(Washington, D.C.) — Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent weeks of text messages imploring White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to act to overturn the 2020 presidential election — furthering then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the free and fair vote was marred by nonexistent fraud, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.
They exchanged 29 messages within weeks of the election in November 2020. Trump and his closest allies still claimed they intended to appeal to the Supreme Court for its invalid results.
The Post reported that on Nov. 10, three days after the election and after The Associated Press and other news outlets declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner, Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist, texted to 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.”
Copies of the texts — 21 sent by her, eight sent in reply by Meadows — were provided to the House select committee investigating the deadly insurrection that saw a mob of mostly Trump supporters overrun the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The Associated Press tried to obtain the same information from this committee but was denied.
The texts do not directly reference Thomas’ husband or the Supreme Court. But she has previously admitted to attending the Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol riot. Virginia Thomas also has previously denied conflicts of interest between her activism and her husband’s place on the high court.
The messages still show that she is urging Trump’s top officials to declare the results of 2020. She even offered Meadows coaching on the best way to go about it. Thomas urged lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted false claims about the election, to be “the lead and the face” of the Trump legal team.
Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger III, told the Post and CBS that neither he nor Meadows would comment on individual texts, adding, “nothing about the text messages presents any legal issues.”
Justice Thomas (73) has been admitted to hospital for treatment of an infection. He and his wife did not respond to the outlets’ request for comment.
On February 20, 2021, Supreme Court denied challenges to election. Justice Thomas dissented, calling the ruling not to hear arguments in the case “befuddling” and “inexplicable.”
In a Nov. 5 message to Meadows, Virginia Thomas quoted material that had appeared on right-wing fringe websites: “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.”
In a subsequent text the next day, Thomas wrote to Meadows, “Do not concede.”
These messages suggest Meadows is willing to pursue other avenues to reverse the election. He replied to one message from Thomas: “I will stand firm. We won’t stop fighting until the end. This country is too valuable to be lost. Thanks for all you do.”
Thomas and Meadows’ texts stop between November 24th, 2020. According to CBS and the Post, the committee got another message on January 10, 2021. This was four days after the attack on Capitol by mob members.
“We are living through what feels like the end of America,” Thomas wrote to Meadows in it.
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