jenny thomas the wife of supreme court
justice clarence thomas may be getting
caught up in the probe of the january 6
capital riots the washington post
going ahead and reporting texts from
thomas to white house chief of staff
mark meadows were part of a number of
documents turned over to congress as
part of the investigation to bring us
more about this story we want to bring
in fox 5's sharon crowley and sharon
this is a major development amid these
confirmation hearings this week
yeah it certainly is jenny thomas who of
course is married to supreme court
justice clarence thomas uh sent text
messages to then the white house chief
of staff under former president donald
trump and it was clear she wanted to see
former president donald trump have a
second term that is the nature of the
text messages and there are more than
two dozen of them and now those text
messages are part of a congressional
investigation into the capital riots
supreme court justice clarence thomas's
wife jenny finding herself caught up in
the probe of the january 6 capitol riots
jenny thomas a conservative activist has
long been a vocal supporter of former
president donald trump the washington
post reports jenny thomas sent to then
white house chief of staff mark meadows
about two dozen text messages that are
now part of an ongoing congressional
investigation into the january 6th
insurrection she reportedly texted
meadows multiple times urging him to
overturn the election results in the
weeks after joe biden was declared the
winner jenny thomas also recently
admitted to being at the pro-trump rally
held before protesters stormed the
capitol but she says she played no role
in planning the events of that day there
are many lawsuits some of which have
already reached the supreme court but
more are on the way
that revolve around the january 6
insurrection
and judges are supposed to be impartial
in judging any issue including this one
alan sanders is an associate professor
emeritus of political science at saint
peter's university when an issue reaches
the supreme court in a matter that
either the justice or his or her spouse
has been personally involved then it
seems quite clear that at that point
whether or not the justice would be fair
or not in the matter but for the
appearance of justice it's quite clear
that the justice should recuse himself
or herself sanders says while no law may
have been broken the optics of a supreme
court justice's spouse being entangled
in this type of investigation simply
doesn't look good this is a very
concerning matter
and it's one that raises questions about
the impartiality of the court and about
the impartiality of justice thomas
himself
now we should point out that uh there is
no evidence that in any of those text
messages that were sent that there's any
mention of justice clarence thomas and
also the congressional committee that is
investigating the capitol riots has not
asked to speak to jenny thomas the
justice's wife of course they did want
to speak to mark meadows of former white
house chief of staff and he was found in
contempt of contempt of congress if you
will because he refused to cooperate
and are we hearing from thomas about
this he's had kind of a rough week he
just got released from the hospital
what's his reaction yeah they said he
was just released from the hospital with
an infection but wasn't coveted but uh
he is on the mend he is not actually
commenting on this but we have learned a
little bit more about what might have
been in those text messages and it's my
understanding that she was jenny thomas
was emphatic with mark meadows wanted
trump to have a second term and urged
him even after the november elections
not to concede she really wanted meadows
to get that message to trump so the idea
that she was
she's always been a supporter of trump's
and very conservative activists so that
part wasn't surprising but the idea that
now she's embroiled in this and those
text messages are part of evidence yeah
and i want to get into the nature of
those text messages in a second but um
we're not hearing from thomas himself
but we're hearing from senator mcconnell
i want to read out what he has said he
says justice thomas is a great american
and an outstanding justice i have total
confidence in his brilliance and
impartiality in every aspect of the work
of the court so a republican of course
speaking in favor of justice thomas
yes and in fact it's likely that he will
recuse himself there's already a number
of lawsuits that have made it to the
high court to the supreme court and more
likely to be coming in the next couple
of months and so it's it's pretty
certain that justice thomas when he's
recovered and back on the bench if you
will will probably refuse himself from
anything that his wife was involved with
and they have that authority there's no
rule that you know they have to do that
it's really to their discretion but it's
likely he will yeah and so let's go back
into those texts uh explain the urgency
behind these tax two meadows
yeah well they started there are about
two dozen text messages that jenny
thomas sent to uh the former white house
chief of staff mark meadows and they
came between november of 2020 and into
january of 2021 right and around the
capitol riots and
she's really pressing him to make sure
that uh trump doesn't concede she wants
to do whatever can be done to try to
overturn the results of the election so
she was really pushing what many have
called the big lie
and of course legal experts saying that
he likely will recuse himself from
any of these cases concerning january 6
but did they say anything
about coming out and making a statement
would that be smart for thomas to do in
these circumstances yeah i i highly
doubt it and i say i don't have any
inside track into justice clarence
thomas but i can tell you it is highly
unlikely they are much more likely to
say less than more on any case
especially ongoing invade investigations
and especially because there are so many
lawsuits before the high court
having to do with january 6th he
wouldn't want to do anything that would
jeopardize a case that's already pending
one way or another even if he plans to
recuse himself right sharon quite the
bombshell to be coming out uh during the
confirmation hearings for judge jackson
right no and i covered those every day
every hour uh the long grueling hours
that judge jackson faced and she's
already said that she's going to recuse
herself from a case involving harvard
university in affirmative action because
of course she went to harvard university
and harvard university law school and
she sits on a harvard university board
right now so she's already saying if
she's confirmed that she would recuse
herself so i expect that justice
clarence thomas would do the same thing
in this case no doubt uh any last
thoughts on confirmation hearings and
this story as well
oh on judge jackson yep
yeah i i think that because the
democrats have the majority that even if
she gets no republican support that she
will certainly uh sail through this even
if you can call it sailing after what
she's been through this week but um
because they have the tie-breaking vote
if they need but with the vice president
but there may be some republicans lisa
murkowski there may be some republican
senators who decide to put their support
behind her because everybody's watching
everybody's going to be watching the
vote we do expect it to happen before uh
easter before april 17th
uh they're hoping to get this one
through quickly and quietly and
especially because a lot of republicans
uh voted for her to get her a position
on the federal appeals court circuit
before this senator lindsey graham
though uh may not be one he supported
her in the past but it doesn't look like
he's going to back her this go right
we're hearing maybe two or three
republican senators could vote in favor
of her senator mcconnell though on the
floor saying
explicitly no i will not be voting for
her so
mcconnell being outspoken about all
these stories today concerning certainly
yes no doubt uh sharon crowley thank you
so much uh covering all of the supreme
court news we appreciate it that's right
okay thanks so much all right talk to
you soon have a good weekend