Jan. 6 Committee's harassment of Ginni Thomas ends without even a whimper

You may recall how giddy Democrats and their media friends were this summer when the Jan. 6 committee trained its guns on Ginni Thomas. The focus on Mrs. Thomas, they hoped, would lead to a double-play — taking down a prominent conservative activist and embarrassing (at a minimum) her conservative Supreme Court Justice husband in the process.

I wrote about this development here and here. I thought that although some of the post-election efforts of Ginni (whom I know) in furtherance of Donald Trump’s challenge of his election defeat were misguided, the Committee’s decision to drag her into its investigation was “unprincipled overreach.” There was no reason to believe that Ginni’s efforts played any role in the rioting of Jan. 6 or that she had done anything more than exercise her rights as an American (albeit for a dubious cause).

When Ginni nonetheless expressed her willingness to appear before the Committee, I wondered whether this was a good idea. The Committee clearly would be hostile and, in the absence of any sympathetic Republican members, the proceeding would be badly one-sided.

But I was encouraged when Mark Paoletta, a friend of ours and a long-time friend of Mrs. Thomas and her husband, stepped in to represent Ginni.

The questioning of Ginni Thomas went forward and the Committee has issued its lengthy report. That report contains no mention of Ginni. This confirms, I think, that she played no role in the Jan. 6 events and never should have been called before the Committee.

In light of this development, Mark Paoletta has issued the following statement:

Ginni Thomas is not mentioned once in the January 6th Committee’s 845-page final report. Nor was Mrs. Thomas mentioned in any of the Committee’s hearings. This was unsurprising, as the facts and. . .transcript demonstrate that Mrs. Thomas’s post-election activities were minimal and mainstream, and the committee had no legitimate reason to interview her.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Thomas was happy to meet voluntarily with the Committee for an interview lasting four hours to clear up the misconceptions about her activities surrounding the 2020 election. She answered every question by Committee lawyers and members to the best of her recollection. And she fully cooperated with the Committee’s investigation.

As she told the Committee, Mrs. Thomas had significant concerns about potential fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, and her minimal activity was focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated. Beyond that, she played no role in any events following the 2020 election. She also condemned the violence on January 6, which was reflected in one of her texts to Mark Meadows at the time. In short, the Committee discovered nothing new because there was nothing to discover.

Yet the Left and its allies in the media have subjected Mrs. Thomas to a malicious and unrelenting assault since the 2020 election with unsubstantiated smears. These attacks were further fueled by someone on the Committee leaking her texts and emails — a despicable act.

Despite all the vitriol directed towards Mrs. Thomas, the Committee concluded that none of her activities merited a single mention. To any fair observer, that conclusion was obvious from the beginning.

I agreed that the events of January 6 should be investigated by Congress, and found some the Committee’s work worthwhile and even illuminating, But the Democratic leadership, by excluding dissenting voices from the Committee, undermined the degree to which non-Democrats would credit its work. The Committee then undermined itself with a series of one-sided, carefully edited or canned presentations (as I discussed in my series of reports on the hearings).

The Committee’s pursuit of Ginni Thomas is another chapter in this sad saga.