The conservative activist Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, appeared on Thursday for a voluntary interview with the House January 6 committee.
The committee had for months sought the interview in an effort to know more about Thomas’s role in trying to help Donald Trump overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden.
She texted Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and contacted lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election.
Thomas did not answer questions when she arrived for the interview or later when she briefly left for a break. But Thomas did tell reporters she was looking forward to answering questions from the members of the committee.
Testimony from Thomas was one of the remaining items for the committee as it nears completion of its work. The panel has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and shown some testimony in eight public hearings.
Thomas’s attorney, Mark Paoletta, said last week Thomas was “eager to answer the committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election”.
The extent of her involvement in the Capitol attack is unclear. In the days after the presidential election was called for Biden, Thomas emailed two lawmakers in Arizona to urge them to choose “a clean slate of electors” and “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure”.
The AP obtained the emails earlier this year under the state’s open records law.
Thomas has said in interviews she attended a pro-Trump rally near the White House on the morning of 6 January 2021 but left before Trump spoke and crowds attacked the Capitol.
Thomas has repeatedly maintained that her political activities posed no conflict of interest with the work of her husband.
“Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles and aspirations for America,” Thomas told the Washington Free Beacon in March.
“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.”
Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting voice when the supreme court ruled in January to allow a congressional committee access to presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes relating to the events of January 6.
Ginni Thomas has been openly critical of the committee’s work, including signing a letter to House Republicans calling for the expulsion of Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, for joining the January 6 committee.
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