January 6 panel calls Ginni Thomas to testify

The emails could appear « at some point » in their hearings, Thompson said earlier Thursday, although they are still in the « discovery phase ».

Thomas told the conservative-leaning Daily Caller on Thursday that she was ready to testify.

“I look forward to dispelling misconceptions. I can’t wait to talk to them,” she said.

The Washington Post and New York Times both reported Wednesday night that Thomas and Eastman exchanged emails, though the timing of their conversations remains unclear, according to the outlets. The Times also reported that Eastman expressed, in an email with another Trump campaign attorney, insight into internal Supreme Court discussions related to the election results. The court, he said, according to the Times, was engaged in a “heated” debate over whether to bring election-related charges on the eve of Jan. 6.

Eastman said in a statement that he had not discussed Supreme Court matters with Ginni Thomas or her husband.

« Whether this information is true or not, I can categorically confirm that at no time did I discuss with Ms. Thomas or Judge Thomas any matters that were outstanding or likely to come before the Court, » he said. declared on the Substack messaging platform. The emails with Ginni Thomas, Eastman added, were related to an invitation to « provide an update on election litigation to a group she met periodically. »

The committee has been facing questions about Ginni Thomas since March, when the Washington Post and CBS published text messages she exchanged with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the weeks following the defeat of Trump in the 2020 election. Thomas, who appeared to espouse unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about the results, urged Meadows to continue fighting to reverse the result and said she had been in contact with others in the Trump’s orbit.

These texts immediately raised questions about whether Thomas had also spoken to Eastman, who worked for her husband in the 1990s. In deposition testimony from Greg Jacob, a top aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, the select committee heard that Eastman had expressed confidence that Judge Thomas would support a fringe theory that Pence could single-handedly prevent Joe Biden from being elected.

Jacob told the select committee that when Eastman pushed this idea, Jacob replied, « If this case came to the Supreme Court, we would lose 9-0, wouldn’t we, if we took your position and it went up there? ”

Eastman said he actually believed the court would vote 7-2, Jacob recalled.

“And I said, ‘Who are the two?’ And he said, « Well, I think maybe Clarence Thomas. » And I said, ‘Really? Clarence Thomas? And so we went through some opinions of Thomas and, finally, he acknowledged: « Yeah, okay, that would be 9-0. »

Eastman declined to say whether his initial instincts about supporting Thomas were based on contacts with Ginni Thomas or the judge himself. When the select committee asked Eastman last year about his conversation with Jacob, Eastman invoked his right not to incriminate himself, as he did more than 100 times in his testimony before the panel.