Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), vice chair of the Jan. 6 Select Committee, on Sunday said the panel will “contemplate a subpoena” for Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, if she does not voluntarily come forward.
During an interview on CNN, Cheney said the committee is in touch with Ginni Thomas’ counsel and that it hopes she will agree to come in voluntarily.
Cheney said the panel is the leaving the door open to a subpoena if necessary.
“The committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not,” Cheney said. “I hope it doesn’t get to that. I hope she will come in voluntarily.”
“It’s very important for us to speak with her and as I said, I hope she will agree to do so voluntarily, but I’m sure we will contemplate a subpoena if she won’t,” Cheney continued.
The committee previously asked Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist, to testify and provide documents related to its investigation. Thomas’ lawyer, Mark Paoletta, expressed reluctance for his client to cooperate in a letter to the committee late last month. Paoletta requested the panel provide “better justification” for why it wants his client’s testimony.
Paoletta’s letter came weeks after Ginni Thomas told the Daily Caller that she “looks forward” to speaking with the panel and “can’t wait to clear up misconceptions.” The committee sought her testimony after news broke that she was in contact with conservative lawyer John Eastman, who was a key figure in a pressure campaign to push then-Vice President Mike Pence to do then-President Trump’s bidding of overturning the election results on Jan. 6. Multiple reports indicated that the panel obtained copies of emails between Thomas and Eastman.
In his letter to the committee, Paoletta argued that the emails Eastman handed over to the committee did not provide a legal basis for the panel to interview Thomas.
Additionally, Paoletta dismissed his client’s texts with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the days after the 2020 election, in which she urged Meadows to keep the Big Lie of a stolen election alive, as an “entirely unremarkable” development where she was “simply texting with a friend.”
Watch Cheney’s remarks below:
