A source familiar with the committee's investigation told CNN that the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack has email correspondence between conservative attorney John Eastman and Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The individual who talked with CNN would not elaborate on the nature of the emails or clarify whether they were private conversations between the two or part of a broader group exchange. The emails were initially revealed by the Washington Post.
The emails were part of a batch of messages provided to the committee after a federal judge ruled that Eastman's correspondence was relevant to the committee's investigation into former President Donald Trump and efforts to sway the 2020 presidential election in the months leading up to January 6, according to a separate source.
There has been some discussion of including Thomas' participation in the drive to overturn the election results in any of the committee's future public hearings, but sources emphasized that the panel's calendar is already quite packed and that there is no plan at this time.
Thomas, for one, looks willing to engage with the panel if it requests an interview with her. "I'm looking forward to dispelling myths. I'm excited to speak with them "In an interview published Thursday, she told the conservative publication The Daily Caller.
CNN reached out to Thomas for comment, but he did not answer. Eastman's lawyers and a spokeswoman for the House select committee both declined to comment.
The committee's Democratic member, Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, would not confirm that the emails were in its possession, but he did tell CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night that the hearings would only contain information the committee deemed was relevant to the investigation's objective.
In answer to a query regarding including Thomas in the committee's hearings, Aguilar said, "The committee will not be hesitant about requesting more information from those who have information pertinent to the inquiry."
"We're not talking about specifics," the California Democrat said, "but these hearings are pretty much set in stone, and we look forward to fitting this jigsaw together for the American public and disclosing what we know so far."
Eastman was the mastermind of a smear campaign against then-Vice President Mike Pence. He said that Pence had the legal right to prevent the election results from being certified. It was a hypothesis that Pence eventually dismissed, much to the chagrin of Trump and his followers. Eastman also worked as a clerk for Clarence Thomas at one point.
According to CNN, between Election Day and January 6, Ginni Thomas was in constant touch with then-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, pushing him to keep working to reverse the election results.
Thomas has stated several times that her political engagement is unrelated to her husband's Supreme Court employment.
Clarence Thomas took part in Supreme Court cases involving 2020 election disputes and dissented when the entire court declined to hear a challenge to Pennsylvania's mail-in voting methods in February 2021. He backed up the idea that election fraud is a threat to the United States.
"We've been fortunate in that many of the cases we've encountered have just included inappropriate regulation revisions, rather than fraud. However, that remark is of little consolation "he penned "Election trust is not just based on the absence of significant evidence of systematic fraud." There were no other justices who agreed with him.
In January, Thomas was the lone dissenter on the court's decision to allow the National Archives to provide thousands of papers from the Trump White House to the January 6 committee, despite the former President's attempt to claim executive privilege.
Thomas has declined to disqualify himself from issues involving the 2020 election.
The House select committee has considered including Ginni Thomas' participation in the attempt to reverse the election in its probe, according to sources, but has yet to bring her in to speak or issue her a subpoena.
NYT: Eastman claimed insight into Supreme Court infighting overtaking 2020 election case
Eastman claimed in December 2020 that there was a "heated fight" among Supreme Court justices over whether to hear arguments about the then-efforts President's to overturn the 2020 election results, according to The New York Times, and another pro-Trump attorney suggested that "'wild' chaos" on January 6 could prod the high court to act.
According to the New York Times, John Eastman discussed the alleged infighting in an email to Kenneth Chesebro and Trump campaign executives on December 24, 2020, in the hopes of persuading Supreme Court justices to consider an election lawsuit, according to two persons informed on the contents of the email.
"So the chances are dependent on an estimate of the judges' spines, and I understand that there is a hot struggle brewing," Eastman allegedly wrote, referring to the need for a case to be heard by at least four justices. "For those ready to do their job, we should assist them by providing a Wisconsin cert petition to add to the mix," he continued.
"Odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there would be 'wild' pandemonium on Jan. 6 unless they rule before then, whichever way," Chesebro told the Times.
According to the New York Times, the exchange was part of a group of emails obtained by a House select committee investigating the riot at the US Capitol, and it occurred days after Trump called for a "wild" protest at the Ellipse near the White House on January 6, 2021, the day the electoral votes were due to be certified by Congress.
CNN has not authenticated the allegation, and it is unclear what real insight Eastman had into Supreme Court justices' thoughts if any.
The Supreme Court was contacted by CNN for comment, but the January 6 committee declined on Wednesday night. Chesebro and an attorney representing Eastman did not reply to requests for comment from the New York Times.
According to the New York Times, there was a request in the email exchange that the Trump campaign pay for the attempt to get a matter before the Supreme Court, which may have been refused.
When asked about the email exchange, Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin, a member of the January 6 committee, said Thursday that it "does imply that there were at least some individuals working in right-wing legal circles to attempt to force the Supreme Court into action."
"We will report that he said that," Raskin said on CNN's "New Day" if there is evidence of Eastman's statements regarding what was going on among the Supreme Court justices.
Raskin cautioned, "That doesn't always indicate it's true." "He could have been telling the truth about what he knew on the inside. On the other hand, it's possible that he had a backchannel relationship with the Supreme Court, which we'd like to investigate if that's the case. To see if the same persons who were setting up a backchannel to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, and the domestic violent extremist movement were also setting up a backchannel to the Supreme Court of the United States of America."
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