Trump’s missing calls, Ginni Thomas texts, and judicial ethics

What do Ginni Thomas' texts to Trump aides reveal about her involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election and what questions do they raise about judicial ethics?

Air Date: March 31, 2022 10:00 am

File photo: Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, arrives to watch Amy Coney Barrett take the Constitutional Oath on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington,Oct. 26, 2020, after Barrett was confirmed by the Senate earlier in the evening. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Text messages between Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows came to light last week. Following the 2020 election, Thomas sent 29 texts urging Meadows and aides to not let former President Trump concede the election and referenced many ‘Stop the Steal’ conspiracy theories. Thomas has also acknowledged attending the January 6^th rally that preceded the Capitol attack. These revelations about the direct communication between Thomas and the White House about efforts to overturn the 2020 election have raised serious questions about Justice Thomas’ failure to recuse himself from election related cases.

CBS News’ ROBERT COSTA, who first reported on Thomas’ messages, joins us to talk about what the texts reveal and the ethical issues they raise. And, we’ll ask him about another story he broke this week: over seven hours of former President Trump’s phone call log on January 6, 2021 are missing.

Then, we’ll turn to the issue of judicial ethics and look at why there aren’t firmer rules about recusal for Supreme Court Justices. New York University Law School’s STEPHEN GILLERS joins us.

The Washington Post, Jan. 6 White House logs given to House show 7-hour gap in Trump calls – The House select committee is now investigating whether it has the full record and whether Trump communicated that day through back channels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones, according to people familiar with the probe

The Washington Post, Virginia Thomas urged White House chief to pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 election, texts show – In messages to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks after Election Day, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called Biden’s victory ‘the greatest Heist of our History’ and told him that President Donald Trump should not concede

The New Yorker – Legal Scholars Are Shocked By Ginni Thomas’s “Stop the Steal” texts – In an e-mail reacting to the texts, Gillers concluded, “Clarence Thomas cannot sit on any matter involving the election, the invasion of the Capitol, or the work of the January 6 Committee.”

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