WASHINGTON (March 28, 2022)—Last week it was revealed that Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had been texting the White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows between early November 2020 and mid-January 2021 to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results. Despite his wife’s efforts on behalf of Donald Trump, Justice Thomas ruled in two cases related to the 2020 election and the work of the Jan. 6 House Committee, being the sole vote on the Court to block release of White House records concerning the attack on the Capitol.
Paul Schiff Berman is the Walter S. Cox Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School and one of the world’s foremost theorists on the interactions among legal systems.
In response to the revelation of Ginni Thomas’ text messages, Professor Berman issued the following statement involving Justice Thomas’ need for recusal:
"Spouses should be able to lead independent lives and so Ginni Thomas' activism does not, in general, require Clarence's recusal. But this is different because the emails suggest that she was deeply involved in the Trump administration's efforts to undo the election. Therefore, the Jan. 6 commission's investigation could reveal further evidence of Ginni's involvement, and as a result Clarence surely should recuse himself from any case involving the insurrection or the work of the commission because it creates an appearance of conflict of interest."
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