Major update: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife played an even BIGGER role in the far right’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election than we thought.
That’s right – newly released emails reveal that Ginni Thomas personally contacted two Arizona lawmakers after Election Day, urging them to ignore the will of the voters and pick electors who’d give the state’s votes to Donald Trump. [1]
This is a major, clear-cut conflict of interest for Justice Thomas. How can the public trust him to rule impartially on matters related to the election when these cases could implicate his wife?
In April, the January 6th House Select Committee revealed that Ginni sent several texts to Trump’s chief of staff following the 2020 election. She encouraged him to overturn President Biden’s win and “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.” [2]
Now, thanks to these bombshell emails, we know that her participation in the so-called “Stop the Steal” efforts went so much further.
But that hasn’t stopped Justice Thomas from deliberating on two 2020 election-related cases already. Notably, in one of these cases, Thomas was the only justice to side with Trump – who was trying to hide White House communications about his failed plot to stay in office, potentially including Ginni’s text messages.
If we don’t speak out immediately, Justice Thomas could continue to weigh in on these all-important cases despite his massive conflict of interest – putting the integrity of the Supreme Court and the fate of our democracy at risk.
The truth is: we never should have gotten here. Supreme Court justices are the only judges in the country who aren’t officially bound by a code of ethics – even though their decisions make by far the greatest impact on our rights and our lives.
That’s outrageous. Like all other federal judges, the Supreme Court should abide by a transparent code of ethics to stop conflicts like this from threatening the institution's legitimacy.
I hope you’ll join me in speaking out,
Devon Nir, Digital Strategies Manager
and the team at Common Cause
1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/05/20/ginni-thomas-arizona-election-emails/
2) https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/legal-scholars-are-shocked-by-ginni-thomass-stop-the-steal-texts
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