WASHINGTON — Virginia Thomas, the wife of Judge Clarence Thomas and a conservative activist who lobbied to void the 2020 election, told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that she had never discussed these efforts with her husband in a closed meeting. home interview in which she continued to perpetuate the false claim that the election was stolen.
Leaving the interview, which took place in an office building near the Capitol and lasted about four hours, Ms. Thomas smiled in response to reporters’ questions, but declined to respond publicly.
She did, however, answer questions behind closed doors, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chair of the committee, who added that her testimony could be included in an upcoming hearing.
“If there’s anything that has merit, it will,” he said.
During her interview, Ms. Thomas, who goes by the name Ginni, repeated her claim that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Thompson said, a belief she insisted on in late 2020. as she lobbied state lawmakers and the White House Chief of Staff to do more to try to invalidate the results.
In a statement she read at the start of her testimony, Ms. Thomas denied discussing her post-election activities with her husband.
In her statement, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms Thomas called it an “absolute rule” that she and Justice Thomas never speak about cases pending before the Supreme Court. “It is laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think that I could influence his jurisprudence – the man is independent and stubborn, with strong character traits of independence and integrity,” she added.
The interview ended months of negotiations between the committee and Ms. Thomas over her testimony. Committee investigators had been particularly interested in his communications with John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who was in close contact with Mr. Trump and had written a memo that Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans likened it to a coup plan.
“At this point, we’re glad she came,” Mr. Thompson said.
After Ms Thomas appeared on Thursday, her lawyer Mark Paoletta said she was “pleased to cooperate with the committee to dispel misconceptions about her activities surrounding the 2020 election”.
“She answered all questions from the committee,” Paoletta said in a statement. “As she said from the outset, Ms. Thomas had serious concerns about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election. And, as she told the committee, her minimum and general activity was to ensure that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated. Beyond that, she played no role in any event after the 2020 election results. As she wrote in a text to Mark Meadows at the time, she also condemned the January 6 violence. , because she abhors violence from any side of the aisle.
A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment.
Ms. Thomas exchanged text messages with Mr. Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in which she urged him to challenge Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 election, which she called ” breakage,” and said she had reached out to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, about Trump’s efforts to use the courts to hold on to power. She even suggested the lawyer who should be in charge of this effort.
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Ms. Thomas also pressed lawmakers in several states to challenge the election results.
But it was Ms. Thomas’ interactions with Mr. Eastman, a conservative lawyer who pushed Vice President Mike Pence to block or delay certification of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, that most interested investigators.
“He’s a witness,” Mr Thompson said Thursday. “We haven’t accused her of anything.”
The panel obtained at least one email between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman after a federal judge ordered Mr. Eastman to turn over documents to the panel from the period after the November 2020 election when he was meeting with conservative groups to discuss the fight against the election. results.
That same judge said it’s “more likely than not” that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman committed two crimes as part of the effort, including a conspiracy to defraud the American people.
Mr. Paoletta argued that the communications between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman were of little value to the committee’s investigation.
Ms Thomas’ co-operation comes as the January 6 committee enters its final months of work after a summer of high-profile hearings and prepares a detailed report, which is expected to include recommendations on how to deal with the threats to democracy put forward. highlighted by the riot. and Mr. Trump’s desire to cancel the election.
The interview came just days after the panel abruptly postponed a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, citing the hurricane battering Florida. The hearing has not yet been postponed.
Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and member of the committee, said Ms. Thomas’ interview showed that “people continue to cooperate with the committee and understand the importance of our investigation.”
The panel has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and received hundreds of thousands of documents and more than 10,000 submissions to its whistleblower line since June.
“There’s a lot more information coming in all the time,” Raskin said.
He said committee members had viewed thousands of hours of video footage and tapes but wanted to be “disciplined” about how they would present them at the next hearing.
“There are certain people who are going to speak out against whatever we do, whatever happens,” he said. “We just want to be able to complete the narrative and then make our recommendations on what needs to be done to protect American democracy from coups, insurgency, political violence, and election sabotage in the future. .”
Maggie Haberman and Catherine Edmondson contributed report.