MINNESOTA

Fond du Lac Band demands action from high schools after racist social media conversation circulates

The exchange about Native Americans was between students from Cloquet and Esko high schools. 

By Jana Hollingsworth Star Tribune

 

MARCH 23, 2022 — 7:11PM

ALEX KORMANN, STAR TRIBUNE

Kevin Dupuis, chairman of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, posed for a portrait at the Cloquet Forestry Center last March. The chairman has asked leaders of two nearby school districts to act on students’ racist speech aimed at Native Americans.

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DULUTH — The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is demanding a response from leaders of nearby school districts after a racist and threatening Snapchat conversation between two students was shared on social media late last week.

The exchange between a student from Esko High School and another from Cloquet High included a desire for the Cloquet school to be bombed so "all natives die." It continued with other derogatory remarks about Native American people.

"We are horrified and saddened by the ignorant and racist statements of students from schools where many of our Native youth attend," Fond du Lac Chairman Kevin Dupuis Sr. wrote in a letter to the superintendents of the Esko and Cloquet school districts.

"We want to receive an immediate response from the school districts and school leadership on how you intend to address this situation, not only with the specific students involved in the incident but also with the larger student body community."

Native American students make up about 14% of the Cloquet Public Schools enrollment. Part of the Fond du Lac Reservation, which has its own K-12 school, is in Cloquet. About 1% of Esko students are Native American.

In a statement, Cloquet schools superintendent Michael Cary said the district would not tolerate racial profiling or racist or hate language. He apologized "for the harm this language has done or may do to our students, families and community."

Cary said the Snapchat exchange event "will lead to appropriate disciplinary action, individualized education targeting these racist beliefs, and restorative practices to address the harms caused by ignorance."

Esko superintendent Aaron Fischer offered a similar statement, saying the incident doesn't reflect the district's values, but the administration shares "responsibility in shaping the character of our students."

"In addition to addressing the offenders, we will renew our ongoing efforts to build a culturally competent school community free of intolerance, ignorance and hate," he said.

Cloquet and Esko are the latest Minnesota schools where racism has surfaced on social media or at sporting events. Officials are investigating and responding to recent incidents in Edina, New Prague, Minnetonka, Prior Lake and the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale School District.

Racism within Cloquet schools is ongoing, said Lynn Olson, a Fond du Lac Band member whose granddaughter and grand-niece attend the high school.

"This is really affecting my girls," said Olson, who met with Cloquet school leaders after she saw the Snapchat screenshot. "This will traumatize and stay with the kids forever."

She said she wants the involved students to apologize to the Native community, and for school leaders to do more, including requiring curriculum that would educate students about Native American oppression and genocide.

Matthew Williams, a sophomore Cloquet High hockey player, said some teammates mocked Native Americans in the locker room, making fun of such traditions as pow wows and dress.

Williams said the players didn't know he was Native American until the Snapchat exchange ignited conversation about racism and he shared his heritage. Some apologized, he said, "but I feel like there is a lot of work to be done." A lifelong hockey player, he said he is hesitant to continue with the team.

Tia Tokkesdal, a Fond du Lac band member and Cloquet graduate, said she is hoping for more transparency from officials.

She said Cloquet school leaders "made remarks over the loudspeaker and put an e-mail out. But they're not being transparent about the actions they took with the students or what they will do to prevent this in the future. … Our community deserves to know the outcome."

School administrators declined to comment on disciplinary details, citing privacy laws.

Dupuis, in his letter, asked Cary and Fischer to meet and discuss with band leaders how they'll work to prevent "racist and violent rhetoric" from students.

"We need to ensure that our students remain and feel safe in the public schools they attend," he said.

Both superintendents have since met with tribal leaders.

Jana Hollingsworth writes about the Duluth/Superior region. She joined the Star Tribune in 2021. Sign up to receive the new North Report newsletter.

Ginni and Clarence Thomas Have Done Enough Damage

Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images

March 25, 2022

JESSE WEGMAN
OPINION

NEW YORK TIMES

EDITORIAL
Mr. Wegman is a member of the editorial board.

What did Justice Clarence Thomas know, and when did he know it?

The question usually gets directed at politicians, not judges, but it’s a fair one in light of the revelation on Thursday that Justice Thomas’s wife, Ginni, was working feverishly behind the scenes — and to a far greater degree than she previously admitted — in a high-level effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

As The Washington Post and CBS News first reported, Ms. Thomas, a supremely well-connected right-wing agitator, was in constant communication with the White House in the weeks following the election, strategizing over how to keep Donald Trump in office despite his incontrovertible loss. “Do not concede,” she texted to Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, on Nov. 6, the day before the major news networks called the election for Joe Biden. “It takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.” (To date, Mr. Trump has not conceded.)

In dozens of messages with Mr. Meadows over several weeks, Ms. Thomas raged over baseless allegations of voter fraud and shared unhinged conspiracy theories, including one that the “Biden crime family” was in the process of being arrested and sent to Guantánamo Bay for “ballot fraud.”

“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Ms. Thomas wrote at one point. “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

Ms. Thomas had already acknowledged some involvement in the fight over the 2020 election count, recently confirming that she attended the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally in Washington, but she said she went home before Mr. Trump spoke to the crowd and before a mob of hundreds stormed the Capitol in a violent attempt to block the certification of Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory. The texts reveal that her efforts to subvert the election were far more serious than we knew.

Now recall that in January, the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Trump’s request to block the release of White House records relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Mr. Meadows had submitted a brief in the case supporting Mr. Trump. The court’s ruling came as an unsigned order, with only one noted dissent: from Justice Thomas.

Perhaps Justice Thomas was not aware of his wife’s text-message campaign to Mr. Meadows at the time. But it sure makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

And that’s precisely the problem: We shouldn’t have to wonder. The Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial body in the country, and yet, as Alexander Hamilton reminded us, it has neither the sword nor the purse as a means to enforce its rulings. It depends instead on the American people’s acceptance of its legitimacy, which is why the justices must make every possible effort to appear fair, unbiased and beyond reproach.

That may seem naïve, particularly in the face of the crippling assaults on the court that Mitch McConnell and his Senate Republicans have carried out over the past six years in order to secure a right-wing supermajority that often resembles a judicial policy arm of the Republican Party — starting with their theft of a vacancy that was President Barack Obama’s to fill and continuing through the last-second confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett while millions of voters were already in the process of casting Mr. Trump out of office.

And yet the public’s demand for basic fairness and judicial neutrality is not only proper but critical to the court’s integrity, as the justices, whoever nominated them, are well aware. Partly in response to the court’s tanking public-approval ratings, several of them have grown increasingly outspoken in defense of their independence. (Though not all of them.)

The most obvious way for justices to demonstrate that independence in practice, of course, is to recuse themselves from any case in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. It does not matter whether there is, in fact, a conflict of interest; the mere appearance of bias or conflict should be enough to compel Justice Thomas or any other member of the court to step aside.

Many of them have over the years, out of respect for the court as an institution and for the public’s faith in their probity. Just this week, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson vowed in her confirmation hearings that she would recuse herself from an upcoming case challenging Harvard’s affirmative-action policies, because of her multiple personal and professional connections to the university. Legal-ethics experts were not even in agreement that her recusal was necessary, but Judge Jackson was right to err on the side of caution.

Justice Thomas has paid lip service to this ideal. “I think the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference,” he said in a speech last year. “That’s a problem. You’re going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions.”

Bench memo to the justice: You know what jeopardizes public faith in legal institutions? Refusing to recuse yourself from numerous high-profile cases in which your wife has been personally and sometimes financially entangled, as The New Yorker reported in January. Especially when you have emphasized that you and she are melded “into one being.” Or when you have, as The Times Magazine reported last month, appeared together with her for years “at highly political events hosted by advocates hoping to sway the court.”

Ms. Thomas’s efforts, and her husband’s refusal to respond appropriately, have been haunting the court for years, but this latest conflagration shouldn’t be a close call. “The texts are the narrowest way of looking at this,” Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and one of the nation’s foremost legal-ethics experts, told me. “She signed up for Stop the Steal. She was part of the team, and that team had an interest in how the court would rule. That’s all I need to know.” He said he has over the years resisted calling for Justice Thomas’s recusal based on his wife’s actions, “but they’ve really abused that tolerance.”

Yes, married people can lead independent professional lives, and it is not a justice’s responsibility to police the actions of his or her spouse. But the brazenness with which the Thomases have flouted the most reasonable expectations of judicial rectitude is without precedent. From the Affordable Care Act to the Trump administration’s Muslim ban to the 2020 election challenges, Ms. Thomas has repeatedly embroiled herself in big-ticket legal issues and with litigants who have wound up before her husband’s court. All the while, he has looked the other way, refusing to recuse himself from any of these cases. For someone whose job is about judging, Justice Thomas has, in this context at least, demonstrated abominably poor judgment.

If Justice Thomas were sitting on any other federal court in the country, he would likely have been required by the code of judicial ethics to recuse himself many times over. But the code does not apply to Supreme Court justices, creating a situation in which the highest court in the land is also the most unaccountable.

This is not tolerable. For years, Congress has tried in vain to extend the ethics code to the Supreme Court. For the sake of fundamental fairness and consistency, the code must apply to all federal judges; it would at the very least force the hand of those like Justice Thomas who seem unmoved by any higher sense of duty to the institution or to the American people who have agreed to abide by its rulings.

The court is in deep trouble these days, pervaded by what Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently called the “stench” of partisanship — a stench arising in no small part from the Thomases’ behavior. It is hard to imagine that the other justices, regardless of their personal politics, aren’t bothered.

No one should have to choose between their devotion to their spouse and their duty to the nation. But Justice Thomas has shown himself unwilling or unable to protect what remains of the court’s reputation from the appearance of extreme bias he and his wife have created. He would do the country a service by stepping down and making room for someone who won’t have that problem.

Jesse Wegman is a member of the editorial board, where he has written about the Supreme Court and national legal affairs since 2013. He is the author of “Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College.”

'Truly extraordinary level of corruption': Legal experts weigh in on Ginni Thomas' texts to Mark Meadows

Bob Brigham
March 24, 2022

Clarence and Ginni Thomas (Facebook)

Legal experts were shocked on Thursday about revelations that the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol obtained text messages sent between Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Watergate reporter Bob Woodward reported on Thursday, "Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in a series of urgent text exchanges in the critical weeks after the vote, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News."

The story was matched by CNN.

"The messages – 29 in all – reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide during a period when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election results," The Post reported. "The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results – and how receptive and grateful Meadows said he was to receive her advice."

Robert Costa, who co-wrote The Post story with Woodward, wrote. "Woodward and I both see this as an unprecedented entanglement between a top official in the Exec Branch and the spouse of a Justice. They are privately discussing strategy, lawyers, managing WH staff, and conspiracy theories."

Legal experts quickly weighed in on the bombshell reporting, which came as Clarence Thomas may or may not still be hospitalized.

Adam Blickstein, who worked in public affairs for the Department of Justice, alluded to the situation when he noted, "We now have more information about Ginni Thomas' illegal attempt to overturn the 2020 election than we do about Clarence Thomas' current medical condition."

"One of the most important questions in politics right now: what did Clarence Thomas know, and when did he know it?" he asked.

Election law lawyer Rick Hasen described it as "astounding" and political scientist Norman Ornstein responded, "Clarence Thomas should resign."

Attorney and Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali did not think Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) should wait for Thomas to resign, counseling that "Democrats should impeach Clarence Thomas." Former public defender Kumar Roa agreed, saying "Impeach Clarence Thomas."

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said, "this seems like a big deal."

"The Supreme Court voted 8-1 that Trump couldn't block the Jan 6th committee from getting docs. The one vote against was Clarence Thomas. Mark Meadows turned over texts from Thomas's wife Ginni Thomas urging efforts to overturn the election. What else was afraid would come out?" CREW wondered.

Former Southern District of New York prosecutor Richard Signorelli wondered if Ginni Thomas referenced her husband in the text messages.

"She is nuts. I would bet that the 'best friend' reference in her texts is her husband," he said.

Jane Mayer, who profiled Ginni Thomas in January for The New Yorker, agreed.

"After talking with her 'best friend,' which is how the Thomases refer to one another, Justice Thomas's wife militates relentlessly for the president's chief of staff to overturn a presidential election," Mayer wrote.

Slate legal correspondent Mark Joseph Stern was shocked when he went through the text messages.

"Ginni Thomas urged Mark Meadows to overturn the 2020 election by any means necessary—while her husband was ruling on cases attempting to overturn the election. A truly extraordinary level of corruption," he wrote. "Look at the absolutely deranged conspiracy theories Ginni Thomas pushed. Fringe doesn’t begin to cover it. She promoted conspiracy theories from a Sandy Hook truther plus QAnon stuff."

Ginni Thomas is ‘red-pilled to the gills’ and a 'heavy duty' QAnon conspiracy theorist: reporter

Bob Brigham
March 24, 2022

Gage Skimore

The bombshell report on text messages Ginni Thomas sent Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows show her not just trying to overturn the 2020 election, but also pushing QAnon conspiracy theories.

Will Sommer, a Daily Beast reporter and the author of a forthcoming book on QAnon, analyzed the text messages Clarence Thomas's wife sent to Donald Trump's top aide.

"They reveal that Ginni Thomas is into some heavy-duty QAnon stuff!" Sommer wrote in a Twitter thread.

"This idea of watermarked ballots being used to catch Democratic voter fraud is big in QAnon, but I'm especially interested in her idea of military 'white hats' (in other words, good guys). That's a key QAnon phrase," he explained. "Ginni Thomas sent Meadows a Steve Pieczenik video about a 'QFS' system. QFS is the 'Quantum Financial System,' an idea of a mythical money system that will bring on a sort of right-wing utopia. Pieczenik is a regular InfoWars guest."

InfoWars is run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

RELATED: Mark Meadows admitted to Ginni Thomas that Sidney Powell 'doesn't have anything' on election fraud

"Finally, Ginni Thomas ref's the idea of Dem elites being imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay — a huge QAnon tell! Interestingly, the text she's pulling from, like 'QFS', is huge on Iraqi dinar forums, raising the possibility that she's an Iraqi dinar fan!" he wrote, linking to a 2019 story he wrote titled, "Trump Fans Sink Savings Into 'Iraqi Dinar' Scam."

He concluded, "Ginni Thomas is dropping deep QAnon lore and may be, as they say on @QanonAnonymous, 'red-pilled to the gills.'"


Sommer wasn't the only one to notice the QAnon allusions.

Mike Rothschild, author of the 2021 book The Storm is Upon Us on the QAnon movement, also confirmed Ginni Thomas was using the language of the conspiracy theory.

"This is QAnon. Ginni Thomas, who is MARRIED TO A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, is completely and utterly Q-pilled - even if she insists she knows nothing about it and has never heard of it," Rothschild said.


Investigative journalist Luke O'Brien, who specializes in researching extremism and disinformation, warned of more violence.

"The FBI labeled QAnon a domestic terrorism threat in 2019. If Ginni Thomas exemplifies the inroads this violent anti-Semitic conspiracy movement has made in high-level Christian conservative circles, we're definitely in for more violence and, possibly, more insurrection," he warned.

Legal experts quickly weighed in on the bombshell report, saying the text messages documented a "truly extraordinary level of corruption."

The King of Kings triumphs!' New texts show Mark Meadows linked Trump's election fight to God

Brad Reed
March 24, 2022

Mark Meadows Facebook

Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows used explicitly religious language in a text message sent to Ginni Thomas to describe Trump's fight to stay in the White House.

As reported by the Washington Post, Meadows texted Thomas after Trump lost the election to reassure her that President Joe Biden would never reside in the Oval Office.

“This is a fight of good versus evil,” Meadows wrote to Thomas on November 24th, weeks after the election had been called for Biden. “Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it.”

Thomas replied enthusiastically.

“Thank you!!" she wrote. "Needed that! This plus a conversation with my best friend just now… I will try to keep holding on. America is worth it!"

RELATED: January 6 Committee obtains text messages between Clarence Thomas' wife and Mark Meadows: report

The texts also show Thomas passing on QAnon conspiracy theories directly to Meadows.

"Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition," she wrote in another text.

Thomas is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who so far has not recused himself from any cases related to January 6th despite the fact that his spouse is a potential material witness.

 None of the Ginni Thomas conspiracy texts fall under executive privilege: George Conway

Matthew Chapman
March 24, 2022

Ginni Thomas (Screen Capture)

On Thursday, following the explosive new report that the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has obtained text communications between former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and far-right activist Ginni Thomas, conservative lawyer George Conway outlined the potential problems the developments create for Trump's inner circle.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, he was quick to stress, may not have actually been seeking to directly shield his wife from investigation when he dissented from the ruling turning over materials from the National Archives to the committee — but, he noted, "it still ain't great".

Furthermore, he noted there is no credible way to claim that Thomas' communications with Meadows fall under executive privilege — which Trump's allies have broadly sought to claim as their reason for not cooperating with the committee, even though President Joe Biden has rejected these claims.

 

 

Justices decide for themselves when to step aside from cases
By MARK SHERMAN and JESSICA GRESKO

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivers a keynote speech during a dedication of Georgia new Nathan Deal Judicial Center in Atlanta, Feb. 11, 2020. Reports that the wife of Thomas implored Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff to act to overturn the 2020 election results has put a spotlight on how justices decide whether to step aside from a case. (AP Photo/John Amis, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Reports that the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas implored Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff to act to overturn the 2020 election results have put a spotlight on how justices decide whether to step aside from a case.

Individual justices make their own unreviewable calls on a court that lacks a code of ethics. And the issue is not always clear, particularly when spouses also have prominent careers.

While the Supreme Court did not step into any election cases brought by Trump and other Republicans, Justice Thomas took part in the consideration of whether to hear those cases. He also was the lone vote to keep House lawmakers investigating the Jan 6. Capitol riot from obtaining contested White House documents.

Thomas did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment made through the court’s spokeswoman. Earlier in the day the court announced he had been discharged from the hospital after a stay of nearly a week while he was treated for an infection.

Thomas’ wife, Virginia, whom he married in 1987, is a longtime conservative activist who ardently backed Trump’s reelection as president in 2020. In the weeks leading up to the election, Thomas used her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent.

Once it was over, Thomas, known as Ginni, sent weeks of text messages imploring White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, furthering Trump’s lies that the free and fair vote was marred by nonexistent fraud, according to copies of the messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

“The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History,” Thomas wrote.

She also urged lawyer Sidney Powell, who promoted false claims about the election, to be “the lead and the face” of the Trump legal team.

In the same period, Powell brought cases to the Supreme Court, which were denied without any noted recusals or dissent.

The court, with Thomas participating, also threw out a challenge from Texas calling on the justices to temporarily set aside electoral votes from four states Biden won — enough votes to potentially undo the outcome. Trump sought to join Texas’ side in the case.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said Thomas should not take part in any future cases about the Jan. 6 investigation or the 2024 election, should Trump decide to run again.

“Judges are obligated to recuse themselves when their participation in a case would create even the appearance of a conflict of interest. A person with an ounce of commonsense could see that bar is met here,” Wyden said in a statement.

But Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh ethics expert, said the Thomas situation reflects the progress women have made in pursuing their own careers and not living in the shadow of their husbands. Judges should distinguish between cases in which their spouses take part and issues on which they have been active, Hellman said. Only the first category requires recusal, he said.

“It’s not absolute. There may be some cases in which the issue is so directly involved in the case that the judge ought to recuse,” Hellman said. “I don’t think see that in the Ginni Thomas situation.”

Ginni Thomas, for her part, downplayed any potential conflict in an interview with the conservative Washington Free Beacon earlier this month, before the text messages’ publication. “Like so many married couples, we share many of the same ideals, principles and aspirations for America,” Thomas said. “But we have our own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work.”

The revelations about Thomas’ texts come at a time when groups have already been calling for ethics guidelines for justices. Congress has also been looking at the issue.

Under federal law, federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, are supposed to recuse themselves when they previously participated in a case or have a financial interest in it or when a close relative is involved. A judge is also supposed to do so “in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” But that’s open to interpretation.

Gabe Roth, of the court transparency group Fix The Court, said an ethics code would help the justices make consistent decisions about recusals. “Every justice sees their own ethical obligations different from one another. There should be some hard and fast rules that everyone follows,” Roth said.

Three years ago, Justice Elena Kagan told a congressional committee that Chief Justice John Roberts was considering whether the court needed its own ethics guide. Nothing has happened since.

Roberts noted in 2011 that the Supreme Court is different from lower courts because no one can step in if a justice recuses. In his year-end report, Roberts wrote that means a justice “cannot withdraw from a case as a matter of convenience or simply to avoid controversy.”

Of course, justices and other judges decide from time to time that they cannot participate in a case because a close relative is involved. Early in his Supreme Court tenure, Thomas sat out a case in which the court ended the Virginia Military Institute’s exclusion of women. His son from his first marriage, Jamal, was a VMI student at the time.

Justice Stephen Breyer routinely doesn’t take part in cases decided in the lower court by his brother, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer. Last year, Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused himself from a case when the court left in place a $2 billion verdict in favor of women who claim they developed ovarian cancer from using Johnson & Johnson talc products. Kavanaugh offered no explanation, but his father, E. Edward Kavanaugh, had earlier headed the trade association that lobbied against labeling talc a carcinogen and including a warning label on talc products.

Roberts and his wife dealt with a potential controversy in a different way. Jane Roberts stopped practicing law and left her position as the unpaid legal counsel to an anti-abortion group, Feminists for Life of America, after her husband became chief justice.

Reports: Wife of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas urged top Trump official to overturn 2020 election


Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and wife Virginia Thomas are seen at a state dinner at the White House hosted by President Donald Trump on September 20, 2019. 

File Photo by Ron Sachs/UPI | License Photo

March 25 (UPI) -- Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, sent a number of text messages to a top White House official in the days after the 2020 presidential election and implored him to take action to throw out Joe Biden's legitimate election victory, according to news reports.

CBS News, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that Thomas had 29 text message exchanges with Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump's chief of staff, in which she urged him to do something to overturn the will of 81 million American voters who cast ballots for Biden.

The messages were part of 2,300 that Meadows provided to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump radicals.

According to the messages, Thomas sent 21 separate messages to Meadows -- which often pushed him on ways to change or challenge the election results.

"Help This Great President [Trump] stand firm, Mark," Thomas wrote in one message on Nov. 10, 2020, according to the reports.

"You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America's constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History."

In January of this year, Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone Supreme Court justice to vote against allowing a release of records from the Trump White House related to the Jan. 6 investigation. 

File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

In other messages, Thomas pointed to disinformation spread by right-wing fringe websites that sought to spread Trump's false claims that widespread voting fraud had cost him re-election. In one, she wrote simply, "do not concede."

Meadows waxed poetic in one of his responses on Nov. 24.

"This is a fight of good versus evil. Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs," his message read. "Do not grow weary in well-doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it."

Thomas never mentioned her husband or the Supreme Court in any of the messages -- but it's noteworthy that Justice Clarence Thomas was one of three dissenters on the high court when it decided in February 2021 to dismiss the remaining challenges to Biden's election. The others were Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee.

The three argued that the case was worth hearing because it could affect future election disputes.

"That decision to rewrite the rules seems to have affected too few ballots to change the outcome of any federal election," Justice Thomas wrote for the minority opinion. "But that may not be the case in the future.

Virginia Thomas and husband and Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas appear at a book event at the Federalist Society in Washington, D.C., on November 15, 2007. File Photo by Roger L. Wollenberg/UPI

"These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority non-legislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is unacceptable."

In January of this year, Thomas was the lone justice to vote against allowing a release of records from the Trump White House related to the Jan. 6 investigation.

Justice Clarence Thomas, 73, has been hospitalized for the past week with flu-like symptoms and missed oral arguments before the Supreme Court this week. The high court has not given an update on his condition.

Russian crew aboard a superyacht possibly linked to Putin have left their jobs, workers say.


March 24, 2022, 
Gaia Pianigiani
New York Times

The superyacht Scheherazade in dry dock in the port of Marina di Carrara in central Italy on Thursday.

Credit...Fabio Muzzi/EPA, via Shutterstock

Russian crew members on a mysterious $700-million luxury yacht that U.S. officials say could be owned by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia abruptly left their jobs and the Tuscan coastal town where it is undergoing repairs a couple of weeks ago amid scrutiny of the vessel, local union leaders and workers say.

The crew members had been fixtures in the small port of Marina di Carrara since the fall of 2020, when the 459-foot-long yacht, Scheherazade, arrived at a dry dock less than four months after being built. No owner has been publicly identified.

“They were replaced by a British crew,” said Paolo Gozzani, the local leader of Italy’s General Confederation of Labor trade union, on Wednesday. “I don’t know and don’t care whether the yacht is indeed Putin’s or not, but I worry about the repercussions on shipyard workers if police impound or confiscate the vessel.”

Workers at the shipyard and regular visitors to its private lounge confirmed that the Russians had routinely supervised the work done on the yacht and had drinks at the bar or played pool there in the evenings. The yacht, estimated by the website SuperYachtFan to cost about $700 million, has two helicopter decks, a swimming pool with a retractable cover that converts to a dance floor and a gym.

This week, the research team of Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, published a video in which it argued, based on a 2020 crew manifest, that a dozen of the Russian crew members of the Scheherazade either worked for or had a connection with Russia’s Federal Protective Service. The team drew the conclusion that the yacht must belong to Mr. Putin or some of his closest aides.

The Scheherazade’s real ownership is hidden by various shell companies. American officials said this month they had found initial indications that it was linked to Mr. Putin but would not describe what information they had.

In an interview with The New York Times this month, the yacht’s captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, declined to disclose the name of the owner, but denied that Mr. Putin owned or had ever been on the yacht. Mr. Bennett-Pearce said Thursday he wouldn’t comment further until an investigation by Italian authorities was finished.

Italy’s financial police have been looking into Scheherazade’s ownership for weeks. Italian investigators wouldn’t comment on Thursday, saying that the investigation was continuing.

In a speech to Italy’s Parliament this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Italy to prevent Russians from vacationing in the country, as well as to freeze their assets, bank accounts and yachts, “from the Scheherazade to the smallest ones.”


Italian authorities have frozen over 800 million euros in assets from Russian oligarchs on the European sanctions list, including villas in Sardinia, Tuscany, Liguria and the Lake Como area, and three yachts.

U.S. Officials Say Superyacht Could be Putin’s
March 11, 2022

Gaia Pianigiani is a reporter based in Italy for The New York Times. @gaia_pianigiani

Historian reveals the disturbing reason why many right-wingers believe Biden’s presidency is illegitimate

Meaghan Ellis, AlterNet
March 22, 2022

Trump supporters at Stop the Steal rally outside Minnesota State Capitol. 

(Photo credit: Chad Davis)

A Georgetown University history professor is shedding light on the real reason why far-right Republicans still believe the unfounded claim that President Joe Biden's presidential win was illegitimate.

While its no secret that election conspiracy theories and false claims of widespread voter fraud have run rampant since former President Donald Trump lost his bid for re-election, there is a reason why Republicans "are convinced the outcome of the election was illegitimate regardless of whether or not there were specific procedural irregularities."

In an analysis published via The Guardian, Thomas Zimmer, a Georgetown University history professor with a concentration on the United States' democracy, referenced a controversial essay written from the perspective of a far-right conservative.

The essay, titled “ ‘Conservatism’ is No Longer Enough,” was penned by conservative writer Glenn Ellmers for The Claremont Institute's right-wing publication, American Mind. Zimmer notes:

"It is notable that Ellmers makes no claim that the 2020 election was 'stolen' – he doesn’t allege manipulation, voter fraud, or conspiracy, and in fact explicitly acknowledges that more people voted for Biden than for Trump. He does not peddle conspiracy theories. Yet Ellmers maintains that the outcome of the 2020 election is illegitimate and must not be accepted."

Zimmer then highlighted another key takeaway from Ellmer's piece:

"Ellmers is outraged precisely because he accepts the fact that a majority voted for Biden, that 'authentic Americans' have become the minority in a country which they are supposedly entitled to dominate. Here we have a striking glimpse of the depth of despair underlying the pervasive siege mentality on the right. What’s scandalous about the 2020 election, in this interpretation, is not that it was “stolen”, but that “un-American” forces straightforwardly won."

Zimmer's analysis also delved into the disturbing ideology behind the majority of Republican voters' thinking in regard to Biden being an illegitimate president.

"What is most alarming is the underlying ideology that leads so many on the right to consider Democratic victories invalid – even if they concede there was nothing technically wrong with how the election was conducted," Zimmer wrote. "It has become a core tenet of the Republican worldview to consider the Democratic party as not simply a political opponent, but an enemy pursuing an 'un-American' project of turning what is supposed to be a white Christian patriarchal nation into a land of godless multiracial pluralism."

Zimmer added, "Conversely, Republicans see themselves as the sole proponents of 'real' America, defending the country from the forces of radical leftism, liberalism, and wokeism."

He went on to explain Republicans' beliefs of the Democratic Party. "Even if they don’t subscribe to the more outlandish conspiracies propagated by Trumpists, many Republicans agree that the Democratic party is a fundamentally illegitimate political faction — and that any election outcome that would lead to Democratic governance must be rejected as illegitimate as well."