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- Emails show Ginni Thomas urged Arizona lawmakers to choose new electors in a bid to challenge the 2020 election.
- She sent emails to Arizona House Speaker Russell Bowers and state Rep. Shawnna Bolick, The Washington Post reported.
- Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence, wrote it was necessary to "fight back against fraud."
Leaked emails show that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, urged Arizona lawmakers to select a "clean slate" of state electors in a bid to challenge the 2020 election, The Washington Post reported Friday.
On Nov. 9, 2020, six days after the election, Thomas, a staunch Trump ally who has been under scrutiny over her efforts to overturn the election, sent separate emails to the Arizona House Speaker Russell Bowers and state Rep. Shawnna Bolick — both Republican members of the House selections committee — to "fight back against fraud and ensure our elections are free, fair and honest."
"Article II of the United States Constitution gives you an awesome responsibility: to choose our state's Electors," Thomas wrote in the email. She went on to ask that they "take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen" and requested a meeting to discuss the topic further, according to the emails obtained by The Post.
Bolick responded in an email the next day on Nov. 10, 2020, advising Thomas to file a complaint about voter fraud or election interference, according to screenshots of the emails tweeted by Bolick on Friday.
"Right now, that is the most productive thing we can do as the lawsuits work their way through the courts, too. From there, we will see our best options moving forward to protect the integrity of the election," Bolick wrote in the response email, per the screenshots shared on her Twitter.
Bowers did not appear to respond to Thomas' emails, according to the records obtained by The Post. Weeks later, on Dec. 4, 2020, he released a statement addressing attempts to reverse Biden's election win in the state, saying "the rule of law forbids us to do that."
"This week, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and others representing President Donald Trump came to Arizona with a breathtaking request: that the Arizona Legislature overturn the certified results of last month's election and deliver the state's electoral college votes to President Trump," he wrote.
"As a conservative Republican, I don't like the results of the presidential election. I voted for President Trump and worked hard to reelect him," Bowers added. "But I cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election."
Bowers' spokesman Andrew Wilder told The Post that the speaker had overlooked Thomas' email as well as hundreds of thousands of others sent to him following the election.
In mid-December, Thomas sent another email to Bolick, saying "as state lawmakers, you have the Constitutional power and authority to protect the integrity of our elections — and we need you to exercise that power now!"
"Never before in our nation's history have our elections been so threatened by fraud and unconstitutional procedures," the email read.
She also told the state lawmakers to "consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don't stand up and lead."
Thomas, Bowers, and Bolick did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The emails sent by Thomas, an outspoken conservative activist, further suggest she may have had a deeper involvement in the Republican effort to challenge President Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. According to a Washington Post report published earlier this year, she sent text messages on several occasions to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pressing him to challenge the 2020 election.
In late March, multiple news outlets reported that the January 6 House Select Committee planned to look into Thomas in connection to their probe into the Capitol riot.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/41cTJXq
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