Virginia Thomas agrees to testify before Jan. 6 committee

Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Virginia Thomas, the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has agreed to sit for an interview with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol building, her attorney said.

Mark Paoletta, Thomas' lawyer, confirmed Wednesday in a statement to The Washington Post that his client has agreed to "participate in a voluntary interview" with the committee.

"As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas is eager to answer the Committee's questions to clear up any misconceptions about her work relating to the 2020 election," Paoletta said. "She looks forward to that opportunity."

The response from Paoletta comes months after the select committee asked Thomas, a conservative activist, for information after it was revealed that she had allegedly attempted to interfere with the election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.

The committee had asked Thomas for the interview in June following revelations that she had urged Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump's chief of staff, in a series of text messages to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Twenty-eight text messages between Thomas and Meadows occurred between the Nov. 4 election and Nov. 24. A 29th message between the pair was sent on Jan. 10.

The text message exchanges were part of thousands that Meadows had provided to the committee, and showed Thomas prodding the then-chief of staff to overturn the will of 81 million American voters who choose Biden to be their president.

"Help This Great President stand firm, Mark," she said in one message dated Nov. 10, 2020, referring to Trump. Others from Thomas falsely called Trump's election defeat a "heist" while repeating widely refuted conspiracy theory claims of voter fraud.

The committee told Thomas that it was also interested in speaking with her about an email exchange she had with John Eastman, a former attorney for Trump who is alleged to have been behind the former president's legal strategy to have then-Vice President Mike Pence overturn the 2020 Electoral College vote, which was being certified Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building.

Paoletta had initially rejected the request for his client to be interviewed by the committee in late June, stating in a letter obtained by The New York Times that "I do not believe there is currently a sufficient basis to speak with Mrs. Thomas."