‘Of Course He Should’ve Recused Himself!’ Toobin on Report That Clarence Thomas’ Wife Was Involved in Effort to Overturn Election

Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was in communication with an attorney as he was trying to overturn the presidential 2020 election, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday night.

Citing three people involved with the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation into the 2021 Capitol riot, the Post said emails between Ginni Thomas and John Eastman demonstrate “that Thomas’s efforts to overturn the election were more extensive than previously known.”

Eastman was a central figure in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, but claimed was stolen from him. The attorney drafted a memo claiming that Vice President Mike Pence could thwart the certification of the election on Jan. 6, 2021.  He also spoke at that day’s “Save America” rally. His antics led one Trump White House attorney to advise him to get a criminal defense attorney, which he has since done.

The Supreme Court tossed multiple election-related lawsuits brought by the Trump team.

CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin reacted to the breaking news on Wednesday night’s AC360.

“The fact that Ginni Thomas was emailing with him doesn’t mean at all that she was involved potentially in criminal activity,” Toobin said. “But it is yet another sign that she was intimately involved in the whole effort to overturn the election, which is her right under the First Amendment. The issue is why was Clarence Thomas, her husband, sitting on cases that were relevant to January 6 and has continued to sit in these cases?”

As the New York Times reported in March,

Justice Thomas has been Mr. Trump’s most stalwart defender on the court. In February 2021, he wrote a dissent after the majority declined to hear a case filed by Pennsylvania Republicans that sought to disqualify certain mail-in ballots. And this past January, he was the only justice who voted against allowing the release of records from the Trump White House related to the Jan. 6 attack.

Anderson Cooper asked Toobin, “Do you think he should recuse himself?”

“Of course he should’ve recused himself!” replied Toobin. “I mean, his wife is intimately involved in this issue. I’m not saying it’s unlawful what she did, but it is a clear conflict of interest.”

It is unclear what, if anything, Clarence Thomas knew about his wife’s efforts to overturn the election in its immediate aftermath.

In response, an incredulous John Yoo, who authored the Bush torture memos, bizarrely claimed, “I don’t think Ginni Thomas was involved in any effort to overturn the election,” despite mountains of evidence to the country.

Ginni Thomas went so far as to try to persuade 29 Arizona lawmakers to set aside Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Cooper asked Yoo if he thinks Thomas should have recused himself from such cases.

“Yeah, that’s a good question,” he replied.

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