Stuffing this "Ginni" back in her lamp, her emails may grant the Jan. 6 Committee their wish...

SO UNLIKE OTHER MARRIEDS

"Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles, and aspirations for America," Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon. "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."

--Virginia Lamp-Thomas, an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet, for an article published March 14.

Ginni Lamp-Thomas, wife and best friend  of sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence, has found herself in the news with the WAPO revelations of her emails with Trump's Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows.  The exchange, reported by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, comes after a trove of emails Meadows handed over to the January 6 Committee before he was chastised by his former boss.  The contents of the communications call into question the decision of the Court to allow her husband to rule on cases related to the insurrection—and, in fact, had any relationship to Donald Trump. Justice Thomas’ lone dissent in the case related to the National Archives release of documents to the January 6 Committee (which would have included his wife’s emails) calls into question the integrity and objectivity of the court.

Why Thomas would choose to dissent without a supporting explanation, with or without the knowledge of his wife’s conversations with Meadows, is problematic.  A written dissent would have been a basis for the Thomases assertions that their marriage contained a hermetically sealed agreement not to discuss matters that would impinge on their separate roles as Supreme Court Justice and political activist.  Clarence’s dissenting opinion could have staked out a constitutional argument, if one existed, for denial of records, while offering at least a fig leaf of doubt regarding his intentions.  His silence was a much stronger indication that both partners had knowledge of the dangers involved should the documents be released and that his silent dissent was both partisan and personal.   

THE GENIE OUT OF THE BOTTLE

Thomas’ decision is far more disturbing now after the release of the 29 emails now part of the public record.  Employing Occam’s Razor to the probability that the Justice and the activist discussed these very issues over the course of the turbulent days between election night and the January 6 insurrection is helpful. The improbability of the couple’s assertion of “separate careers, ideas. and opinions” is harder to believe given the fact that they so publicly assert the same ideology ---he in his decisions on the Court and her in her work as a partisan activist.   What makes his recent dissent seem even more partisan and personal is the knowledge that the 29 emails in question may not be the whole of the interchanges between Meadows and other Trump associates and his activist wife. How likely, one could question, were these to be the only emails regarding the election and its aftermath and how unlikely is the probability that Ginni attended the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol and was not involved in its planning and execution, given the contents of the emails that have been released? 

“...a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States”

--court filing by lawyers for the Jan.6 House Committee

In Justice Thomas’ dissent in the case related to his wife’s post-election communications, Justice Thomas' reasoning was wanting, given the unanimity of his colleagues on the bench opposing his dissent.  Their concurrence stands in sharp contrast to Thomas’ silence.  In such a high-powered case it seems odd that he would have disagreed but without reason. The unsigned court order rejecting the claim of privilege was rather blunt:

“Because the court of appeals concluded that President Trump’s claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former president necessarily made no difference to the court’s decision,”

The only written opinion in the case penned by Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh concluded that the court's decision was apparently obvious to the majority:

“A former president must be able to successfully invoke the presidential communications privilege for communications that occurred during his presidency, even if the current president does not support the privilege claim. Concluding otherwise would eviscerate the executive privilege for presidential communications.”

Justice Thomas had no such qualms in his 11 page dissent in the 2021 case arguing the validity of the Pennsylvania election that year:

In short, the postelection system of judicial review  is at most suitable for garden-variety disputes.  It generally cannot restore the state of affairs before an election.  And it is often incapable of testing allegations of systemic maladministration, voter suppression, or fraud that go to the heart of public confidence in election results.  That is obviously problematic for allegations backed by substantial evidence.  But the same is true where allegations are incorrect.  After all, “[c]onfidence in the integrity of our electoral process is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy.” (emphasis mine)

A DARKER WEB

Events surrounding January 6 and evidence that might have been gained from the documents that were requested were hardly garden variety and Clarence Thomas knew it. It strains credulity at this point to believe that Thomas did not know of and discuss a trove of emails that were passed between the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States and his wife.  They are, after all, BFFs. For those who will argue that we need more than theory and common sense, the answer is not to dismiss the line of investigation, it is to put the Thomases under oath before Congress to convince us. Theirs is a household of avowed idealogues whose work and opinions often coincide.  There is nary a micron between the advocacy of one and the judicial positions of the other.  His silence in his wordless dissent at the request of emails that have now implicated his wife stands in stark contrast to his vigorous dissent in the Pennsylvania case, which is cited above and in which Justice Thomas fears the loss of voter confidence due to “...voter suppression, or fraud that go to the heart of public confidence in election results.”  His wife’s words in the released emails alone are evidence of her desire to violate constitutional processes through fraud, conspiracy theories, and force.  

Ginni Thomas passed on this piece of nonsense to Meadows. Her husband was certainly aware of her passion for the absurdist fringe of their party:

​​​​​​"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."

Then, suggesting she realized how absurd her statement was, she gushed that she hoped it was true.  She also referenced a QAnon theory fouling the right-wing air that suggested that the murder of children at Sandy Hook elementary school was in reality a false flag operation.  It is simply not credible that someone so deeply mired in partisan and fringe theories didn’t happen to share them with a spouse.  His silence indicates that either he holds similar views, or is afraid to confront his wife’s mania.  

This is a toxic couple more married to their narrow ideologies than to each other. Ginni and the Judge are bastard children of the Reagan Revolution, at its heart a cynical and pompous movement filled with self-conceit and misplaced certitude. After taking themselves much too seriously, they take the rest of us for granted.