1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

NEW: Joe Biden recently rejected an attempt top Trump aide Dan Scavino to assert executive privilege in order to avoid testifying to the Jan. 6 select committee.

The letter was among documents the committee will use to hold Scavino in contempt tomorrow.




Here's how Peter NAVARRO responded when first contacted by the select committee.

He'll also be held in contempt tomorrow.




MORE: The select committee is fixed on Scavino's fluid role between official WH and campaign. His political efforts to keep Trump in power, organize Jan. 6 rally and overturn election don't fit any definition of executive privilege, they say.

Contempt report: Biden turned down privilege claim by Dan Scavino

The disclosure comes as the Jan. 6 committee prepares to begin contempt proceedings against the longtime Trump social media manager and another aide, Peter Navarro.



President Joe Biden turned down an effort by Dan Scavino, the longtime social media manager for Donald Trump, to resist the Jan. 6 select committee by asserting executive privilege.

The disclosure came as part of a 34-page report released on Sunday evening by congressional investigators as the Jan. 6 committee prepared to begin contempt proceedings against Scavino and Peter Navarro, another ally in the former president’s last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

“President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the national interest, and therefore is not justified,” the White House counsel’s office informed Scavino on March 15, according to the newly posted materials.

Biden’s decision is the latest in a string of rejections for Trump advisers seeking to frustrate the select committee by citing executive privilege. The White House has issued similar statements pertaining to former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others who have insisted their proximity to Trump in the closing weeks of his presidency made them immune from testimony. Biden has also repeatedly denied Trump’s own efforts to claim executive privilege over his White House files — a decision repeatedly upheld by federal courts.

The decision to seek criminal charges against Scavino and Navarro is an indication the select committee no longer believes it can obtain their testimony or records through negotiations. The panel detailed its lengthy effort to reach agreement with Scavino in correspondence that began in October and stretched for months, culminating in Sunday’s contempt report.

Scavino is a particularly crucial witness for the committee. He helped draft or post Trump tweets in the weeks after the 2020 election, stoking misinformation about the results and driving attendance at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, which later morphed into a violent insurrection at the Capitol. The committee also revealed that Scavino spoke multiple times by phone with Trump on Jan. 6 and has insight into his movements that day.

Scavino and Navarro are slated to join Steve Bannon, Meadows and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark as the only witnesses held in contempt by the select committee so far. Scavino, Bannon and Meadows were included in the panel’s first wave of subpoenas in September. Bannon and Meadows were both subsequently held in contempt by the House and referred to the Justice Department for criminal charges. The full House hasn’t acted on the motion holding Clark in contempt after he indicated he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Bannon was quickly charged in November for his refusal to cooperate, while the case against Meadows is still pending. Meadows briefly cooperated, providing thousands of emails and text messages to the committee before reversing course and refusing to appear for a deposition. If the House follows suit and holds Scavino and Navarro in contempt, it will leave two more high-profile charging decisions in the hands of Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

The panel has homed in on Scavino’s amorphous role as a both a senior White House official and a prominent campaign operative, who flitted easily between both worlds and often mixed official and political work. The committee says Scavino has no justification for trying to shield testimony related to efforts to keep Trump in office, since the Hatch Act bars such political work by government officials.

“His two distinct roles — as White House official in the days leading up to and during the attack, and as a campaign social media promoter of the Trump ‘stolen election’ narrative — provide independent reasons to seek his testimony and documents,” the committee wrote in its contempt report.

The panel argues Scavino was not conducting “privileged” business when he participated in discussions about pressuring state lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election, when he helped recruit attendance at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and when he engaged with organizers of the rally about the speaker lineup and his own scheduled remarks.

Much of the select committee’s report documents the extensive, and increasingly fraught, communications between Scavino’s attorneys and the Jan. 6 select committee, beginning in October and continuing into March. The panel sought to schedule multiple depositions with Scavino, only to agree to a slew of extensions as he continued to haggle about the terms of his testimony. Talks broke down by February, when Scavino’s attorneys — Stanley Woodward and Stan Brand, a former general counsel to the House — decried the committee’s tactics.

“Put bluntly, your latest correspondence exemplifies the Select Committee’s pattern and practice of intimidation and disregard for the rule of law, its application to the important function of the House of Representatives, and the important doctrine of Separation of Powers,” they wrote.

The lawyers noted that in Bannon’s case, his attorney Robert Costello ended up becoming a witness in the ultimate criminal cases against him brought by the Justice Department.

In a final letter to the panel on Friday, Brand and Woodward said they were seeking more details about the legal basis for Biden’s decision.

“We respectfully request you inform Mr. Scavino and the Select Committee of any legal authority empowering President Biden to make a final decision as to the assertion of executive privilege with respect to the Congressional testimony of a former President’s close aides,” they wrote. “Otherwise, we respectfully request the President advise Mr. Scavino and the Select Committee that no such legal authority exists.”

Navarro, the committee indicated, similarly conducted nakedly political work that could not be construed as part of his government duties. The panel notes that he crafted a report lodging false claims of election fraud that fed the narratives that Trump attempted to deploy in his effort to subvert his defeat. The select committee revealed that at one point he tried to encourage Meadows to contact Roger Stone, a longtime outside adviser to Trump who helped drive “Stop the Steal” efforts.

“None of the official responsibilities of Mr. Navarro’s positions included advising President Trump about the 2020 Presidential election or the roles and responsibilities of Congress and the Vice President during the January 6, 2021, joint session of Congress,” the panel wrote. “Nor did those official duties involve researching or promoting claims of election fraud. Nevertheless, after the 2020 Presidential election, Mr. Navarro became involved in efforts to convince the public that widespread fraud had affected the election. Federal law did not allow Mr. Navarro to use his official office to attempt to affect the outcome of an election.”

Scavino’s fight with the select committee over his subpoena is not his only legal battle connected to the investigation. He sued in January to prevent Verizon from turning over his phone records to the select committee, but his effort to resist the panel’s subpoena for his documents and testimony had proceeded in near total secrecy. The lawsuit is still pending.

The committee subpoenaed Navarro in February, and the former Trump trade adviser has publicly indicated he will not comply with the panel’s demands, citing concerns about executive privilege. He released a statement Sunday evening indicating his position had not changed.

“My position remains this is not my Executive Privilege to waive and the Committee should negotiate this matter with President Trump,” Navarro said. “If he waives the privilege, I will be happy to comply; but I see no effort by the Committee to clarify this matter with President Trump, which is bad faith and bad law.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/27/contempt-report-biden-privilege-claim-dan-scavino-00020749

[Rick Plant]

Lots of new information is coming out. I've documented the main portions in this post.

January 6th Committee chair Bennie G Thompson released a report recommending contempt referrals for Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino.

Here, the report notes Navarro went on Ari Melber's show a day after releasing a statement stonewalling the committee.

Doc: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IJ/IJ00/20220328/114565/HRPT-117-NA.pdf



The report also details the "Green Bay Sweep," a plot to overturn Trump's election defeat that Navarro detailed in his book.

Watch The Washington Post's video explainer here: 

"In the days leading up to January 6, 2021, according to evidence obtained by the Select Committee, Mr. Navarro also encouraged Mark Meadows (and possibly others) to call Roger Stone to discuss January 6th."



"On January 6th, the day to implement the ‘Green Bay Sweep,’ Mr. Navarro had multiple calls with Mr. Bannon, including during and after the attack on the U.S. Capitol."



The portions of the report on Scavino focus on his role as Trump's social media manager—and reportedly his sometime-tweet-ghostwriter.

Scavino also monitored TheDonald [dot] win, an online forum visited by folks who "openly advocated and planned violence" leading up to Jan. 6.



More on that site:

On Dec. 19, 2020, the same day Trump tweeted "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th... Be there, will be wild!," the site's users began sharing "specific techniques, tactics, and procedures for the assault on the Capitol," according to the report.



Remember the Jan. 6 defendant known as "zip-tie guy"?

One poster on TheDonald[dot]win wrote that "people should bring 'handcuffs and zip ties to DC' so they could enact 'citizen’s arrests' of those officials who certified the election’s results."

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 6 investigators about to get their hands on final piece of the puzzle showing militia plans for Capitol riot



The House select committee expects to soon fill in one final piece of the puzzle about the planning for the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Congressional investigators will hear testimony next week they expect will reveal the connections between the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys militia groups, and after that April 5 deposition lawmakers will have obtained all the major evidence from all the crucial moments, reported The Guardian.

"From its nondescript offices boarded up with beige boards and wood-paneled conference rooms with blinds always drawn, the select committee has spent the last eight months working in color-coded teams in an attempt to untangle Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results," wrote the newspaper's Hugo Lowell.

"The gold team is examining Trump’s plans to stop the certification of Biden’s election win with the help of Republican members of Congress, and his pressure campaign on state, local and justice department officials to return himself to office," Lowell added. "The red team is looking at the Save America rally organizers and the Stop the Steal Movement, while the purple team is scrutinizing the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, the 1st Amendment Praetorian and how militia groups helped lead the Trump mob into the Capitol building."

Senior investigative counsel Sean Tonolli set up a deposition for next week that will give them sworn testimony and material evidence about the militia groups' connections, to add to raw video footage of a meeting between leaders from the militias in a garage near the Capitol the night before the riot.

The panel is moving into the next phase of its investigation, and lawmakers expect to release their evidence in narrative form in a series of public hearings that have been delayed from April to May that will focus on former president Donald Trump's wrongdoing, which will then be used to recommend legislation to prevent another insurrection.


Capitol attack panel expects to hear how militia groups coordinated plans before insurrection
Testimony could play a major role in establishing whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy in efforts to overturn 2020 election



Behind closed doors in a nondescript conference room at the foot of Capitol Hill, the House select committee investigating 6 January next week expects to hear testimony about the connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys militia groups and the Capitol attack.

The panel expects to hear how the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys coordinated their plans and movements in the days before the insurrection to the same level of detail secured by the justice department and referenced in recent prosecutions for seditious conspiracy.

And the select committee hopes to also hear in the 5 April deposition – arranged by a senior counsel for the panel – private conversations between the leaders of the two militia groups and whether they might have communicated with any Trump advisers.

The panel should get the evidence both on the record and under oath, according to two sources familiar with the arrangement, to add to raw video footage of a meeting between the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders in a garage across from the Capitol on the eve of 6 January.

The expected testimony and materials represent another significant breakthrough for the investigation and could play a major role in establishing for the select committee whether Donald Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy as part of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Most crucially for the panel, it could form part of the evidence to connect the militia groups that stormed the Capitol on 6 January to the organizers of the Save America rally that immediately preceded the attack – who in turn are slowly being linked to the Trump White House.

As the select committee moves closer to Trump – who House investigators alleged in a recent court filing that the former president violated federal laws including obstructing Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States as he sought to return himself to power – it is redoubling its efforts.

The information that Sean Tonolli, the senior investigative counsel who set up the deposition, should obtain about the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys in the first week of April means the panel has managed to get all the major evidence for all the big moments.

In December, the select committee revealed that it had in its possession 2,320 text messages from Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, emails such as one with a PowerPoint presentation on staging a coup, and other documents he had turned over to the inquiry.

That alone has been seen as a treasure trove of materials, including messages to and from House Republicans who apologized for not being able to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, and more recently, messages with Ginni Thomas, the wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.

In January, the panel got from the National Archives thousands of pages of Trump White House documents that the former president unsuccessfully sought to shield over claims of executive privilege in a case that Justice Thomas reviewed and emerged as the sole dissenter.

Those included documents in the files of Meadows and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin, among others, and Trump’s private schedule for 6 January that showed he gave the crowd a false pretense to go to the Capitol perhaps in the hope that they might stop Biden’s certification.

Then the select committee learned of the fake electors ploy – a scheme to send “alternate” slates of Trump electors to Congress in states won by Biden – that ensnared the White House and showed the involvement of some of Trump’s most senior aides.

Earlier this month, the panel also revealed in separate litigation that Trump lawyer John Eastman knew that his plan to have then-vice president Mike Pence reject Biden’s wins in select battleground states and return Trump to office was an unlawful violation of the Electoral Count Act.

The panel has so far conducted the vast majority of its investigation in private, conducting nearly 750 depositions behind closed doors, amassing more than 84,000 documents and pursuing more than 430 tips that have come through on its website tip line.

But notwithstanding the secrecy, the select committee has uncovered extraordinary information that have put them several steps closer to potentially forcing them to make criminal referrals to the justice department once the inquiry is complete, the sources said.

What the panel has found and made public so far, the sources said, could also lay the groundwork to sketch out a criminal conspiracy that connects Trump’s political plan to return himself to office with the attack itself – its ultimate suspicion, the Guardian first reported.

From its nondescript offices boarded up with beige boards and wood-paneled conference rooms with blinds always drawn, the select committee has spent the last eight months working in color-coded teams in an attempt to untangle Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.

The gold team is examining Trump’s plans to stop the certification of Biden’s election win with the help of Republican members of Congress, and his pressure campaign on state, local and justice department officials to return himself to office.

The red team is looking at the Save America rally organizers and the Stop the Steal Movement, while the purple team is scrutinizing the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, the 1st Amendment Praetorian and how militia groups helped lead the Trump mob into the Capitol building.

As the panel moves into the second phase of its investigation, its members have said they want to release in narrative form the evidence of wrongdoing in a series of public hearings that are likely to be delayed from April to May but still focus on how Trump broke the law.

The select committee’s purpose remains to recommend legislative reforms to prevent a repeat of 6 January, but the evidence collected by the panel is fast hurtling it towards a conclusion of criminal behavior that could implicate Trump – and necessitate a referral – the sources said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/28/capitol-attack-panel-militia-groups-oath-keepers-proud-boys

[Rick Plant]

Judge's warnings about Trump's 'ongoing threat' should 'alarm every person in this country': Bennie Thompson



Ahead of a contempt vote for Trump allies Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino, the chairman of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol cited what Judge David Carter wrote about former President Donald Trump and attorney John Eastman, whom he said likely committed crimes in their efforts to stay in power.

According to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) every American should read what he wrote and it should "alarm every person in this country."

Addressing the committee, Thompson quoted Judge Carter saying, "Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower - it was a coup in search of a legal theory."

He explained that the plan from Trump's allies "spurred violent attack on the seat of our nation's government led to the death of several law enforcement officers and deepened public distrust in our political process. More than a year after the attack on our Capitol, the public is still searching for accountability. I'm proud to say that this committee is helping to lead that search for accountability."

He went on to explain how the two men played a key role in the Jan. 6 attack and what led up to that attack.

"In Mr. Scavino's case, he strung us along for months before making it clear that he believes he is above the law," Thompson continued. "Mr. Navarro, despite sharing relevant details on TV and podcasts and in its own book, he also stonewalled us."

Thompson filed the full report against the two men on Sunday evening.

See the video below:

 


Jan. 6 Committee reveals the case against Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino ahead of the contempt vote



The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and what led to it will vote on whether to hold Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino Jr. in contempt of Congress for refusing to appear after being subpoenaed.

On Sunday evening, the committee released the case it intends to present to the full Congress about the two men and the details that they could provide to the committee.

In the case against Navarro, the committee cited his own recently published book, In Trump Time, in which he revealed a plan called the "Green Bay Sweep." He said that it was designed as the "last, best chance to snatch a stolen election from the Democrats' jaws of deceit." He later says that former President Donald Trump was "on board with the strategy," along with about 100 members of Congress.

The House committee emailed Navarro asking if he intended to accept service of the subpoena and he replied: "yes. no counsel. Executive privilege." After he received the subpoena, Navarro released a public statement saying he had no intention of complying with it.

"President Trump has invoked Executive Privilege; and it is not my privilege to waive," Navarro wrote in the statement. "[The Select Committee] should negotiate any waiver of the privilege with the president and his attorneys directly, not through me. I refer this tribunal to Chapter 21 of In Trump Time for what is in the public record about the Green Bay Sweep plan to insure [sic] election integrity[.]"

The president, as in the current president, has waived all executive privilege for issues involving Jan. 6. The committee also informed Navarro that he could still appear before the members and indicate which questions he refused to answer due to executive privilege. Navarro replied, asking, "Will this event be open to the public and press?" The committee said that it would not be. They even offered to find a new date for Navarro if he needed more time, "within [a] reasonable time," to comply with the documents request or there was a scheduling conflict. He responded the following day saying, he had "been clear in my communications on this matter" and that "it is incumbent on the Committee to directly negotiate with President Trump and his attorneys regarding any and all things related to this matter."

Dan Scavino was the social media person for Trump during the campaign and then in the White House. When the committee subpoenaed described Scavino it explained that the former White House staffer was part of the one who tweeted for Trump and worked with the multimedia for social media communication.

The committee said that Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) worked extensively with Scavino, "granting multiple extensions for the deposition and production of documents." They listed six different extension examples beginning on Oct. 28, 2021, and the last being Feb. 8, 2022.

In the details about Scavino, the documents said that the White House Counsel's Office provided Scavino with the necessary information to explain that explained executive privilege was waived.

Read the full details in the 34-page document from the House Committee here:

https://www.rawstory.com/peter-navarro-dan-scavino-contempt/

[Rick Plant]

Judge's new ruling is 'the most striking and provocative' thing we've heard yet about January 6th: reporter



On Monday, CBS News' Scott MacFarlane, the key authority covering the January 6 Capitol insurrection court proceedings, revealed that the sane federal judge who said former President Donald Trump is likely guilty of crimes is also warning the attack "will repeat itself" if the perpetrators aren't properly held to account for their actions.

"Here we are, 15 months, roughly, since the U.S. Capitol riot," said MacFarlane. "And one of the most striking, provocative, and telling things we've heard a judge say about the investigation was said today. But it wasn't said here in Washington. It was said by a federal judge in California, who ruled today that John Eastman, the attorney and the adviser to the Trump White House in the final days of the Trump administration, must turn over dozens of email records to the House Select January 6 Committee here at the Capitol. Eastman's attorney in a statement late today says Eastman intends to comply."

"But it wasn't that narrow ruling on that narrow issue that was so striking; it's what the judge said in his opinion," continued MacFarlane. "The judge said in so many words that the public is searching for accountability for January 6th, and that without accountability, 'the court fears January 6 could repeat itself.' The judge also said it's more likely than not that Trump tried to block the official congressional proceedings. The judge used the phrase 'coup'. The judge used the phrase 'end the peaceful transfer of power' if the plans succeeded before January 6th. Particularly striking language."

"The judge is giving voice to any number of Americans who believe, at this moment, despite there being 770-plus federal defendants, that there has not been accountability for January 6th, and that without accountability, there is a fear January 6th could recur," said MacFarlane. "This isn't the first time we've read or heard a nudge from a federal judge or a message from a federal judge of this sort. We've heard federal judges here in D.C. lend voice — unequivocal voice — to their concern about the low-level plea agreements the Justice Department has been cutting in some January 6th cases. Unlawful picketing and parading. The judges expressing fear that these plea deals don't provide the proper deterrence to a recurrence of January 6th."

Watch below:
https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1508569233046781958

[Rick Plant]

US Capitol attack panel votes to recommend prosecution of Trump duo
Select committee unanimously agrees to advance contempt of Congress citations against Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino



The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack voted on Monday to recommend the criminal prosecution of two of Donald Trump’s top former White House aides – Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino – for defying subpoenas in a bid to undermine the January 6 inquiry.

The select committee unanimously approved the contempt of Congress report it had been examining. The citations now head for a vote before the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which is expected to approve resolutions for referrals to the justice department.

Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chair of the select committee, said at the vote that the panel was seeking the criminal prosecution for Navarro and Scavino to punish their non-cooperation over claims of executive privilege it did not recognize.

"Executive privilege doesn’t belong to just any White House official. It belongs to the president. Here, President Biden has been clear that executive privilege does not prevent cooperation with the Select Committee by either Mr Scavino or Mr Navarro,” Thompson said.

“Even if a president has formally invoked executive privilege regarding testimony of a witness – which is not the case here – that witness has the obligation to sit down under oath and assert the privilege question by question. But these witnesses didn’t even bother to show up.”

The vote to advance the contempt citations against the two Trump White House aides came as the select committee was expected to huddle to discuss whether to demand that Ginni Thomas, the wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, assist the investigation.

The panel had sought cooperation from Navarro, a former Trump senior adviser, since he helped to devise an unlawful scheme with operatives at the Trump “war room” in Washington to have then-vice president Mike Pence stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.

Navarro worked with the Trump campaign’s lawyers to pressure legislators in battleground states won by Biden to decertify the results and instead send Trump slates of electors for certification by Congress, the panel said in the contempt report.

The former Trump aide also encouraged then Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to call political operative Roger Stone to discuss January 6 and coordinated with Willard war room operative Steve Bannon in the days before the Capitol attack, the panel added.

But Navarro told the select committee – without providing any evidence – that the former president had asserted executive privilege over the contents of his subpoena issued last month, and refused to provide documents or testimony.

The panel for months has also sought assistance in its investigation from Scavino, the former Trump White House deputy chief of staff for communications, since he attended several meetings with Trump where election fraud matters were discussed.

But after the panel granted to Scavino six extensions that pushed his subpoena deadlines from October 2021 to February 2022, the former Trump aide also told House investigators that he would not comply with the order because Trump invoked executive privilege.

The select committee rejected those arguments of executive privilege, saying neither Navarro nor Scavino had grounds for entirely defying the subpoenas because either Trump did not formally invoke the protections, or because Biden ultimately waived them.

Congressman Jamie Raskin, visibly furious as he read out remarks at the vote, slammed the executive privilege claims. “Please spare us the nonsense talk about executive privilege, rejected now by every court that has looked at it,” Raskin said.

“This is America, and there’s no executive privilege here for presidents, much less trained advisors, to plan coups and organize insurrections against the people’s government in the people’s constitution and then to cover up the evidence of their crimes.

“These two men,” Raskin said of Navarro and Scavino, “are in contempt of Congress and we must say, both for their brazen disregard for their duties and for our laws and our institutions.”

The panel also said that even if it accepted the executive privilege claims, the two former Trump aides had no grounds to entirely ignore the subpoenas since they also demanded documents and testimony about non-privileged matters.

The panel added the justice department’s office of legal counsel had determined they also had no basis to defy the document request in the subpoena, noting there has never been any purported immunity for producing non-privileged documents to Congress.

And at the vote to recommend contempt citations, the vice-chair of the panel, Liz Cheney urged the justice department to also reject the two Trump aides’ arguments for defying their subpoenas should the House make the expected criminal referrals.

"The Department of Justice is entrusted with the defense of our constitution; department leadership should not apply any doctrine of immunity that might block Congress from fully uncovering and addressing the causes of the January 6th attack,” Cheney said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/28/capitol-attack-committee-contempt-prosecution-vote-trump-aides

[Rick Plant]

Democrats ask Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases after wife Ginni's role is exposed



A group of Democratic senators and representatives have asked Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from future cases involving the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The lawmakers sent a letter Monday to the Supreme Court asking Thomas to recuse himself from those cases and to provide a written explanation for why he did not do so in previous cases, in a move prompted by the revelation that his wife Ginni Thomas was repeatedly pressuring White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to help Donald Trump overturn his election loss, reported the Washington Post.

“Given the recent disclosures about Ms. Thomas’s efforts to overturn the election and her specific communications with White House officials about doing so, Justice Thomas’s participation in cases involving the 2020 election and the January 6th attack is exceedingly difficult to reconcile with federal ethics requirements,” read the letter, which the Post obtained.

The letter also called on Chief Justice John Roberts to create a binding code of conduct for justices that includes enforceable provisions and require justices issue written recusal decisions, with a deadline of April 28, in response to "major ethics" breaches at the court, including Thomas' failure to disclose his wife's income from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“Chief Justice Roberts has often spoken about the importance of the Supreme Court’s ‘credibility and legitimacy as an institution.' That trust, already at all-time lows with the American public, must be earned,” the lawmakers wrote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/29/democrats-clarence-thomas-recuse-jan6-letter/