“The View” attempted Tuesday to sell the narrative that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was instrumental in encouraging the January 6th riot on Capitol Hill.
Co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, and Sunny Hostin suggested during Tuesday’s broadcast of the midday talk show that Justice Thomas was violating an unwritten code of ethics by not recusing himself from any cases involving the riot, claiming that his wife was “sort of very involved.”
A New York Times article published on Tuesday reported that Ms. Thomas was involved with the January 6 rally at the Ellipse that preceded the riot, citing an organizer who “said he was told that Ginni Thomas played a peacemaking role between feuding factions of rally organizers.”
The View peddles the long-debunked lie that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarance Thomas, "holds a leadership position" among the Capitol rioters and was part of a plot "egging on an insurrection." pic.twitter.com/zLtiXlDnf9
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) February 22, 2022
“So, New York Times Magazine looks at concerns over the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who’s been a vocal supporter of the 2020 election fraud lie and the January 6 protesters,” Goldberg began. “Now, Justice Thomas was the lone dissenter on the court who supported you-know-who’s request to keep his records from the January 6th Committee. I kind of feel like this could be an issue, but what do you think? Is there something wrong here?”
Hostin agreed, complaining as she has in the past that the Supreme Court does not have to abide by the same strict code of ethics and behavior that restrains other appointees to the federal bench.
“The thing about the Supreme Court is that it’s just not bound by the same rules that other federal judges are bound by. Like, we’re thinking that this doesn’t look right, that there’s an appearance of impropriety … They just don’t have that same code of conduct,” she said. “And so, he hasn’t recused himself with these cases that his wife is sort of very involved in.”
Hostin went on to note that Thomas had recused himself when a case concerning a military academy came before the court while his son was in attendance, arguing that he should also step back from cases regarding January 6th.
“Why not this time, when his wife was intimately involved in politics?” she asked.
“It’s unbelievable to me,” Behar agreed. “This is unprecedented, we’ve never seen this before.”
Hostin went on to say that judges had to recuse themselves if their spouses were party to specific litigation or were officers or trustees of an involved party.
“So it’s kind of slicing it pretty thin when Justice Thomas is saying, ‘Well my wife’s not really — not really a party, she’s not really a director of these organizations,’ but she holds a leadership position,” Hostin continued to complain, and Behar asked how the right might respond if Justice Sonia Sotomayor had a friend who was “egging on an insurrection.”
According to a Politifact fact-check published on January 11, 2022, Thomas did write social media posts on January 6, 2021, cheering on the protests and rally-goers — but after the situation turned violent, she amended those posts to clarify that they were written before the situation had devolved. Later rumors that she had paid to charter buses to take protesters to the Capitol — or had been involved in organizing the protest in any way — were determined to be false.