Text messages show wife of U.S. Supreme Court justice urged overturning Biden election
Virginia Thomas, spouse of U.S. Supreme Courtroom Justice Clarence Thomas, despatched weeks of textual content messages imploring White Home Chief of Employees Mark Meadows to behave to overturn the 2020 presidential election — furthering then-president Donald Trump’s lies that the free and honest vote was marred by non-existent fraud, in line with copies of the messages obtained by the Washington Publish and CBS Information.
The 29 messages the pair exchanged got here within the weeks after the vote in November 2020, when Trump and his high allies have been nonetheless saying they deliberate to go to the Supreme Courtroom to have its outcomes voided.
The Publish reported that on Nov. 10, one week after the election and three days after The Related Press and different information shops declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner, Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist, texted to Meadows: “Assist This Nice President stand agency, Mark!!! … You’re the chief, with him, who’s standing for America’s constitutional governance on the precipice. The bulk is aware of Biden and the Left is trying the best Heist of our Historical past.”
Copies of the texts — 21 despatched by her, eight despatched in reply by Meadows — have been offered to the Home choose committee investigating the lethal riot that noticed a mob of principally Trump supporters overrun the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The AP tried to get the identical info from the committee, however it declined to remark.
The texts don’t straight check with Thomas’s husband or the Supreme Courtroom. However she has beforehand admitted to attending the Trump’s “Cease the Steal” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Virginia Thomas has additionally beforehand denied conflicts of curiosity between her activism and her husband’s place on the excessive court docket.
Nonetheless, the messages present she was urging the highest ranges of the Trump administration to attempt to throw out the 2020 election outcomes — and even providing teaching to Meadows on how greatest to take action. Thomas urged lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted false claims concerning the election, to be “the lead and the face” of the Trump authorized group.
Meadows’s lawyer, George Terwilliger III, advised the Publish and CBS that neither he nor Meadows would touch upon particular person texts, including, “Nothing concerning the textual content messages presents any authorized points.”
Justice Thomas, 73, has been hospitalized for therapy from an an infection. He and his spouse didn’t reply to the shops’ request for remark.
‘Don’t concede,’ Thomas urges
In February 2021, the Supreme Courtroom rejected challenges to the election. Justice Thomas dissented, calling the ruling to not hear arguments within the case “befuddling” and “inexplicable.”
In a Nov. 5 message to Meadows, Virginia Thomas quoted materials that had appeared on right-wing fringe web sites: “Biden crime household & poll fraud co-conspirators (elected officers, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, pretend stream media reporters, and so on.) are being arrested & detained for poll fraud proper now & over coming days, & shall be dwelling in barges off GITMO [Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp] to face navy tribunals for sedition.”
In a subsequent textual content the subsequent day, Thomas wrote to Meadows, “Don’t concede.”
The messages additionally recommend that Meadows was prepared to proceed pursuing methods to overturn the election. He replied to 1 message from Thomas: “I’ll stand agency. We are going to battle till there isn’t any battle left. Our nation is simply too valuable to surrender on. Thanks for all you do.”
The texts between Thomas and Meadows cease after Nov. 24, 2020. However the committee obtained one other message despatched on Jan. 10, 2021, 4 days after the mob assault on the Capitol, in line with the Publish and CBS.
“We live by means of what looks like the top of America,” Virginia Thomas wrote to Meadows.
