Responding to a recent wave of criticism and adverse mainstream media reports targeting her, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s conservative activist wife distanced herself from the Jan. 6, 2021, civil unrest in the nation’s capital and denied that her activities undermine her husband’s work on and public trust in the nation’s highest court.
In the early 1980s, Thomas, then known as Ginni Lamp, came to the nation’s capital as an aide to then-Rep. Hal Daub (R-Neb.) after Ronald Reagan became president, the article stated.
Her business is called Liberty Consulting, which she said isn’t a lobbying organization.
“She has not been paid to lobby or influence legislation since her tenure at the Chamber of Commerce in the 1980s,” the article stated. ”Rather, her goal at Liberty is to build coalitions among like-minded Washington professionals and grassroots activists around the country.”
“Besides coalition work and bridge-building, I help provide friendly, constructive advice and counsel on messaging or projects that would appeal to the public,” Thomas said of her consulting work.
Thomas, who is white, first came to public attention in 1991 when she stood by her black husband’s side as he underwent a bruising Supreme Court nomination process presided over by then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-Del.). Critics say Biden and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) teamed up to launch the current era of scorched-earth tactics that are now seemingly commonplace among Democrats at Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Clarence Thomas denounced the proceeding as “nothing more than a high-tech lynching” after, during the proceeding, his former aide Anita Hill accused him out of the blue of sexual harassment after following him from job to job as his subordinate.
Nominated to the high court by the late President George H.W. Bush, at the time of the hearings, Clarence Thomas was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Today, President Joe Biden’s current nominee for the Supreme Court is Ketanji Brown Jackson, who also is a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit.
But in the years since, Ginni Thomas has thrived as a consultant and activist in the conservative movement, supporting candidates and causes, and developing a reputation as a go-to campaigner who works with various conservative groups and think tanks on both long- and short-term projects.
Critics have long said her political activities have created an apparent conflict of interest for Justice Thomas, the senior member of the Supreme Court and of its now six-member-strong conservative bloc.
But Ginni Thomas said the two keep their professional lives separate.
“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America,” she said. “But we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions, too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work.”
In the Washington Free Beacon interview, Ginni Thomas opened up for the first time about recent news reports claiming she was deeply involved in the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Media interest in her spiked in January after the Supreme Court rejected in an 8–1 vote Trump’s request to throw out a congressional subpoena for White House records pertaining to the 2020 election cycle. Her husband was the sole dissenter in the decision.
According to the media outlet, this “datapoint, combined with incomplete public accounts of Mrs. Thomas’s advocacy related to the 2020 election, spawned a push for the justice to recuse himself from future cases related to the events of Jan. 6.”
Ginni Thomas told The Washington Free Beacon that she was in the audience at the rally on the Ellipse near the White House briefly on the morning of Jan. 6, but left before Trump appeared onstage at noon because she was cold. She said she didn’t participate in organizing the rally and that her tangential involvement in it had nothing to do with her husband’s work at the Supreme Court.
“I was disappointed and frustrated that there was violence that happened following a peaceful gathering of Trump supporters on the Ellipse on Jan. 6,” she said.
“There are important and legitimate substantive questions about achieving goals like electoral integrity, racial equality, and political accountability that a democratic system like ours needs to be able to discuss and debate rationally in the political square. I fear we are losing that ability.”
According to the article, in January and February, The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine each published long pieces claiming Ginni Thomas was deeply involved in what happened on Jan. 6, and that she had tried to act as a peacemaker among infighting activists running the rally.
“Citing second-hand information from organizer Dustin Stockton, the [New York] Times reported that Thomas acted as a peacemaker between two feuding faction leaders—Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots and Amy Kremer of Women for America First—convincing both to participate in the rally for the sake of shared goals,” the article stated.
It added that “Thomas, Martin, and Kremer each reject that claim.”
“I played no role with those who were planning and leading the Jan. 6 events,” Thomas said. “There are stories in the press suggesting I paid or arranged for buses. I did not. There are other stories saying I mediated feuding factions of leaders for that day. I did not.”
Thomas said the criticism won’t deter her from doing what she considers to be the right thing.
“If you are going to be true to yourself and your professional calling, you can never be intimidated, chilled, or censored by what the press or others say.”
