Trump’s criminal trials could 'embarrass' Ginni and Clarence Thomas: ex-federal prosecutor
Even after she testified before the January 6 Select Committee in 2022, far-right GOP activist Ginni Thomas continued to embrace the Big Lie and maintained that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump — a claim that conservative then-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) and others on the Committee repeatedly debunked.
In an article published by Politico on December 21, former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori lays out the implications that Trump's legal problems have for Ginni Thomas and her husband, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Two of the four criminal indictments that Trump is facing are related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results —one being prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the other by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for the State of Georgia.
According to Khardori, there is both good news and bad news for the Thomases where Trump's indictments are concerned.
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The good news for the Thomases, Khardori writes, is that Ginni Thomas probably doesn't have any legal exposure. The bad news is that Trump's prosecutions could seriously "embarrass" and humiliate the Thomases.
"If Trump proceeds to trial in the Justice Department prosecution and is found guilty of the alleged offenses, then Ginni Thomas will come off looking even worse for immersing herself so thoroughly in his lies, for repeating his bogus conspiracy theories and for lobbying White House and state officials to do his corrupt bidding," Khardori explains. "Justice Thomas would go down in history as a Supreme Court justice whose spouse participated in an unprecedented, illegal and corrupt effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in this country."
Khardori, however, seriously doubts that Ginni Thomas has any "criminal liability" and argues that a "far likelier scenario" is that she actually believes Trump and his allies' claims of election fraud but did not break any laws in the process.
But that lack of "liability," Khardori writes, doesn't mean that Justice Thomas shouldn't recuse himself from any Supreme Court cases involving Trump and the 2024 election. Trump is claiming that Smith's election interference case against him should be thrown out because he was still president in late 2020 and early 2021 and therefore, enjoys "immunity" from prosecution — a claim that Smith totally disagrees with and is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to evaluate as soon as possible.
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"Justice Thomas should recuse himself because Ginni Thomas — an apparent true believer in Trump's election-fraud claims — is a victim of Trump's alleged crimes," Khardori argues. "That means that both Ginni Thomas and Justice Thomas have a direct reputational stake in the outcome of the proceedings — one that further calls into serious question the justice's ability to render an independent decision strictly on the merits of either case."
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Read Ankush Khardori's full op-ed for Politico at this link.
