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> was writing that profile of Ginni Thomas in 1991 was that this powerful government official had just been nominated to sit on the Supreme Court.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><h2 class="header-with-anchor-widget" sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-weight="font-weight" var="var" font_weight_headings_preset="font_weight_headings_preset" bold="bold" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased" line-height="line-height" em="em" margin="margin" px="px" font-size="font-size" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="font-weight: normal;">CHAPTER TWO - AUNT OPAL WITH THE SAVE</font></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As we now know from his confirmation hearing, rooting out cult activity was allegedly not the only thing Clarence Thomas was up to at the EEOC. Obviously, the confirmation hearing was an unimaginable time for Ginni; hell, her family’s support could even be characterized as ‘inconsistent’, since members of her family still weren’t one hundred percent on board with interracial marriages back in, uh, 1991:</font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">““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."”</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Thank you, Aunt Opal, for diving in with the save. The net result of the confirmation battle, of course, was that Clarence got put on the court, and Clarence and Ginni’s marriage came out stronger from this shared trauma. After the confirmation hearing concluded, Clarence and Ginni - I honestly cannot believe this was real - were on the cover of </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">People</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> magazine, with Ginni doing an in-depth interview on the Anita Hill accusations titled “Breaking Silence”, but the silence being broken was not that of “the woman sexually harassed by an incredibly powerful man at her office” but “the wife of the man accused of sexual harassment who had just been installed on the Supreme Court for life.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The interview is just jaw-dropping start to finish, and is an incredible artifact of a completely different era. Ginni’s theory on what happened with Anita Hill was that she was infatuated with Clarence, upset by getting the brush-off, and made up the accusations wholesale as revenge. As Ginni put it:</font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">“My case was also different from Hill’s because what she did was so obviously political, as opposed to trying to resolve the problem. And what’s scary about her allegations is that they remind me of the movie </span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Fatal Attraction</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> or, in her case, what I call the fatal assistant. In my heart, I always believed she was probably someone in love with my husband and never got what she wanted.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jesus Christ. It gets worse:</font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As for Anita Hill’s charges, I have my theories, but I don’t have evidence. I believe the charges were politically motivated. You can tell because of the timing. We were hit with all these charges, but they didn’t get him...What hurts most in all this is that there are people out there who still might believe Anita Hill. My only prayer is that the truth comes out as fast as possible. I think Anita Hill was used in the sense that she never wanted her story to be public. She wanted to be one of the shadow people.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Ginni also explained how she was once sexually harassed at work but reported it right away like a Good Believable Woman would do, and how she appreciated the support her husband got from the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee [</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">note to self - look up who the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee was in 1991, he really ended up on the wrong side of this one and I’m sure he’s out of politics forever now, might be fun to include in essay?</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">]. There was also a lot of insight into her faith life in this piece: she and her husband prayed regularly together and with their friends to get through this ordeal, and devout Catholic Clarence viewed the confirmation hearings as “spiritual warfare. Good versus evil. We were fighting something we didn’t understand, and we needed prayerful people in our lives. We needed God”.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Ginni was not Catholic at this point - that wouldn’t happen until 2002, with some encouragement from the Scalia family as well as her husband -</span> but I can certainly understand how a woman who believes her husband is being smeared on a national stage would grow closer to him, and grow in her faith with him, and eventually convert to his faith. At the end of the interview, Ginni expressed her hope that “we have set a new low, that Americans in their outrage can say, “No, there is a level at which it is disgusting, horrible and wrong.” Based on the last Supreme Court confirmation hearing I saw, we hadn’t set a new low in 1991 after all, but it was sure nice to think that we had.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">I’m going to write one of the sentences from the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">People</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> interview again and put it in bold type because of how completely insane it is:</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> “What hurts most in all this is that there are people out there who still might believe Anita Hill.”</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> Reading it in 2020 is mind-blowing, but I suppose 1991, a year which I can literally remember from my childhood, was a different era in how we treated women. As it turns out, 2010 was also a different era, because in their coverage of Ginni’s infamous voicemail followup to Anita Hill, the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Post </em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">included this lede: “It is one of Washington's enduring mysteries. Nearly two decades after Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his fractious Supreme Court confirmation hearing, it remains unclear who was lying.” And as bonkers as that would be to write </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">in 2010</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">, and then it somehow got topped in<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 2016 by the </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">National Catholic Register</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">, writing a profile of Thomas in which the author took issue with the fact that everyone seemed to end up on Anita Hill’s side, even the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History and Culture, which, in the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Register</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">’s opinion, didn’t do enough to highlight Thomas’ trailblazing history as an African-American justice working hard to undo civil rights protections, and did too much to highlight that whiny law professor:</span></span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">“Thomas would describe the attack on his reputation as a “high-tech lynching.” And while Hill failed to convince the Senate of the veracity of her claims, the allegations have continued to cast a shadow over Thomas’ legacy. Exhibit A is the Smithsonian museum’s depiction of Anita Hill as a trailblazer for women who encountered sexual harassment in the workplace. And earlier this year, HBO released </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Confirmation</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">, a film that also took Hill’s side.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Look, the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Register</em></span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> is owned by EWTN, which is the right-wing Catholic media conglomerate where the higher-ups show up to cheerlead at Trump rallies (they’re currently pushing hydroxycholoroquine</span>!). I would absolutely expect them to be fans of a conservative, Catholic, anti-abortion justice like Thomas, I would expect them not to believe Anita Hill, I just hope their profile of Clarence Thomas didn’t go way overboard in terms of fulsome praise oh come the fuck on:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">As you’d expect, the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Register</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> profile focuses on Clarence Thomas’ faith life, including his upbringing with his Catholic grandfather, his brief time in seminary, and the clear influence of Catholicism on his jurisprudence. But it also touches upon the growth in his and Ginni’s faith life during the confirmation hearings, and how Ginni was always ride-or-die from day one, as ““We knew before we went in that the left would galvanize and throw everything at him,” Ginni Thomas, the justice’s wife, told the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Register</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">, as she recalled the devastating impact of the accusations and the time she and her husband spent seeking solace in prayer and scriptural reading.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Being ride-or-die from day one is something I can understand, but why the fuck was she ride-or-die on day six thousand, nine hundred thirty-five? Why did she call Anita Hill, umprompted, </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">nineteen fucking years after the hearings ended</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> to complain to her? Well, there was a lot of speculation about this when it actually happened, because it really did come out of nowhere. The </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Daily Beast </em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">called out that “The Pulitzer Prize-winning African-American journalist Karen Hunter, appearing on MSNBC, theorized that Ginni was in an Ambien stupor. </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Gawker </em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">[RIP] wondered if she was drunk. Even members of Ginni’s family appear to be somewhat perturbed that she chose to raise her husband’s turbulent 1991 confirmation hearing again.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Obviously, I had to look up the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Gawker</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> piece, and here are some highlights:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Virginia Thomas, who, besides being the wife of the biggest jerkoff on the Supreme Court, is a Tea Party activist, must have been having a weird Saturday morning on October 9!...Hill (who, full disclosure, was totally fucking right) was pilloried by the right-wing and treated terribly by, among others, Senator Arlen Specter, at that point a Republican;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Thomas was confirmed 52-48, and now it is One Of Those Things We Don't Talk About At The Dinner Table</span>, like Religion and Money and Aunt Nicole's Accident...Hill, who is a law professor at Brandeis, mulled over the weird message for a week and turned the phone over to the campus police.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Good for Hill. Thomas, for her part, maintained that she was phoning with nothing but good intentions, saying in a statement that “I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago. That offer still stands. I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.” The content of the voicemail, in which she accuses Hill of smearing her husband and directly asks for an apology, kind of undercuts this statement and makes it sound like Thomas was just being an asshole for no reason. Unless, as the </span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Daily Beast</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> suggested, she might have actually had a reason:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">“The timing of the phone call did seem strange to some. The morning Ginni “reached across the airwaves,” the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Times</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> ran an article about her growing public role at Liberty Central, where she works to oppose the leftist “tyranny” of Obama and leftist Democrats in congress. It raised issues about where “large, unidentified contributions” were coming from and pointed out that it could lead to recusal issues for her husband on the Supreme Court. Was Ginni orchestrating a publicity campaign and using Hill as a ruse to galvanize her own base, some wondered.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some wondered. We should probably talk about Liberty Central.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><h2 class="header-with-anchor-widget" sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-weight="font-weight" var="var" font_weight_headings_preset="font_weight_headings_preset" bold="bold" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased" line-height="line-height" em="em" margin="margin" px="px" font-size="font-size" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="font-weight: normal;">CHAPTER THREE - MRS. THOMAS DOES NOT NECESSARILY SUPPORT OR ENDORSE THE PRODUCTS, SERVICES OR POSITIONS PROMOTED IN ANY ADVERTISEMENT CONTAINED HEREIN</font></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Like most awful people, Ginni Thomas got heavily involved in the Tea Party movement and the 2010 midterm elections. Shortly after the midterms, she helped found Liberty Central, a conservative dark-money lobbying group, and would later form an accompanying conservative activist group called Groundswell</span>. While there were plenty of these groups going around in the 2010s, only one had access to the spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice. Now, it seems unlikely Ginni would sell the group that way - although she did market it by saying that her “experience and connections” made Liberty Central unique among lobbying groups - but it is worth mentioning that Liberty Central had access to the spouse of one of the five sitting Supreme Court justices who actually made it possible for these dark money groups to exist.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">See, Liberty Central came into being right around the same time that the court ruled 5-4 in the Citizens United case that groups like this could accept unlimited donations as a form of political "speech". Clarence Thomas' decision as a Supreme Court justice certainly made his wife's job a hell of a lot easier, as </span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Politico</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> reported:</span></font></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">"But the Thomases came under particular scrutiny after POLITICO revealed that, while the Supreme Court was deliberating over the Citizens United case, Liberty Central had received a $550,000 anonymous contribution</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Reached by phone on Wednesday, Thomas said she was having trouble with the signal, telling a POLITICO reporter: “I would be happy to talk with you, but I really can’t understand clearly what you’re asking, so maybe this is not a good time to talk.” She did not respond to subsequent voice mail or e-mail messages.”</font></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">It's possible that Clarence Thomas had no idea what his wife was up to and that there was no conflict of interest, but it sure as hell </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">looked</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> like there was a conflict of interest, which is still something that ethical judges generally try to avoid. But since there's no way to force a Supreme Court justice to recuse himself, Clarence got to hear and rule on this case while Ginni got to crinkle a candy wrapper into her phone receiver and say "uh, I think you're breaking up, are you in a tunnel right now?" Honestly I'm probably being too harsh, I'm sure </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Politico</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> found a disinterested third party that commented on this particular incident and said it was totally normal and fine:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Leonard Leo, an executive at the conservative Federalist Society who is a longtime friend of the Thomases and sits on Liberty Central’s board, told POLITICO in November that the call had no impact on Liberty Central’s fundraising or on Thomas. “The people that were supportive of Liberty Central were supportive of her,” he said, adding, “I don’t think that they were going to pull back from her at a time when she needed support more than anything else.” He called the controversy over the Hill call “a nothing burger” for Thomas.”</font></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fantastic, glad that's cleared up, from the Liberty Central board member who is personal friends with the Thomases and has dedicated his life to getting more justices like Thomas on the Court. The reality is that this sort of thing happened all of the time with Ginni Thomas - she'd be calling up Congressmen to gut the Affordable Care Act, while her husband was also evaluating its constitutionality. She was literally<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> emailing other conservative activists asking for the best strategy to drum up support for Trump’s Muslim ban that had stalled in the courts, and her husband would eventually vote to un-stall it</span>. Back during his confirmation hearing, Clarence’s former colleague at the EEOC said that “"The one person [he] really listens to is Virginia...He depends on her for advice." Maybe things had changed since 1991, although everything I just read indicates that Ginni and Clarence only grew closer together after that ordeal.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Liberty Central was not Thomas’ only hard-right hobby; she also was a contributor to </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">The Daily Caller</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">, Tucker Carlson’s weirdly horny conservative news site. Most of Thomas’ early work for the<b> </b></span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><b>Caller</b></span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><b> </b>appears to be video interviews with “rising stars” in the Republican party, which mainly meant former executive branch flacks trying to stay relevant:</span></font></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="image-link image2" target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3a7a7a99-dbfe-4432-bdfc-dd3d086a9cfa_774x248.png" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; 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--tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; display: block; max-width: 100%; height: auto; margin: 0px auto;" width="width" height="height" /></source></picture></a></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Thomas’ most recent work for the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Caller</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> was in 2018, and was more in the vein of all of the dumb bullshit that your aunt would share on Facebook, talking about the bias of the liberal media and the leftist propaganda mandated as part of college curricula everywhere:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">like most of the output of conservative blogs, Ginni Thomas’ articles got increasingly sad as the Trump era continued on, and the woman who used to record interviews with former UN Ambassadors was now profiling people like ultimate dumb son Donald Trump Jr., or James O’Keefe, the fame-hungry hack best known for going “undercover” and dressing up in a Halloween pimp costume to ask for funding from ACORN. As Thomas wrote, “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He talked about going undercover in the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. Those videos of Robert Creamer, the husband of progressive Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, became an “internet phenomenon and were credited with having a significant impact.” O’Keefe claims that he got no Pulitzer Prize, however, “just a blizzard of legal attacks.”"</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I am able, right now, to independently verify O’Keefe’s claim that he has never been awarded a Pulitzer Prize.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas may have tremendous access to power,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> but until very recently she was writing articles that ended with “For more information on Donald Trump, Jr. join the 2.52 million following him on Twitter or like his Facebook page. Mrs. Thomas does not necessarily support or endorse the products, services or positions promoted in any advertisement contained herein, and does not have control over or receive compensation from any advertiser.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, obviously that's all very funny, but Thomas eventually stopped writing for the Caller in 2018, because her career took her where we all knew it was going to.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><h2 class="header-with-anchor-widget" sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-weight="font-weight" var="var" font_weight_headings_preset="font_weight_headings_preset" bold="bold" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased" line-height="line-height" em="em" margin="margin" px="px" font-size="font-size" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="font-weight: normal;">CHAPTER FOUR - A BIZARRE CHEX MIX</font></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">If you can push your way through several previous harrowing memories, you'll remember that the first iteration of the Trump White House had a bizarre Chex Mix of staffers. There were a lot of lifelong Republican operators who thought this was going to be normal (Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Mike Pence, Kellyanne Conway), white supremacists who were getting their feet in the door (Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, Kris Kobach), generals about to humiliate themselves (John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Jim Mattis), incompetent grifters looking for a payday (Scott Pruitt, Betsy DeVos, Tom Price, Ryan Zinke, Ben Carson, Jared Kushner), Trump loyalists and early adopters (Jeff Sessions, Mike Flynn), and executive producers of the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Lego Batman</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> movie (Steve Mnuchin). Part of the reason for this unusual setup was that so many of the usual suspects that you'd expect to return from the Bush White House or the legislative branch didn't want to be publicly associated with Trump, and that's only the political appointees, not the career executive branch bureaucrats who took the opportunity to retire or go into the private sector when the Trump presidency arrived.</span></font></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The brain drain has, of course, gotten worse, as many (not all) of the names I listed are now punchlines in hilarious two-for-one "remember when" jokes, as in "remember when Rex Tillerson was one of the most powerful CEOs on the world and he got upset because of the Boy Scout Jamboree and then later had to tell everyone he thought Donald Trump was smart, and then later John Kelly said he fired Tillerson while he was taking a shit?". Trump continued to fire people for looking at him funny, and the executive branch has slowly been reduced to nothing but sycophants and idiots.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><b>Ginni Thomas, as it turns out, has been coordinating the flow of sycophants and idiots into the executive branch.</b> The </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">New York Times</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> reported in 2019 that she and her girlfriends met with Trump to discuss purging disloyal staffers from the White House and replacing them with only the best people. Because it's Thomas, and because it's Trump, and because this is G.O.T.H.S., the meeting quickly turned hilarious:</span></font></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"President Trump met last week with a delegation of hard-right activists led by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, listening quietly as members of the group denounced transgender people and women serving in the military, according to three people with direct knowledge of the events<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. 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...one woman argued that women should not serve in the military because they had less muscle mass and lung capacity than men did, according to those familiar with the events. At another point, someone said that gay marriage, which the Supreme Court determined in 2015 was the law of the land, was harming the fabric of the United States. And another attendee was dismissive that sexual assault is pervasive in the military."</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">It's hilarious to imagine Trump, who cares about literally nothing except his own wealth and fame, forced to sit and listen to women who care deeply about absurd political issues yell things like “WOMEN CAN’T SWIM, THEY’RE LIKE THE BLACKS”. Fortunately, the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Times</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> assures us that the meeting began with a prayer, and that members of the meeting would spontaneously lapse back into prayer throughout. Trump also at one point called Ivanka in to say hi, as if to demonstrate that he could name a woman who wasn’t currently in the room with him at the time.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[nyt tr mtg hard rt]</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">What came out of the meeting? As </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Axios</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> reported in February of this year, Thomas provided Trump with a very prescriptive list of people in his administration that he should fire for being insufficiently loyal to the cause, and suggestions on whom he should bring in instead. After his impeachment trial concluded, Trump was looking to clean house, and Thomas was looking to get more people she trusted in more positions of power. I’m sure that if we take a look at the list as reported by </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Axios</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">, given Thomas’s decades of work with some of the most powerful people in the country, we will find a universally respected group of some of the brightest minds in the conservative movement:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">“Potential hires she offered to Trump, per sources with direct knowledge: Sheriff David Clarke for a senior Homeland Security role, Fox News regular and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino for a Homeland Security or counterterrorism adviser role, Devin Nunes aide Derek Harvey for the National Security Council, Radio talk show host Chris Plante for press secretary, </span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Federalist</span></span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> contributor Ben Weingarten for the National Security Council.</span>”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Or, maybe it’s a bunch of right-wing media dipshits, plus David Clarke, who had already been rejected for a DHS role, and who couldn’t find a solid-colored shirt for a Fox News appearance:</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix cowboy hat]</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One thing I can feel good about, though, is that Trump would never talk about the Supreme Court with Ginni Thomas. Sure, Ginni’s husband is the longest-serving member of the Court, and Ginni’s pet projects have repeatedly overlapped with her husband’s work, and Ginni has never shown any interest in avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest before, and her husband has never shown any interest in recusing himself when there is an appearance of a conflict of interest with Ginni’s work, but thankfully the other person in this equation is Donald Trump. And if I know Donald Trump, I know that he, first of all, has a very clear and accurate understanding of how government and separation of powers work, cares deeply about making sure everything appears above board, and would never do anything that even appeared corrupt just out of dumb self-interest.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More broadly, I suppose we should consider that Clarence and Ginni have possibly never talked about politics with each other in their spare time, despite working in that field for their entire careers. There's no way I can know for sure. But Ginni Thomas has strong opinions about hot-button political issues, she lives with one of the most powerful men in the country, she works with another one of the most powerful men in the country, and often the issues Ginni works on overlap with the issues that Clarence rules on. With all of that in mind, do you think Ginni spends all of her spare time carefully coordinating fundraising and public opinion campaigns, making a full-court press to bring a callous reactionary political agenda to life? Or does she carve out an unusually high percentage of that time to post stupid shit on Facebook? Guess what!</font></strong></strong></strong></p><h2 class="header-with-anchor-widget" sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-weight="font-weight" var="var" font_weight_headings_preset="font_weight_headings_preset" bold="bold" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased" line-height="line-height" em="em" margin="margin" px="px" font-size="font-size" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="font-weight: normal;">CHAPTER FIVE - THE SOUL OF A TRUE POSTER</font></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="image-link image2" target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb546202-60a4-4366-a287-7d660656da68_495x509.png" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; 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margin: 1.6em auto; width: auto; height: auto; border: 0px;"><picture style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb546202-60a4-4366-a287-7d660656da68_495x509.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb546202-60a4-4366-a287-7d660656da68_495x509.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb546202-60a4-4366-a287-7d660656da68_495x509.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffb546202-60a4-4366-a287-7d660656da68_495x509.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">[twt oann soc med bs]</source></picture></a></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">The number of </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Washington Post</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> profiles of Ginni Thomas far outstrips any other spouse of a Supreme Court justice, probably in American history. Obviously, no other spouse of a Supreme Court justice has been as politically active as Thomas has, including during their spouse’s tenure on the Court. But we also have to consider the possibility that the other spouses see Ginni’s Facebook page and quietly say to themselves “okay, I have to remember to never do this myself and end up in the paper." What goes on with Ginni’s Facebook page that led the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Post </em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">to write this, with the exhausted-sounding headline “What is Ginni Thomas Saying Now?”, in 2018?</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“She looks and sounds like the Washington wife of yore, with the pearl earrings, the Reagan-red cocktail attire, the sunglasses tiara’d atop her blond bob. At the holidays, she lays wreaths at Arlington and sings carols around the piano with her be-sweatered husband, Clarence, who happens to be the longest-serving justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Memorial Day means a backyard barbecue with star-spangled tablecloths and a sheet cake that reads “God Bless America!” But meanwhile, on Facebook, she’s behaving like your slightly paranoid neighbor who stockpiles bullets and astronaut food.”</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[1619 twt]</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Thomas’ Facebook page, which is very public and very painful to look at, is a wastewater treatment plant of One America News videos, fawning adulation for her colleague Donald Trump, and the usual right-wing conspiracy theories that we’ve come to know and love. As the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Times</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> put it in 2019:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“She has also drawn criticism for sharing social media posts promoting conspiracy theories, including one suggesting that the billionaire philanthropist George Soros was working against Mr. Trump and that Democrats had committed voter fraud during last year’s midterm elections. Shortly before the elections, Ms. Thomas also shared a misleading post about the caravan of migrants traveling toward the United States.”</font></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[twt]</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" tw-translate-x:0="tw-translate-x:0" tw-translate-y:0="tw-translate-y:0" tw-rotate:0="tw-rotate:0" tw-skew-x:0="tw-skew-x:0" tw-skew-y:0="tw-skew-y:0" tw-scale-x:1="tw-scale-x:1" tw-scale-y:1="tw-scale-y:1" tw-pan-x="tw-pan-x" tw-pan-y="tw-pan-y" tw-pinch-zoom="tw-pinch-zoom" tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity="tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity" tw-ordinal="tw-ordinal" tw-slashed-zero="tw-slashed-zero" tw-numeric-figure="tw-numeric-figure" tw-numeric-spacing="tw-numeric-spacing" tw-numeric-fraction="tw-numeric-fraction" tw-ring-inset="tw-ring-inset" tw-ring-offset-width:0px="tw-ring-offset-width:0px" tw-ring-offset-color="tw-ring-offset-color" fff="fff" tw-ring-color:rgb="tw-ring-color:rgb" tw-ring-offset-shadow:0="tw-ring-offset-shadow:0" tw-ring-shadow:0="tw-ring-shadow:0" tw-shadow:0="tw-shadow:0" tw-shadow-colored:0="tw-shadow-colored:0" tw-blur="tw-blur" tw-brightness="tw-brightness" tw-contrast="tw-contrast" tw-grayscale="tw-grayscale" tw-hue-rotate="tw-hue-rotate" tw-invert="tw-invert" tw-saturate="tw-saturate" tw-sepia="tw-sepia" tw-drop-shadow="tw-drop-shadow" tw-backdrop-blur="tw-backdrop-blur" tw-backdrop-brightness="tw-backdrop-brightness" tw-backdrop-contrast="tw-backdrop-contrast" tw-backdrop-grayscale="tw-backdrop-grayscale" tw-backdrop-hue-rotate="tw-backdrop-hue-rotate" tw-backdrop-invert="tw-backdrop-invert" tw-backdrop-opacity="tw-backdrop-opacity" tw-backdrop-saturate="tw-backdrop-saturate" tw-backdrop-sepia="tw-backdrop-sepia" xmlns:tw-ring-color="tw-ring-color" xmlns:tw-ring-offset-shadow="tw-ring-offset-shadow" xmlns:tw-ring-offset-width="tw-ring-offset-width" xmlns:tw-ring-shadow="tw-ring-shadow" xmlns:tw-rotate="tw-rotate" xmlns:tw-scale-x="tw-scale-x" xmlns:tw-scale-y="tw-scale-y" xmlns:tw-scroll-snap-strictness="tw-scroll-snap-strictness" xmlns:tw-shadow="tw-shadow" xmlns:tw-shadow-colored="tw-shadow-colored" xmlns:tw-skew-x="tw-skew-x" xmlns:tw-skew-y="tw-skew-y" xmlns:tw-translate-x="tw-translate-x" xmlns:tw-translate-y="tw-translate-y">if that’s not enough, the </span><em segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" tw-translate-x:0="tw-translate-x:0" tw-translate-y:0="tw-translate-y:0" tw-rotate:0="tw-rotate:0" tw-skew-x:0="tw-skew-x:0" tw-skew-y:0="tw-skew-y:0" tw-scale-x:1="tw-scale-x:1" tw-scale-y:1="tw-scale-y:1" tw-pan-x="tw-pan-x" tw-pan-y="tw-pan-y" tw-pinch-zoom="tw-pinch-zoom" tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity="tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity" tw-ordinal="tw-ordinal" tw-slashed-zero="tw-slashed-zero" tw-numeric-figure="tw-numeric-figure" tw-numeric-spacing="tw-numeric-spacing" tw-numeric-fraction="tw-numeric-fraction" tw-ring-inset="tw-ring-inset" tw-ring-offset-width:0px="tw-ring-offset-width:0px" tw-ring-offset-color="tw-ring-offset-color" fff="fff" tw-ring-color:rgb="tw-ring-color:rgb" tw-ring-offset-shadow:0="tw-ring-offset-shadow:0" tw-ring-shadow:0="tw-ring-shadow:0" tw-shadow:0="tw-shadow:0" tw-shadow-colored:0="tw-shadow-colored:0" tw-blur="tw-blur" tw-brightness="tw-brightness" tw-contrast="tw-contrast" tw-grayscale="tw-grayscale" tw-hue-rotate="tw-hue-rotate" tw-invert="tw-invert" tw-saturate="tw-saturate" tw-sepia="tw-sepia" tw-drop-shadow="tw-drop-shadow" tw-backdrop-blur="tw-backdrop-blur" tw-backdrop-brightness="tw-backdrop-brightness" tw-backdrop-contrast="tw-backdrop-contrast" tw-backdrop-grayscale="tw-backdrop-grayscale" tw-backdrop-hue-rotate="tw-backdrop-hue-rotate" tw-backdrop-invert="tw-backdrop-invert" tw-backdrop-opacity="tw-backdrop-opacity" tw-backdrop-saturate="tw-backdrop-saturate" tw-backdrop-sepia="tw-backdrop-sepia" xmlns:tw-ring-color="tw-ring-color" xmlns:tw-ring-offset-shadow="tw-ring-offset-shadow" xmlns:tw-ring-offset-width="tw-ring-offset-width" xmlns:tw-ring-shadow="tw-ring-shadow" xmlns:tw-rotate="tw-rotate" xmlns:tw-scale-x="tw-scale-x" xmlns:tw-scale-y="tw-scale-y" xmlns:tw-scroll-snap-strictness="tw-scroll-snap-strictness" xmlns:tw-shadow="tw-shadow" xmlns:tw-shadow-colored="tw-shadow-colored" xmlns:tw-skew-x="tw-skew-x" xmlns:tw-skew-y="tw-skew-y" xmlns:tw-translate-x="tw-translate-x" xmlns:tw-translate-y="tw-translate-y">Post </em><span segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" tw-translate-x:0="tw-translate-x:0" tw-translate-y:0="tw-translate-y:0" tw-rotate:0="tw-rotate:0" tw-skew-x:0="tw-skew-x:0" tw-skew-y:0="tw-skew-y:0" tw-scale-x:1="tw-scale-x:1" tw-scale-y:1="tw-scale-y:1" tw-pan-x="tw-pan-x" tw-pan-y="tw-pan-y" tw-pinch-zoom="tw-pinch-zoom" tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity="tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity" tw-ordinal="tw-ordinal" tw-slashed-zero="tw-slashed-zero" tw-numeric-figure="tw-numeric-figure" tw-numeric-spacing="tw-numeric-spacing" tw-numeric-fraction="tw-numeric-fraction" tw-ring-inset="tw-ring-inset" tw-ring-offset-width:0px="tw-ring-offset-width:0px" tw-ring-offset-color="tw-ring-offset-color" fff="fff" tw-ring-color:rgb="tw-ring-color:rgb" tw-ring-offset-shadow:0="tw-ring-offset-shadow:0" tw-ring-shadow:0="tw-ring-shadow:0" tw-shadow:0="tw-shadow:0" tw-shadow-colored:0="tw-shadow-colored:0" tw-blur="tw-blur" tw-brightness="tw-brightness" tw-contrast="tw-contrast" tw-grayscale="tw-grayscale" tw-hue-rotate="tw-hue-rotate" tw-invert="tw-invert" tw-saturate="tw-saturate" tw-sepia="tw-sepia" tw-drop-shadow="tw-drop-shadow" tw-backdrop-blur="tw-backdrop-blur" tw-backdrop-brightness="tw-backdrop-brightness" tw-backdrop-contrast="tw-backdrop-contrast" tw-backdrop-grayscale="tw-backdrop-grayscale" tw-backdrop-hue-rotate="tw-backdrop-hue-rotate" tw-backdrop-invert="tw-backdrop-invert" tw-backdrop-opacity="tw-backdrop-opacity" tw-backdrop-saturate="tw-backdrop-saturate" tw-backdrop-sepia="tw-backdrop-sepia" xmlns:tw-ring-color="tw-ring-color" xmlns:tw-ring-offset-shadow="tw-ring-offset-shadow" xmlns:tw-ring-offset-width="tw-ring-offset-width" xmlns:tw-ring-shadow="tw-ring-shadow" xmlns:tw-rotate="tw-rotate" xmlns:tw-scale-x="tw-scale-x" xmlns:tw-scale-y="tw-scale-y" xmlns:tw-scroll-snap-strictness="tw-scroll-snap-strictness" xmlns:tw-shadow="tw-shadow" xmlns:tw-shadow-colored="tw-shadow-colored" xmlns:tw-skew-x="tw-skew-x" xmlns:tw-skew-y="tw-skew-y" xmlns:tw-translate-x="tw-translate-x" xmlns:tw-translate-y="tw-translate-y">has more:</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><blockquote segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; border-left: 4px solid var(--background_pop); margin: 1em 0px;"><p style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This month [December 2018], Ginni Thomas shared a Facebook post that bizarrely described California as a war zone, with illegal immigrants scaling walls and carjacking U.S. citizens. Last month, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">she shared a post alleging that Democrats committed voter fraud in four midterm races. (Which ones? How? She didn’t say.)</span> Then there was the post in August (since deleted) proclaiming that teenage survivors of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting are “dangerous to the survival of our nation” because of their gun-control activism. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And the post in February that harangued Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for supposedly wiretapping Donald Trump — a baseless accusation indulged in only by conspiracy theorists.”</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p></blockquote><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[twt]</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">What makes someone a True Poster? Thomas obviously spends a lot of time vomiting stuff out onto her feed, but a lot of people post dumb stuff all the time. The most succinct way I can define a True Poster is </span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">someone who could, and probably should, hire a PR team to manage their social media feeds, but insIsts upon doing it themselves, thus sabotaging their own goals</span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">. I can post dumb shit all day, but I don't actually have political power I should be using instead. Donald Trump, arguably the Truest Poster in history, can literally end the world today by launching a nuclear strike from his desk (best not to think about this too much), but instead he posts about hamburgers and misspells the name of the Nobel Prize.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="image-link image2" target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d1b8f1b-d8f2-4a30-9922-0e8203cc779d_496x488.png" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; flex-direction: column; align-items: center; padding: 0px; margin: 1.6em auto; width: auto; height: auto; border: 0px;"><picture style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d1b8f1b-d8f2-4a30-9922-0e8203cc779d_496x488.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d1b8f1b-d8f2-4a30-9922-0e8203cc779d_496x488.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d1b8f1b-d8f2-4a30-9922-0e8203cc779d_496x488.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6d1b8f1b-d8f2-4a30-9922-0e8203cc779d_496x488.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /></picture></a></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[twt bad oil ptg trump and winston]</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">ginni Thomas is very much in the same vein; she's a high-tier DC operator herself, but she's literally married to one of the most powerful men in the country, who is part of the five-vote majority that's reshaping every aspect of law in America, and </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">she can't stop posting</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">. Consider everything she could accomplish if she deleted her account: she would, at the very least, still accomplish everything that she has already, without the </span><em style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Washington Post</em><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"> investigating her (or me doing whatever this is). Maybe she'd even have the time to take on two or three more jaw-droppingly terrible causes![twt 30 free days of socialism tom cotton]</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">as </span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">of this writing, Thomas' posting efforts are focused on the quarantine, and the urgent need to re-open the economy, which will only cost us the lives of a few tens of thousands of working-class, elderly, and sick Americans. Governors have already been sued over their shelter-in-place orders, some of those cases have already landed in the federal appellate circuits (my state's order is currently being reviewed in the Seventh Circuit by...ah crap, Amy Coney Barrett). Do you think one of those cases could end up before the Supreme Court? <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Do you think, if it does, that Clarence Thomas will be part of a five-vote majority striking these orders down</span> [BIDEN VACCINE "MANDATE"] and undermining our already-threadbare state-by-state public health efforts developed in the absence of any meaningful federal response? And do you think there's anything we can do to stop it?</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><h2 class="header-with-anchor-widget" sf="SF" compact="Compact" display="Display" apple-system="apple-system" blinkmacsystemfont="BlinkMacSystemFont" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-weight="font-weight" var="var" font_weight_headings_preset="font_weight_headings_preset" bold="bold" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased" line-height="line-height" em="em" margin="margin" px="px" font-size="font-size" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; position: relative;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="font-weight: normal;">EPILOGUE - POWER</font></font></strong></strong></strong></h2><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perhaps in a more sane world, Clarence Thomas would be recusing himself from more cases, or Ginni Thomas would be smart enough not to post all of the time. But we don’t live in a more sane world, and the thing about the Thomases is that there’s no way to stop them. Ginni isn’t going to get fired from her job because she’s basically self-employed, and Clarence isn’t going to recuse himself because there’s no way to force him to. He also can’t get fired, because no Supreme Court justices can get fired; they can theoretically get impeached, but there’s no realistic chance of that happening in the current political era.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, with whatever justification he wants, Justice Thomas can make things happen, even if his opponents don't want it to happen, even if his opponents think that they way he makes things happen is illegitimate. He can do it and you can't, and he has the force of law on his side. That's power.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">The five justices on the majority get this. You think they're waiting for an airtight legal argument to overturn Roe? They didn't use one to gut unions or save the Muslim ban. They know they have power - </span><a href="https://imaxafterlife.substack.com/p/leonard-leo-natural-lawyer" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Leonard Leo picked them because they know how power works</a><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">, and </span><a href="https://imaxafterlife.substack.com/p/amy-coney-barrett-future-6-3-vote" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Amy Coney Barrett wants to join them because she knows it too</a></span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">.</span> Even if you think their reasoning is wrong, they get to decide and you don't. You can't vote them out, and they aren't leaving of their own volition. Even if you think Barack Obama should have filled that empty seat on the Court, their guy got on and yours didn't, and you can't do anything to change it. That's power.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Catholicism, of course, has a message for the powerless. That’s not a surprise, you’ve seen it all over Catholic teaching and all over scripture. Two very obvious examples are in Luke’s Gospel, where Mary sings that "He has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness" and "lifted up the lowly, the hungry he has filled with good things", or the Sermon on the Plain, where Jesus blesses the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the excluded. Christianity and Catholicism are religions for the powerless, founded by a man living under occupation and executed as a criminal. I don't think the Catholics on the Court see their faith that way, and I get little comfort just from knowing that we might be considered "blessed" or "lifted up" as we get stomped on. </font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But bound up in Catholicism’s message for the powerless is a message to the powerful. I don't feel like it's preached quite as often, but I picked those two examples from Luke’s Gospel because, well, that message is right there in both of them. Mary doesn't just sing about the lonely being lifted up and the hungry being filled, she sings about the mighty being cast down from their thrones, and the rich being sent away hungry. Jesus doesn't just say "blessed are the poor", He immediately follows it with "woe to you who are rich...woe to you who are filled now...woe to you who laugh now...woe to you when all speak well of you."</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I'm not a lawyer or expert in the Supreme Court or federal government, and at best I'm a freelance theologian. So I don't have a good civic or theological solution to a Court that has done so much to hurt those with no power. But any solution that treats this current system, with this current Court majority, as a legitimate use of power, or one that can be addressed within the current system, is insufficient. And any solution that does not directly confront this use of power, and attempt to wrest it away from those using it, is, in my estimation, insufficiently Catholic.</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px 0px 1em;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Grift of the Holy Spirit</span> </span><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">is a series by Tony Ginocchio detailing stories of the weirdest, dumbest, and saddest members of the Catholic church. You can subscribe via Substack to get notified of future installments. The current series covers Catholics connected to the United States Supreme Court.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" apple="Apple" color="Color" emoji="Emoji" symbol="Symbol" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px;"><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907062.html" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Washington Post - “Virginia Thomas Seeks Apology From Anita Hill” (2010)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1987/10/25/i-cried-enough-to-fill-a-glass/efd5857b-fafa-4eef-b2d0-66e192789534/?itid=lk_inline_manual_25" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Washington Post - "I Cried Enough to Fill a Glass" (1987)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/lifespring/main.htm" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Washington Post - “The Nominee’s Soul Mate” (1991)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://people.com/archive/cover-story-breaking-silence-vol-36-no-18/" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">People - “Breaking Silence” (1991)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/justice-thomass-wife-now-lobbyist-048812" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Politico - “Justice Thomas’ Wife Now Lobbyist” (2011)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2010/07/thomass-wife-takes-on-obama-039426" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Politico - “Thomas’ Wife Takes on Obama” (2010)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/justice-clarence-thomas-marks-a-quarter-century-on-supreme-court" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">National Catholic Register - “Fearless Justice Clarence Thomas Walks 25 Years in Footsteps of St. Thomas More” (2016)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/leaked-emails-show-justice-clarence-thomass-wife-pushing-travel-ban" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Daily Beast - “Leaked Emails Show Justice Clarence Thomas’ Wife Pushing Travel Ban” (2017)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/02/10/okeefe-project-veritas-media/" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Daily Caller - “James O’Keefe Slams Mainstream Media” (2018)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/02/04/donald-trump-jr-witch-hunt-mueller/" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Daily Caller - “Exclusive: Dems Are On ‘The Greatest Witch Hunt Since Salem’” (2018)</span><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /></a><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/clarence-thomas-wife-calls-anita-hill-why-ginni-did-it" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">The Daily Beast - “Clarence Thomas’ Wife Calls Anita Hill: Why Ginni Did It” (2010)</span><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /></a><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20101024090851/https://gawker.com/5668293/" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Gawker - “Clarence Thomas’ Wife Calls Anita Hill to Ask For An Apology” (2010)</span><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /></a><a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/01/29/often-reticent-justice-clarence-thomas-speaks-about-his-faith-in-new-documentary/" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;"><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Religious News Service - “Justice Clarence Thomas Talks About His Faith in New Documentary” (2020)</span><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /></a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/trump-ginni-thomas-meeting.html" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">New York Times - “Trump Meets With Hard-Right Group Led by Ginni Thomas” (2019)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3.html?stream=top" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Axios - “Trump’s “Deep State” Hit List” (2020)</a><br style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;" /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-is-ginni-thomas-saying-now-the-evolution-of-an-unusually-outspoken-supreme-court-spouse/2018/12/26/883da960-f753-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html" rel="" style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">Washington Post - “What Is Ginni Thomas Saying Now?” (2018</a><span style="--tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness:proximity; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: ; --tw-ring-offset-width:0px; --tw-ring-offset-color:#fff; --tw-ring-color:rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: ; --tw-brightness: ; --tw-contrast: ; --tw-grayscale: ; --tw-hue-rotate: ; --tw-invert: ; --tw-saturate: ; --tw-sepia: ; --tw-drop-shadow: ; --tw-backdrop-blur: ; --tw-backdrop-brightness: ; --tw-backdrop-contrast: ; --tw-backdrop-grayscale: ; --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: ; --tw-backdrop-invert: ; --tw-backdrop-opacity: ; --tw-backdrop-saturate: ; --tw-backdrop-sepia: ;">)</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">endit1</font></strong></strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></strong></strong></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>