Business

Inside the consulting firm run by Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas


(LR) Deputy Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with his wife and conservative activist Virginia Thomas arrive at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Drew Angerer | beautiful pictures

Virginia “Ginni” Thomas runs a little-known consulting firm that some campaign monitoring groups say could create another conflict of interest for her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Ginni Thomas is nationally famous after the text message appeared last month shows that she promoted the former President Donald Trump then chief of staff Mark Meadows in late 2020 to try to overturn the presidential election results. Messages are reminded call from top Democrats to Clarence Thomas repurposing himself from reconsideration cases of the January 6, 2021 riots on Capitol Hill. It also led to calls by lawmakers on Capitol Hill to create a full-fledged Supreme Court Ethical Rules. The House Select Committee investigating what happened on January 6 is said to be looking for a interview with Ginni Thomas.

A spokesman for the Supreme Court did not return a request for comment. Attempts to contact Ginni Thomas through an email listed on her website have not returned. The site appears to have been removed since the recent reports of her messages with Meadows.

Very little is known about her firm Liberty Consulting, which is listed as property according to her husband’s Supreme Court disclosures. CNBC was able to find some of her conservative clients by scrutinizing her Virginia business records, tax forms, Federal Election Commission records, personal financial disclosure documents, and more. through interviews with people familiar with her work. Even so, watchdogs say such documents may not fully reveal who she represents and whether those groups are involved in any court cases, raising the stakes. more calls for more transparency.

‘Very problematic’

Separate career

Ginni Thomas, in a recent interview with the Washington Free Beacon, pushed back against any potential conflicts of interest from her work. “We have our own careers and our own ideas and views. Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me and I don’t let him get involved in my work either,” she said. recently told publication. She credited her work to Liberty Consulting in that interview but did not disclose it to her client.

However, Democrats, including the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumersaid they wanted to continue with create A code of ethics for Supreme Court justices may include more specific disclosure requirements.

In the case of Ginni Thomas, the court’s financial disclosure forms only showed that she received salary and benefits from her company, without disclosing specifics, and it recorded the book value of the company. enterprise.

Located in a casual clothes mall in suburban Virginia, some of Liberty Consulting’s lesser known clients include the Center for Security Policy, a nonprofit run by a conservative activist. allegedly anti-Muslim establishment, to a political action committee called FedUp PAC, according to a review of public records by CNBC and researchers at the Document watchdog. The political action committee backed failed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, according to Center for Responsive Politics data. Moore was charged with sexual misconduct and has denied wrongdoing.

The Center for Security Policy was founded by Frank Gaffney Jr., a former Reagan administration defense official who was flagged by the Anti-Defamation League for promoting “certain anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.” Both Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy are among the group of supporters who have applied amicus briefly with the Supreme Court upholding Trump’s travel ban. The center paid Liberty Consulting more than $200,000 over the course of two years, from 2017 and through 2018, according to 990 tax disclosure reports from those years. The company’s first job for the Security Policy Center report by The New Yorker.

Liberty Central

Thomas is also believed to have worked for companies that are affiliated with conservative legal counsel Leonard Leo, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to speak freely on the matter. . Ginni Thomas counts Lion as a mentor, according to The Washington Post. Leo previously served as a director of Ginni Thomas led by a conservative nonprofit called Liberty Central during the administration of former President Barack Obama, according to 990 tax disclosures. Ginni Thomas has boasted that she wants the organization “bigger than a tea party” and is targeting Obama’s agenda, including the Affordable Care Act, the Post reported.

In 2010, Ginni Thomas earned more than $120,000 as president and chief executive officer of Liberty Central that year, according to tax filings 990. The nonprofit was closed. Clarence Thomas is Between In 2012, a group of Supreme Court justices disagreed with the majority opinion, in favor of Obama’s signed health insurance law, the Affordable Care Act, as constitutional. He later stand to the side of with a majority in favor of Republican defiance legislation in 2021.

Leo was involved in helping shape the Supreme Court into what it is today, including Advise Trump on the best person to choose for the supreme court. Trump’s court selection of Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have found support from groups backed by Leo and his allies as they are in the midst of Trump’s battles. Senate on their nomination. The Daily Beast report that CRC Advisors, Leo’s company, had been tasked with promoting a documentary about Clarence Thomas.

Support Trump

Outside groups run by allies of Leo have advocated supporting Trump’s nominees and have since taken aim at the President. Joe Biden’s court choice, consists of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Like their anti-progressive groups, Leo-bound organizations are known as “dark money” nonprofits who don’t disclose their donors to the public. Leo recently create 85 Fund is part of a wide network of organizations seeking to influence policy, judicial nomination and the larger conservative movement.

FedUp PAC, chaired by conservative political advertising veteran Richard Viguerie, paid Liberty Consulting $5,000 during the 2018 election cycle for what it describes in PAC filings as video production. The name Liberty Consulting and the address listed in the Federal Election Commission disclosure match the name of the company run by Ginni Thomas. The PAC then backed Trump during the 2020 election cycle, spending more than $100,000 to support the then commander-in-chief. Liberty Consulting was not paid by the PAC for any work during that cycle, federal campaign disclosure data shows.

Bob Mills, who is listed as the director of super PACs on his website, did not recall the specific work Liberty Consulting conducted for the organization when initially approached by CNBC and did not respond to follow-up emails. More details on request.

Ginni Thomas’s LinkedIn profile says she has worked since 2010 as the founder and president of Liberty Consulting with “citizen activists, leaders, and nonprofits to succeed.” public and impactful in defending the principles that make America so special – giving strategic advice, building alliances, connecting people and projects (this is a passion and my joy!).” Thomas notes on her page that she’s not a lobbyist, though Virginia state records show the company was once called Liberty Lobby.

Beth Rotman, country director for political currency and ethics at watchdog Common Cause, told CNBC that the new ethics law governing Supreme Court justices should require them to disclose more details. about their spouse’s consulting contract.

“Disclosure has to be robust for it to really make sense in this context, so financial disclosure should include consulting contracts. As you’ve seen, when the judges complete the report. Every year, they list information that doesn’t provide a complete view of their spouse’s financial relationship,” Rotman said in an email. “It is important for meaningful disclosure that the rules are updated to include the source and amount of any spousal counseling contracts that exceed a reasonable minimum threshold.”

Leo and representatives of most of the groups mentioned in this story also did not return requests for comment. A spokesman for the House Select Committee on January 6 declined to comment.

Business boom

While it’s unclear how much Ginni Thomas made from the consulting firm, Liberty Consulting appears to have seen a business boom before Trump’s 2016 victory.

Clarence Thomas’ financial disclosures show that in 2014, the company’s cash market value was listed as being valued at up to $15,000.

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However, in 2015 and subsequent years, the company’s listed book value skyrocketed, according to public disclosures. Thomas’ disclosure report from 2015 shows the company to be worth between $15,001 and $50,000. It held at that value through 2019, when the business appeared to have had its best year ever with a book value of $100,001 to $250,000.

Trump is impeachment that year by the Democratic-led House of Representatives for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch an investigation into the US President’s political opponents during the preparations for the 2020 election. Trump later acquit of the Senate, which at the time was controlled by Republicans. Trump has said the call with Zelenskyy was “perfect” and denied wrongdoing.

Her company value fell back from $15,001 to $50,000 in 2020, the same year Trump lost the White House.



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