The New York Times Magazine 53insurrection — ‘‘[Note: written before violence in
US Capitol]’’ — but she had also lamented Trump’s
loss in a message to ‘‘Thomas Clerk World,’’ a
private email group used by Ginni Thomas and
former clerks and their spouses that is typically
reserved for more anodyne pleasantries. Her use
of the forum prompted a bitter debate among the
former clerks that soon leaked. It started on Jan.
17, when Smith, the Notre Dame professor, shared
an article from Christianity Today denouncing the
Jan. 6 violence. Among those who weighed in was
Eastman, who was a speaker at the rally. ‘‘Rest
assured that those of us involved in this are work-
ing diligently to ascertain the truth,’’ he wrote.
Eastman then used the Thomas email group
to invite ‘‘those of you interested in more infor-
mation’’ to get in touch, prompting Smith to
reply that he hoped everyone agreed ‘‘that
the search for truth doesn’t in any way justify
insurrection, trying to kidnap and assassinate
elected offi cials, attacking police offi cers, or
making common cause with racists and anti-
Semites’’ because ‘‘such things are fl atly con-
trary to authentic Christian faith.’’ (Details of
Eastman’s role continue to emerge, including
a message he sent to Pence’s top lawyer during
the Capitol attack blaming the vice president
for refusing to overturn the election; he repeat-
edly cited the Fifth Amendment in refusing to
answer questions from the Jan. 6 committee.)
By Jan. 18, Ginni Thomas felt compelled to
issue a semi- apology on the forum, which also
leaked. ‘‘I have likely imposed on you my life-
time passions,’’ she wrote. ‘‘My passions and
beliefs are likely shared with the bulk of you, but
certainly not all. And sometimes the smallest
matters can divide loved ones for too long. Let’s
pledge to not let politics divide THIS family,
and learn to speak more gently and knowingly
across the divide,’’ adding, ‘‘I am certainly on
the humble side of awareness here. ’’
In the year that has passed, Ginni Thomas
has deleted one of her two Facebook accounts
and has taken a lower profi le. But she remains
active. Last year, she invited Gov. Ron De Santis
of Florida to join a Ground swell call, describing
her group as a ‘‘cone- of- silence coalition’’ in an
email to his staff that was obtained by American
Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group. She
invoked her husband, telling De Santis’s aides
that the justice had been in contact with the
governor ‘‘on various things of late.’’ (De Santis,
who did not respond to requests for comment,
was in the midst of a number of high- profi le
federal court battles at the time.)
The battle over the election did not land
before the court as Bush v. Gore did in 2000.
But in February 2021, as Trump and his asso-
ciates continued pressing for state lawmakers
to audit — and reverse — the 2020 election,
Justice Thomas sharply dissented when a 6-to-3
majority rejected the case brought by Pennsyl-
vania Republicans that the court had refused to
take up in December. Echoing the arguments
advanced by C.N.P. Action, he wrote that leg-
islatures have the constitutional authority to
determine how federal elections are held, yet
in 2020, ‘‘nonlegislative offi cials in various States
took it upon themselves to set the rules instead.’’
He called the refusal by his colleagues to hear
the case ‘‘inexplicable,’’ arguing that ‘‘allegations
of systemic maladministration, voter suppres-
sion, or fraud’’ go ‘‘to the heart of public con-
fi dence in election results. That is obviously
problematic for allegations backed by substantial
evidence. But the same is true where allegations
are incorrect.’’ In other words, election disputes
and claims of fraud carried as much weight — and
should lead to court hearings, just as Trump and
his supporters had wished — whether they were
true or not. ‘‘By doing nothing,’’ Thomas contin-
ued, ‘‘we invite further confusion and erosion of
voter confi dence.’’ He did concede in a footnote
that the 2020 presidential election had been ‘‘free
from strong evidence of systemic fraud.’’Though the battle for the presidency is over,
the Thomases are winning in the war for the
courts — and, some would argue, the country.
Some of the most important issues Ginni Thom-
as has worked for are now barreling toward a
Supreme Court redefi ned by Trump, where her
husband is ascendant. Landmark cases loom.
One major test will be elections, particularly
after Biden’s Justice Department sued Geor-
gia over a new voting law that the department
said discriminates against people of color. The
Supreme Court has already agreed to review
race- conscious admissions programs at Har-
vard and the University of North Carolina, set-
ting the stage for a dramatic reversal on affi rma-
tive action, as Justice Thomas has long sought.
And Roe v. Wade appears likely to be hollowed
out, if not overturned: The court, with Thomas
as the lone dissenter, recently allowed abortion
providers the right to challenge a Texas anti-
abortion law, though a conservative majority,
joined by Thomas, declined to block the law’s
enforcement in the meantime. And oral argu-
ments in another recent case suggest that there
may be enough votes to uphold a Mississippi
law banning abortion after 15 weeks. Justice
Thomas seemingly used his questions to press
for a full reversal of Roe v. Wade, demanding:
‘‘If I were to ask you what constitutional right
protects the right to abortion, is it privacy? Is
it autonomy? What would it be?’’
Such performances have made him a hero
to many on the right. Brigitte Gabriel, a Coun-
cil for National Policy stalwart who once said
that ‘‘every practicing Muslim is a radical
Muslim’’ — and whose activism Ginni Thomas
once praised in a glowing Daily Caller column— called Justice Thomas ‘‘the real chief justice’’
during December oral arguments and tweeted
a doctored photo in which every justice had his
face with the caption: ‘‘This would be a Supreme
Court with Courage.’’
‘‘I love calling it the Thomas court,’’ said Helgi
Walker, the former Thomas clerk. ‘‘He didn’t
change. That’s why it’s been wonderful to watch
this arc. The infl uence he exerts comes from the
power of his ideas,’’ she continued. ‘‘That’s what
his legacy is built on.’’
In September, Justice Thomas stood before
the audience at the University of Notre Dame.
Asked what he thought was the biggest mis-
conception the public has about the Supreme
Court, he said: ‘‘I think that they think that we
make policy. I think the media makes it sounds
as though you are just always going right to your
personal preference. So if they think you’re anti-
abortion or something personally, they think
that that’s the way you always will come out.
They think you’re for this or for that. They think
you become like a politician. And I think that’s
a p r o b l e m .’’
He told his audience that when he talked to
his clerks about the real meaning of their work,
‘‘why we do what we do,’’ he insisted that ‘‘it’s
not about us. It’s not about winning and losing
at the court. It is about the entire country and
the idea of this country.’’
Last summer, the Thomases took a road trip in
their 40-foot Prevost bus, repeating visits to R.V.
parks and Walmart parking lots that they have
made to 42 states over more than two decades.
The couple fi nd such journeys restorative, a way
to travel semi- anonymously in places where
they feel more politically at home. (‘‘It’s the best
of America,’’ Ginni Thomas once said.) Justice
Thomas lamented at Notre Dame that ‘‘a notable
pessimism about the state of our country’’ had
taken hold, with some Americans believing that
‘‘America is a racist and irredeemable nation’’
and seeking to ‘‘cancel our founders.’’
There are still people who have faith in the
country and what it stands for, but it was on the
road and beyond the East Coast elites that the
couple found those Americans, at least in Justice
Thomas’s telling. ‘‘My bride and I, Virginia, we
were R.V.ing in the mountains of North Caroli-
na and Tennessee. And we noticed something
there,’’ he said. ‘‘The large number of fl ags of
people who still believe in the ideal of this coun-
try, in an environment when there’s so much
criticism, antagonism, and actually people with
disdain for the very same. It was very interest-
ing to be with regular people for three weeks.’’
Here, far from Washington, far from the news
media, far from ‘‘the interest groups,’’ far from
anyone who recognized him at all, was where
he — where they — were at home.
‘‘There are many more of us, I think,’’ he told
his listeners, ‘‘who feel that America is not so
broken as it is adrift at sea.’’Thomases
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