Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the attorney, wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and frequent supporter of fringe right-wing theories, was lambasted for publicly supporting the rally leading to the Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol by documented supporters of Donald Trump. Now, she it seems has attempted some damage control in an email to her husband’s court clerks.
Thomas made two Facebook posts which have since been deleted. The first was in the early hours of Jan. 6, in which she wrote: “Watch MAGA crowd today best with Right Side Broadcasting, and then C-Span for what the Congress does starting at 1:00 pm today. LOVE MAGA people!!!!”
The second post, just a few minutes later, said: “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING.”
Between the two posts, Thomas posted a quote from former President Ronald Reagan, in which he said:
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”
To clarify context in a manner that Thomas chose to leave out, Reagan had been talking about support for then-GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
Now, though, it appears that Thomas is trying her hand at the kind of post-insurrection kumbaya messaging we’ve seen from the GOP lately. According to a report by the Washington Post, she wrote to a private email list called “Thomas Clerk World,” which includes current and former members of Clarence Thomas’ staff. In the email, Ginni Thomas 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.”
The email continued:
“Many of us are hurting, after leaving it all on the field, to preserve the best of this country,” she wrote. “I feel I have failed my parents who did their best and taught me to work to preserve liberties.”
Thomas’s email is a little perplexing, to say the least. For starters—and as some have noted—Clarence Thomas staffers are not the first group that comes to mind as requiring an apology for rabid pro-Trump social media posts.
Weirdly, I don’t think Ginni Thomas should have felt the need to apologize to these people. She’s been exactly this level of crazy the whole time, all of Thomas’s clerks signed up for this crazy and most of enjoyed powerful, prosperous careers on the backs of this crazy. https://t.co/rFoRMCBJjo
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) February 2, 2021
Others have pointed out that Thomas’s assumption that her “passions and beliefs are likely shared with the bulk of” the family of clerks may (hopefully) be something of an exaggeration.
Seems like the news here is that Ginni Thomas believes that her views are shared by “the bulk” of people in the Justice Thomas clerk family.
— Matthew Segal (@segalmr) February 2, 2021
I certainly hope that the majority of Justice Thomas’ clerks did not share Ginni Thomas’ passion for storming the capitol. https://t.co/v9acmuIwbM
— Andrew Fleischman (@ASFleischman) February 2, 2021
Thomas’ statement was conspicuously bereft of any mention of her prior support for the rally preceding a violent and deadly attack on the Capitol — which was not appreciated by those looking for sincere contrition.
Apologizing for “the divide” is not really an apology. Unless I’m missing anything I’m still not sure anyone has cleared the baseline of *acknowledgment of wrongdoing* https://t.co/bXIh43Cd1S
— Tim Murphy (@timothypmurphy) February 2, 2021
Fixed It.
“Ginni Thomas downplays open support for Capitol riot that left 6 dead.”— TreasonWeaselhunter (@Treasonweaselhu) February 2, 2021
Then, of course, there’s the issue of Ginni Thomas’s interactions with her husband’s clerks. Some have raised issues of the propriety of Thomas sharing her political views with her husband’s staff.
Right. If the theory is that Ginni Thomas is entitled to her own views, and they are wholly separate from her husband’s work as a Supreme Court justice, then it would seem important to actually keep them separate!
— Matthew Segal (@segalmr) February 2, 2021
Other critics have gone even farther, suggesting Thomas’s messaging indicates more than simple misguided social media practices.
Ginni Thomas is hard to understand, but I can imagine a scenario where their relationship works, if she controls everything.
Clarence is mystifying.
How a black man stays w/a woman who donates to & supports rank white supremacy, Proud Boys & 3% ers, I will NEVER know.
— Pam Keith, Esq. (@PamKeithFL) February 2, 2021
In the days following Jan, 6, a rumor began that Ginni Thomas had actually funded transportation for those participating in the riot. Although that rumor was debunked, some have speculated that the SCOTUS-spouse needed to do damage control. For some, however, the right remedy would come in a different form.
[image via Paul Morigi/Getty Images]
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