Virginia Ginni Thomas' lawyer pushes back Jan. 6 committee request for testimony

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Virginia Ginni Thomas' lawyer pushes back Jan. 6 committee request for testimony

WASHINGTON - An attorney representing Virginia Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is pushing back a request from the House Jan. 6 committee for her testimony.

In an eight-sided letter to the committee obtained Wednesday by NBC News, Ginni Thomas'Thomas' lawyer, Mark R. Paoletta argued that he has not seen any reason for her to testify and asked the panel to provide a better justification for his client's testimony.

Mrs. Thomas is eager to clear her name and willing to appear before the Committee to do so, he wrote in a letter dated Tuesday. I do not understand the need to speak with Mrs. Thomas based on my understanding of the communications that spurred the Committee's request. Before I can recommend that she meet with you, I am asking the Committee to provide a better justification for why Mrs. Thomas's testimony is relevant to the Committee's legislative purpose. The emails between Thomas and John Eastman, the former Trump lawyer who wrote memos arguing that then-Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the 2020 election, which Eastman shared with the committee, provided no basis to interview Thomas.

After the 2020 presidential election, the lawyer defended Thomas' texts to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, as well as his concerns about the results.

Mrs. Thomas did not claim to have first-hand knowledge about election fraud, he said. She stated that she was just passing along information that she had heard from others. She expressed disappointments and expressed a condemnation of those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, asked some questions and expressed general frustrations. Thomas expressed concern about the future of our country under President Biden's leadership. None of it was unethical, much less illegal, and none of it suggests that Mrs. Thomas had even the slightest role in the January 6th attack on the Capitol, or even has any information about the attack. Paoletta said Thomas sent the texts to Meadows as a private citizen and not on behalf of a person or organization. He said she was texting with a friend. Thomas' lawyer said that he doubts that the committee would treat his client fairly, citing some animus he claimed Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. She has a crush on her husband.

In March, NBC News reported that the committee had received text messages in which Meadows and Thomas discussed how to keep Trump in office after the 2020 election.

Their exchange came as Trump allies discussed a legal challenge to the results of the 2020 election. The Supreme Court, in an unsigned opinion in December 2020, dismissed a challenge by Republican state attorneys general to overturn the results.