In the days and weeks after then-President Donald Trump's election loss in 2020, dozens of Arizona lawmakers received emails from the wife of a US Supreme Court justice urging them to help overturn the result. The Washington Post, which reported last month that Virginia "Ginni" Thomas had emailed two state lawmakers, says records obtained under Arizona’s public records law show that she contacted no fewer than 29 state lawmakers, more than half the Republicans in the state legislature, on Nov. 9, telling the 22 state House members and seven senators they should "ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen."
The message from Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, told lawmakers that the responsibility to choose electors is "yours and yours alone," though it is voters, not state legislatures, that choose electors, the Hill notes. Some 22 Arizona House members and one senator also received emails from Thomas on Dec. 13, a day before the Electoral College confirmed Biden's victory, saying, "Before you choose your state's Electors … consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don't stand up and lead."
Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers, one of the recipients of Thomas' emails, said in a Dec. 4, 2020, statement that he "cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election." Thomas allies have sought to downplay her emails attempting to overturn the election results, which were sent using FreeRoots, a tool that makes it easy to send prewritten letters to numerous officials, the Post reports. Critics have urged Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from election-related cases, but both Thomases insist that their careers are separate and that he has no conflict of interest. (More Virginia Thomas stories.)