Justice Thomas' TEA Party Wife Virginia Contacts Prof. Anita Hill

by Karen Hatter | October 20, 2010 at 08:18 am

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In an action that has puzzled many, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Virginia 'Ginni' Thomas, contacted Brandeis University Professor Anita Hill, leaving a message on Professor Hill's voice mail, stating she would "love" for Professor Hill to consider offering an apology to her husband for her testimony, which occurred at his confirmation hearing nineteen years ago, in 1991.

Professor Hill testified during the Senate confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, in excruciating detail, of enduring sexual harassment at the hands of Clarence Thomas while working with him.

Hill, who is a professor at Brandeis University, turned the message over to campus security with a request that they contact the FBI. Ginny Thomas has since released a statement describing the message as an "olive branch."

The assumption in Thomas's voicemail seems to be that Hill was lying in sworn testimony nearly two decades ago, or at least exaggerating events, when she told Congress in detail about sexual harassment she said she had suffered at the hands of her boss, Clarence Thomas. Hill claimed that Thomas "spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes." She said he spoke of his own sexual prowess and once joked that someone had put a pubic hair on his soda can.

JusticeThomas' wife has formed a TEA Party organization Liberty Central. She has been very active in the TEA Party circuit, leaving her job, stating, "We've got to get the Constitution back to a place where it means something, or we're headed for tyranny."

This newfound yen for activism apparently has a personal side as well. A couple weeks back, Ginny Thomas called Anita Hill, the woman who had accused her husband almost 20 years ago of sexual harassment, to ask for an apology. "I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband," she said on the message, according to several reports. Hill, who is a professor at Brandeis University, turned the message over to campus security with a request that they contact the FBI. Ginny Thomas has since released a statement describing the message as an "olive branch".

Update and note of interest:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Virginia 'Ginni' Thomas, has stepped down as the head of the TEA Party organization Liberty Central, allegedly to have a less public role in the organization.

Liberty Central, the political nonprofit, nonpartisan but anti-big government and tea party-supporting organization founded by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, is "led by a principled and dedicated team that actively listens to others," according to the organization's website.

Specifically, some of those others include right-leaning hosts Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin and Glenn Beck, according to her bio.

UPDATE: As of 2011, Virginia 'Ginni' Thomas has a new job heading up a TEA Party consulting and lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting.

Supreme Court spouse Ginni Thomas has a new job — as the head of a Tea Party lobbying firm called “Liberty Consulting.” Her new firm, which promises to give “voice to principled citizens and the tea party movement in the halls of Congress through governmental affairs efforts” also offers a very unusual service to its clients:

Liberty Consulting offers advice for short or long term projects and bringing resources to bear for impact — whether it includes a short term bill-reading project, assistance on congressional oversight efforts or an effective coalition for impact. Additionally, Liberty Consulting offers advice on optimizing political investments for charitable giving in the non-profit world or political causes.

Ginni Thomas’ new career advising clients on how to donate money to political causes is striking in light of the fact that this career path was much more difficult to break into just one year ago. In Citizens United v. FEC, Ginni’s husband Clarence cast the key fifth vote enabling corporations to spend unlimited money influencing U.S. elections. As a result of this vote, outside groups spent nearly $300 million influencing the 2010 elections — much of which would have been illegal before Justice Thomas greenlighted this spending.

Also at NowPublic:

Smoke and Mirrors: The Role of the TEA Party in American Politics

Glenn Beck and Elements of the Right Wing

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YankeeJim

at 08:46 on October 20th, 2010

I did a treatise on this as well.

Karen Hatter

at 10:31 on October 20th, 2010

Despite any possible protestations that may occur to the contrary, Jim, this has the stink of a stunt for attention. After close to 20 years, she calls Professor Hill.

For the most part, only those who know of her through TEA Party circles are aware of who she is. In 1991, this issue was so divisive during the hearings, it is almost a given she'll get lots of political mileage from this.

I understand why the Professor turned over the tape to campus police to investigate.

To get this call, out of the blue, given the animosity evidenced by ALL parties involved, I think anyone would find it creepy.

Mrs. Thomas' activism raises some interesting concerns as to whether, given her Supreme Court Justice husband may be called upon to rule from the bench on any number of issues that have been the focus of lobbying efforts by Ginni Thomas.

Whether he has to recuse himself or not, there is an appearance of possible impropriety, since Mrs. Thomas' uses adjectives like "leftist" and "tyranny" when describing the Obama administration.

For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington — since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court.

But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.

It is the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation’s highest court, and Mrs. Thomas is just getting started. “Liberty Central will be bigger than the Tea Party movement,” she told Fox News in April, at a Tea Party rally in Atlanta.

But to some people who study judicial ethics, Mrs. Thomas’s activism is raising knotty questions, in particular about her acceptance of large, unidentified contributions for Liberty Central. She began the group in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors. Such tax-exempt groups are supposed to make sure that less than half of their activities are political.

Mrs. Thomas, known as Ginni, declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed without an agreement not to discuss her husband. In written responses to questions, Sarah Field, Liberty Central’s chief operating officer and general counsel, said that Mrs. Thomas is paid by Liberty Central, with the compensation set by the group’s board, and that the group has “internal reviews and protections to ensure that no donor causes a conflict of interest for either Ginni or her husband.”

YankeeJim

at 10:30 on October 20th, 2010

The Judge's wife is a politician and she has crossed the line, corrupting the Judge who must recuse on countless subjects as he has an apparent conflict of interest. The fact that Judge Thomas' wife made this move indicates that the Judge may be tainted.

Karen Hatter

at 10:40 on October 20th, 2010

I think I agree, Jim. I love the part in the released statement that says they make sure there's no conflict.

I question whether that is even possible or a credible response, where political activism is concerned. It could be a great many cases brought before the Supreme Court can be connected to political activity in some form.

Someone should honestly pursue taking issue with Justice Thomas not recusing himself on the Citizens United case. With the missus raising funds anonymously, possibly from some of the very sources that benefited FROM that ruling; that's kinda dicey!

nanute

at 11:00 on October 20th, 2010

And apparently there is more to the Clarance Thomas saga:

Remember the bizarre Coke can/pubic hair stuff? Hill wasn’t the first one who heard it from Clarence.

…some of the behavior Hill complained about resonated with episodes from Thomas’s past. Hill described an episode in which Thomas, drinking a soda, asked, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?” James Millet, a college classmate of Thomas’s, recalled “an almost identical episode” at Holy Cross. “Pubic hair was one of the things he talked about,” another classmate said. Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson, in “Strange Justice,” found two others who recalled a pubic hair-Coke can comment at the EEOC.

And Hill wasn’t the first woman he harassed.

Former EEOC employee Angela Wright described how Thomas pressured her to date him, showed up uninvited at her apartment and asked her breast size. “Clarence Thomas would say to me, ‘You know you need to be dating me. . . . You’re one of the finest women I have on my staff,” Wright told Senate investigators.

Wright’s account was corroborated by Rose Jourdain, a former speechwriter who, like Wright, was dismissed by Thomas. Jourdain said Wright had complained that she was “increasingly nervous about being in his presence alone” because of comments “concerning her figure, her body, her breasts, her legs.”

As for Hill’s allegation that Clarence loved him some porn, that too is backed up by other eye witnesses.

As a young federal bureaucrat in Washington, Thomas rented adult videos from Graffiti, a store of Dupont Circle. It was there that Fred Cooke, the former D.C. corporation counsel, saw him at the checkout line during the late 1980s with a copy of The Adventures of Bad Mama Jama, a triple-X-rated flick featuring the sexual exploits of a hugely overweight black woman with abnormally large breasts. Cooke was both struck and amused that the chairman of the EEOC was a consumer of such smut.

When Will Clarence Thomas Apologize for Being a Liar and a Creepy Asshole?

Karen Hatter

at 11:39 on October 20th, 2010

Nanute, what was most enraging about this issue was, at the time, since he was a conservative, Clarence Thomas was allowed to play that thing they call the 'race card', claiming the scrutiny of his possible inappropriate behavior was a " .... high tech lynching."

That was enough for the committee to close the hearings and confirm him, while sending wave after wave of copy to attack Ms. Hill because she came forward, assuming folks may want to know the kind of guy they were putting on the Supreme Court for the rest of his life or until he voluntarily stepped down.

For months, after the closing and confirmation, this information and similar information was discovered, supporting Ms. Hill's original contentions.

They've even talked to friends and acquaintances during his college years and many recall his 'blue' humor re: sex.

So, this time around, seems Ginni may have picked the wrong time to re-open this can of worms.

nanute

at 11:46 on October 20th, 2010

Just like the last time around, in true conservative fashion, the Thomas'(s) will claim victim hood.

Karen Hatter

at 12:31 on October 20th, 2010

Nanute, you are most assuredly correct on that observation!

YankeeJim

at 14:22 on October 20th, 2010

The American public is victim of a Supreme Court Justice of had pubic on his mind. Since his wife and he brought it up, let's let it all hang out. Impeach Justice Thomas.