Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, reportedly urged then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to pursue Big Lie efforts in a series of text messages in the weeks after the 2020 election, according to the Washington Post and CBS News.
According to the Post, the text messages it obtained between Thomas and Meadows were among the 2,320 that the former Trump official provided to the Jan. 6 Select Committee during his short-lived cooperation with the panel. The Post and CBS News reviewed 21 messages sent by Thomas and eight messages sent by Meadows.
The Post noted that it is unclear whether Thomas and Meadows exchanged additional messages between the 2020 election and President Biden’s inauguration beyond the 29 received by the committee. Meadows provided the messages he exchanged with Thomas before he began stonewalling the panel last December, arguing executive privilege. According to the Post, members of the Jan. 6 Select committee and aides believe the messages the panel obtained may be just a portion of the exchanges between Meadows and Thomas.
Days after Joe Biden’s victory was projected by news organizations, Thomas reportedly texted Meadows: “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!…You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
On Nov. 24. 2020, Meadows reportedly invoked God when describing Big Lie efforts in a message to Thomas.
“This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows reportedly wrote in a text message to Thomas. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”
Thomas reportedly replied: “Thank you!! Needed that! This plus a conversation with my best friend just now… I will try to keep holding on. America is worth it!” According to the Post, it is unclear whom Thomas was referring to.
In text messages to Meadows, Thomas reportedly also shared unfounded conspiracy theories and offered commentary on cable news segments pushing the Big Lie as she urged Trump and his team to take action to overturn the election results.
Thomas and Meadows made clear in their text messages that they baselessly believe that the 2020 election was “stolen,” but had some differences regarding tactics.
“The intense pressures you and our President are now experiencing are more intense than Anything Experienced (but I only felt a fraction of it in 1991),” Thomas wrote to Meadows on Nov. 19, which reportedly was a reference to Justice Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings in which lawyer Anita Hill testified that he had made unwanted sexual comments when she worked for him. Justice Thomas vehemently denied Hill’s claims.
According to the Post, the first of the 29 messages it obtained between Ginni Thomas and Meadows was on Nov. 5, two days after the election. Thomas sent Meadows a link to a now-deleted YouTube video titled “TRUMP STING w CIA Director Steve Pieczenik, The Biggest Election Story in History, QFS-BLOCKCHAIN.” Pieczenik is a former State Department official-turned-far-right commentator who has pushed false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.
At the time, Thomas reportedly wrote in a text message to Meadows: “I hope this is true; never heard anything like this before, or even a hint of it. Possible???”
“Watermarked ballots in over 12 states have been part of a huge Trump & military white hat sting operation in 12 key battleground states,” Thomas reportedly wrote, referring to a false theory among QAnon supporters that Trump watermarked mail-in ballots in an effort to boost his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.
According to the Post, Thomas also pushed an unfounded passage that circulated on right-wing websites in a message to Meadows on Nov. 5, 2020: “Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.”
Texts obtained by the Jan. 6 Select Committee do not include a response from Meadows for Thomas’ message on Nov. 5, 2020.
Thomas reportedly sent another text to Meadows the following day, Nov, 6. 2020, writing: “Do not concede. It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.” It is unclear whether Meadows replied.
The Post reported on more text exchanges between Meadows and Thomas in the following days, which included a message on Nov. 10, 2020 telling Meadows: “Mark, I wanted to text you and tell you for days you are in my prayers!!” and reportedly urging him to “Help This Great President stand firm” and invoking “the greatest Heist of our History.”
Meadows reportedly replied to Thomas’ Nov. 10 message: “I will stand firm. We will fight until there is no fight left. Our country is too precious to give up on. Thanks for all you do.”
Nine minutes later, Thomas reportedly replied: “Tearing up and praying for you guys!!!!! So proud to know you!!”
In the Post’s report, Thomas’ text messages with Meadows in the weeks after the 2020 election include airing her frustrations with congressional Republicans who she knocked for not rallying behind the Big Lie to her liking and telling the then-White House chief of staff about supposedly reaching out to Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner. Additionally, Thomas reportedly defended former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell even after some in Trump’s orbit disavowed her baseless claims that electronic voting systems had stolen the election from Trump by switching millions of ballots in Biden’s favor.
The text messages with Thomas that Meadows provided to the Jan. 6 Select Committee pause after Nov. 24, 2020. According to the Post, the committee received one additional message sent by Thomas to Meadows on Jan. 10, days after the deadly Capitol insurrection and the “Stop the Steal” rally that Thomas recently admitted to attending briefly.
In her message to Meadows days after the insurrection, Thomas reportedly expresses support for Meadows and Trump — but airs her grievances over Pence, who presided over the Senate on the day of the joint session of Congress certifying Biden’s electoral victory.
“We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas reportedly wrote to Meadows. “Most of us are disgusted with the VP and are in listening mode to see where to fight with our teams. Those who attacked the Capitol are not representative of our great teams of patriots for DJT!!”
“Amazing times,” Thomas added, according to the Post. “The end of Liberty.”
Thomas’ reported messages with Meadows comes after Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon earlier this month that she attended the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the deadly Capitol insurrection — but only until she “got cold and left early. Thomas claimed that she did not help organize the rally, however. It was previously reported that Thomas had ties to the rally’s organizers and was, at least initially, supportive of the Trump supporters attending the rally before violence broke out. Thomas maintained that her attendance at the rally has “no bearing” on her husband’s work.
