While the world focuses on a black man slapping another black man for an offense to his black wife, the real story of a black man defending his white wife’s alleged criminality is getting short shrift—Virginia ‘ Ginni’ Thomas wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. Ms. Thomas is amassing a checkered history of irrational behavior. In 1981, Anita Hill, then-assistant to Clarence Thomas, who worked for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, accused Thomas, then-assistant secretary, of sexual harassment. A memorable and debasing Senate confirmation hearing—for all parties, was held for Thomas after his nomination by George H.W. Bush to the Supreme Court in 1991.
Apparently, Ms. Thomas holds grudges…
Nineteen years later, Ginni Thomas phoned Anita Hill and left a message demanding an apology be made to her husband. According to Ms. Thomas’ family, it is not that the call was a surprise but that it took so long. Her ultra-conservatism eventually led her to the organization Lifespring (labeled by some as a cult), the Tea Party, and ultimately the insurrection of January 6th. She made stops along the way with Liberty Central, whose aim was to fight the “leftist” agenda of former President Obama and the Heritage Foundation. Ginni seems to treat conservatism as a religion, and as her former pastor [Rodney Wilmoth] once said, “There’s a kind of naivete about her, a kind of innocence you have to be careful with; Ginni is a very, very trusting person—she once invited a homeless man out to lunch with her in a fancy Washington restaurant...I’m sure that’s one of the reasons she was very susceptible to this group. She was looking for spiritual growth and trusted those people would do the right thing.”
What some might dismiss as Ginni Thomas’ eccentricities are becoming a real Constitutional problem. Her husband is a sitting Supreme Court Justice who refuses to recuse himself from cases involving his wife’s work even in the face of apparent conflict. In the 2011-12 SCOTUS session, Ginni Thomas’ aforementioned group, Liberty Central, founded by the Justice’s wife, opposed the Affordable Care Act politically and financially, which Thomas voted to curtail. After the insurrection of 1/6, the House Select Committee subpoenaed records leading up to the violence and sedition. The case landed on the docket of the Supreme Court and seemed an easy case to resolve. Eight of the nine Justices decided the committee had the right to all pertinent documents, except Justice Clarence Thomas; coincidence, I think not.
On March 22nd, the questioning of candidate Ketanji Brown Jackson by Senator Richard Blumenthal threw me for a loop. I had no idea that the Supreme Court has no formal ethics rules, like every lower court in the land. Ginni Thomas, who had unfettered access to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, sent a series of texts messages espousing QAnon theories, adherence to the Big Lie, and general paranoia. Just as the story hit the news of her contact with Meadows, her husband conveniently came down with coup-like symptoms that took him out of the spotlight and sparked the GOP to invoke the poor wife defense. I am not sure why they bothered. The party that has abandoned ethics, morality, and patriotism sees cheating surely as a virtue.
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