About
Virginia (Ginni) Thomas is a conservative lobbyist and activist who has been married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas since 1987. Numerous conflict of interest charges have arisen as a result of their long crusade together fighting for “a more conservative America.” Her close connections to Trump’s inner circle and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election have put her in the spotlight, and in September 2022 she finally agreed to be interviewed by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Raised in Omaha, Nebraska, Thomas earned a law degree in 1983 from Creighton University in Omaha and in the late 1980s, as a labor relations specialist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, she argued against congressional adoption of the Family and Medical Leave Act. In the 1990s, Thomas worked for conservative congressmen such as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and Rep. Hal Daub (R-Neb.). In 2000, when she worked for the conservative Heritage Foundation, she was already collecting resumes for potential appointments in the Bush administration before the Supreme Court had even decided the Bush v Gore case in the contested presidential election.
In 2010 Thomas established Liberty Central, a political action group tied to the Tea Party movement that quickly received $500,000 in dark money. Within a couple of years, she had shifted to lobbying through her new firm, Liberty Consulting.
In addition, Thomas is a director of CNP Action, the political action arm of the far-right Council for National Policy (CNP), and served on the board of the conservative youth group Turning Point USA (TPUSA), which sent buses full of protesters to Washington for the rally and march on Jan. 6, 2021.
Thomas is close to Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, an arch-conservative Catholic who has helped get justices Alito, Roberts, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court. She is also connected to James O’Keefe, the controversial founder of Project Veritas, which films progressives surreptitiously to produce “gotcha” videos. The two are associated with the organization Crowdsources, which also partners with Cleta Mitchell of the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) and the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) to restrict voting rights.
January 6, 2021
- In the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol, Thomas sent more than two dozen text messages to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows urging him to try to overturn the 2020 election results.
- On Jan. 6, she posted her support for the insurrectionists on Facebook.
- After the insurrection, Thomas apologized for her role in sowing division to members of a listserv of former Justice Thomas’ law clerks (which includes John Eastman, the lawyer who drafted a memo suggesting various ways Trump could overturn the election results).
- After initially refusing to cooperate with the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection, in September 2022 a lawyer for Thomas reversed course and announced that “Mrs. Thomas is eager to answer the Committee’s questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election. She looks forward to that opportunity.”
The Big Lie
- A revealing series of text messages between Thomas and Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows makes clear that she was integrally involved in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and prevent Biden from taking office.
- Thomas is associated with Kimberly Fletcher, who runs Moms for America and claimed at two demonstrations in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021 that the election had been stolen.
- Through Groundswell, an organization featuring a who’s who of right-wing leaders, Thomas is also associated with Ali Alexander, who fomented the Stop the Steal movement and is also associated with the CNP.