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Two months after insurgents stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to help President Donald Trump stay in office, Virginia Ginny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, attended a rally of right-wing activists where a spokesman called a riot Applause that Trump is still the “legitimate president” shows a video of the event.
“There is a robbery going on in this country right now,” pastor and conservative radio personality KL Bryant told the crowd, according to a video posted on Facebook by a witness. “In fact, I am telling you and I will say it loud and clear and I am not ashamed to say it. I will not bite my tongue. I believe that Donald John Trump is the only legitimate president. “
The event on March 6, 2021 was a meeting of Frontliners for Liberty. The group moved from obscurity to national attention last week with the revelation that Thomas had invited pro-Trump lawyer John Eastman to speak to its members in December 2020.
An e-mail revelation that a judge had ordered Eastman to report to the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 uprising revealed that Thomas was in contact with Eastman, a key legal architect of the attempt to undermine the election. Judge David O. Carter of the Central District of California wrote in a June 7 statement that emails, including two in which the group’s “high-profile leader” invited Eastman to speak, were relevant to the committee’s work.
While text messages and emails unveiled in recent weeks indicate that Thomas was involved in the effort before Jan. 6, her presence at the Orlando rally shows that her alliance with the denial election continues even after Joe Biden took office. Frontliners hosts hard-line lawmakers, insists on top secret, and declares the nation’s biggest enemy to be the “radical fascist left,” according to social media posts, court documents and interviews with several members of the group.
A photo from the Orlando event shows Bryant posing with Thomas. Others point out that Thomas wears a name tag adorned with a yellow ribbon that she and others wore with the words “Problem Maker.”
Thomas did not respond to comments. Bryant also did not respond to a request for comment.
Thomas’ role in Frontliners was confirmed on Thursday when Eastman published an email inviting him to speak with the group on December 8, 2020. The email was one of many Eastman was trying to defend related to the group, which was not identified in court files. Eastman claims that putting them on the committee would violate the rights of participants in the First Amendment.
The group said it was acting in what was meant by a “cone of silence”, Eastman wrote in a May paper. He quotes an email he received from the group, saying: “We are careful who is on the phone and who is in the room and we do not reveal what is happening, what is being said or who is at the meeting – never!”
Eastman downplayed the significance of the invitation on Thursday, writing that Thomas had asked him to “update the election lawsuits of a group he met with periodically.” He wrote that he had not discussed “any pending or likely pending issues” with Thomas or her husband.
The Commission has not sent any emails to Frontliners. He requested an interview with Thomas and asked her to transfer communications with a number of people, including lawyers supporting Trump, members of Congress and Justice Department officials. That’s what Thomas told the conservative Daily Caller last week that he looked forward to meeting with the committee and “can’t wait to clear up the misconceptions.”
The revelations about Thomas’ activities highlighted potential conflicts of interest that her husband faces in resolving cases in the 2020 elections and trying to undermine them. Clarence Thomas has not resigned from any of these cases, including the one in January in which he was the only judge to support Trump’s request to block the January 6 issue of White House documents.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman did not answer questions about Clarence Thomas.
Ginny Thomas said she kept her job separate from her husband’s.
Members described Frontliners for Liberty as a loose coalition of conservative activists. Conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks provides significant institutional support, including briefing group members and hosting “flights” when members gather in person, according to former New Mexico lawmaker Janice Arnold-Jones and a second person familiar with Frontliners operations who spoke. on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the group.
FreedomWorks has partnered with Frontliners, but the two are separate entities, FreedomWorks spokesman Peter Vicenza wrote in an email to The Washington Post.
“Ginny Thomas has been an invaluable ally of our activist community for years when it comes to engaging on common issues,” Vicenza wrote. “Thomas herself was a staunch conservative activist, and FreedomWorks is proud to work with her.
In an email invitation to Eastman, Thomas copied another recipient and said the man – whose name has been edited – is helping to organize the meetings because “I’m on Saturday until these election issues are resolved.” It is unclear how her role on Saturday leave differed from what it was before.
Arnold-Jones told The Post that Thomas is not the only leader of the group. “It’s more common than that,” she said in an interview. “She is part of it. Sometimes we see Ginny.
Arnold-Jones said the group maintains strict confidentiality, “so people can say what they have to say.” She said the group has a critical networking function, connecting state activists with lawmakers and other decision-makers. But such details are being discreetly shared, she said. “When information is shared, they don’t send a big old letter saying, ‘Here’s their phone number.'”
Frontliners for Liberty has no online presence except for a private Facebook group of about 50 people, founded in August 2020 and administered by Ginny Thomas and Stephanie Miller Coleman, the widow of one of Clarence Thomas’ former employees. Coleman did not respond to a request for comment.
The Post reviewed the group’s public description on Facebook last week. It has since been removed from the public domain. The group was described as “a new joint, freedom-focused, action-oriented group of state leaders representing local armies to CONNECT, INFORM and ACTIVATE each other on a weekly basis to maintain constitutional governance”.
The banner at the top of the page read: “America’s enemy … is the radical fascist left.”
Coleman’s Facebook page included photos of Ginny and Clarence Thomas and other high-ranking Washington figures, including former Trump White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon. In a 2015 photo, Coleman poses with Ginny Thomas, who wears a needle that says “I [heart] my husband ”and a name tag identifying the event they attended as“ Thomas Clerk’s World Retreat ”.
Former Clarence Thomas employees communicate in an email list known as Thomas Clerk World, The Post reported earlier. In the weeks after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Ginny Thomas apologized to those on the email list for the rift that developed between her after her advocacy for Trump and support for his January 6 rally. Eastman is a former Thomas official.
Since The Post reviewed Coleman’s photos last week, she has made most of her Facebook page private.
Speaking at a March rally in Orlando, Bryant said the nation was embroiled in a “spiritual war” and called on those present to “stand up and defend this republic.” He condemned the change in definitions of marriage, family and gender, and repeatedly returned to the idea that the presidency had been stolen.
“It was a theft, I tell you. This was the biggest theft America has ever experienced. But we’re still sitting here with a man in the White House who’s cheating there, “Bryant said. “My friends, you should not be afraid to say that. You don’t have to be afraid to say it. “
Bryant, pushing the crowd into action, asked, “What are you ready to do?” He added, “I believe Ginny asked that question. We will just leave here with rah rah, will we continue our work? “When you leave here tonight, what are you ready to do?”
It is unclear whether he meant Ginny Thomas. Photos from the event show her speaking with a microphone at an outdoor gathering.
The video was posted to a Facebook account owned by John Di Leme, a podcast host and founder of the Conservative Business Journal.
Di Leme told The Post that he was not affiliated with Frontliners, but heard Bryant’s speech after he and his wife went to lunch and dinner with a friend who was attending the meeting.
Attendants at the Orlando rally included a wide range of FreedomWorks employees, from a local organizer who later pleaded guilty to an illegal demonstration in the Capitol during the Jan. 6 uprising to senior economist Stephen Moore, who was elected Trump’s seat. of the Federal Reserve Council, but withdrew from consideration after bipartisan criticism of his comments on women.
Other attendees included former U.S. lawmakers, political candidates and conservative activists such as Ron Armstrong, a Michigan businessman who rose to national prominence to protest coronavirus restrictions, and Brian Kamenker, president of MassResistance, who has been identified as anti-LGBT. hate group from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Moore said that he remarks on many similar events and does not remember details about …
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