jane no one knows more about clarence
thomas's work no one no reporter knows
more uh and so i've been eager to talk
to you about this um
you you raised these questions very
dramatically in your reporting two
months ago before we knew of the
existence of these text messages what do
these text messages add to the story
uh lawrence fiscal thank you so much for
having me on it's really great to be
with you and um
i i think what we've seen is in in a
kind of a granular way
um just how fringe
um the ideology is of jenny thomas and
also how she
uses her husband's entree to people
um high up in the trump administration
in order to um basically berate the the
chief of staff in this case into over
and over and these these messages are
relentless saying that he has to act to
overturn biden's victory um and and so
you you really kind of see her in action
in this and you see much more closely
how deeply involved she was and sort of
the plotting and the planning and the
scheming of the coup
um which is um just
i i mean
um as you say i'm somebody who's been
writing about this and reporting on this
for a very long time but i i i was i i
find some of the texts shocking
uh jane one of the things i find
shocking about clarence thomas's
behavior uh and within this story all of
his behavior is shocking is
he knows when this decision is coming
down that he should recuse himself from
he knows there are eight votes
he is going to be the only dissenter the
only one and even at that point
he does not recuse himself his his vote
was going to mean absolutely nothing and
he still did it he still and lawrence
tribe's view violated the law
well i as you say this is a law that has
no enforcement and so he's kind of
laying down the gauntlet here and maybe
um giving us a preview of what's to come
i mean one of the things that's
interesting about this
is this story is far from over um there
are other cases that are involving
january 6th and they sort of the plot to
overturn the the 2020 election that seem
you know sort of steamrolling their way
towards the supreme court and the one of
them involves john eastman um the lawyer
who advised um trump to on on how to
um and and tried to get pence to um to
step in and not um you know certify the
electors um it and and
and that case his his papers
have now been ruled that they have to be
turned over to the committee um and he
surely will be appealing this to the
supreme court and how can clarence
thomas sit on that particular case too
is going to be a big issue i think it's
there will be a ruckus if he does
uh jane there's a stunning line uh on
the last page of your reporting two
months ago in the new yorker about
clarence thomas and his wife and it says
for lawyers involved in cases before the
supreme court it can be deeply
disturbing to know that jenny thomas
is an additional opponent
you
describe several cases in which ginny
thomas is definitely a player on one
side of the that case uh cases that end
up in the supreme court
i mean in in one instance she you know
she's she um has a business as a sort of
a political consultant in in one
instance she was actually paid by a
client
who had an amicus brief in front of the
supreme court so at the time that her
husband was considering this case and
the the client is frank gaffney
while clarence thomas was sitting on
that particular case
uh jenny thomas was earning over two
hundred thousand dollars from frank
gaffney and none of this was disclosed
at the time i mean it these are really
serious conflicts and if you talk to the
most um
revered experts in judicial ethics
they're they're they too are shocked
right now um and and you know the
problem is as you've said there's
there's no mechanism really for for um
requiring a justice to recuse other than
potentially an impeachment which is a
very far out possibility but the damage
that gets done by this sort of thing it
really undermines the credibility of the
court and respect for the court it's
exactly the kind of thing that the chief
justice roberts has said that he's
worried about
and clarence thomas himself has said you
know he worries that the the justices
may be seen as just political well i
mean what could be more political than
his wife's role in all of this uh you've
studied these two uh both mr and mrs
thomas
you've spoken to people who know them
very well
is it conceivable to you
that on january 6th the day that we now
know and and you didn't know two months
ago but that we now know
uh virginia thomas was at donald trump's
rally on january 6th that at dinner time
that night while the capitol is still
occupied while the police are still
trying to clear the capitol that
clarence thomas and virginia thomas are
sitting at the dinner table and virginia
thomas never says to her husband
i was at donald trump's rally this
morning is is that
possible
well i mean you know
anything's possible but it's is it
probable i think it's you know just uh
you don't have to be a reporter you just
have to be a human being to know that
that's going to be that that seems a bit
far-fetched and also you can see in
these texts that she talks about she
mentions to to meadows and one of them
that she has just talked to what she
describes as her best friend which seems
very much like coded language likely for
clarence thomas because they've they've
described each other as their each
other's best friends so uh you know i
mean it doesn't seem possible that he
wouldn't understand that she's deeply
involved in this and it's it's not just
from the texts also i mean you can see
that there were fights inside a list
serve that he has that that clarence
thomas has a list serve of his former
court clerks and this this this issue of
of what to do about the election came up
and jenny thomas was apparently quite
vocal in it and created a sort of a
ruckus on that
um
you know and her
she has said that she was there
um and she has um gone on to facebook
and sort of kind of cheered on the
protest so i mean there there are a
million red flags here and there and
there's also some red lines and they
seem to have been crossed
[Music]
you