“I owe you an apology. I probably imposed my life’s passions on you,” wrote Thomas in mid-January to an email list of former employees and their spouses and partners.
“My passions and beliefs are probably shared with most of you, but certainly not with everyone. And sometimes the smallest issues can divide loved ones for a long time. We will commit to not letting politics divide THIS family and learn to speak. with more kindness and knowledge beyond the division, “wrote Thomas to former employees.
“I would like to ask those on the opposite side to have grace and mercy with those on my side of the polarized world, and feel free to call and speak to me individually about where I failed you as a friend here,” she said. “I probably need more private lessons … Otherwise, on behalf of both of us, be sure of our love for each of you.”
The Supreme Court and Ginni Thomas did not immediately return requests for comment.
The ex-clerk told CNN that the e-mail list, which also includes the spouses of ex-court clerks, is used primarily to discuss job changes, children or personal events, such as buying a new pet. .
The family source said it was Thomas who served as a kind of “nook mom” for her husband’s former employees, looking for news or planning meetings.
But a Trump-related dispute – largely between three former employees – has broken out in recent days. The Post reported that a sample of posts made to the group was shared with the newspaper by an upset member with some of the pro-Trump messages written by Thomas and others before and after the November election.
None of the sources could recall another occasion when the group diverged in politics or seemed politically divided in the e-mail chain.
The secretary said that Judge Thomas never uses the email list, adding that Ginni Thomas’s apology “shows that the issues that divide everyone also divide Thomas’s employees”.
“There are some liberals who are also ex-bookkeepers,” said the person. “We have many different people as ex-clerks, it is not a shock that some disagree.”
The Post reported that on the Facebook page of Thomas, a longtime conservative activist and loyal to Trump, she “celebrated” supporters of the then president who met in Washington to watch the rally in a morning post. Later, during his rally, Trump incited the deadly Capitol insurrection, which resulted in the deaths of five people, including a United States Capitol police officer.
Thomas “encouraged his Facebook followers to watch the day’s events unfold in the conservative media, writing, ‘LOVE the MAGA people !!!!'”, reported the Post.
In a separate Post, the newspaper said, Thomas wrote: “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING OR PRAYING.”
Thomas’s Facebook page is no longer visible, according to the Post.
Meanwhile, Thomas used the email list to express his complaints about Trump’s electoral defeat, the former secretary said.
“Many of us are suffering, after leaving everything on the field, to preserve the best of this country,” she wrote. “I feel like I failed my parents, who did their best and taught me how to work to preserve freedoms.”
Disagreements about former secretary Eastman
After last month’s demonstration, some of the former justice officials argued by email about the demonstration, the source confirmed to CNN. One of those disagreements involved John Eastman, a former Thomas clerk who spoke at the rally and once served as one of Trump’s lawyers.
In an e-mail, Eastman, who left his job as dean of Chapman University’s law school after the rally, wrote: “Make sure that all of us involved in this are working diligently to determine the truth.”
Your post received a “furious response” from Stephen F. Smith, a law professor at Notre Dame, which the Post said it wrote back: “If by ‘truth’ you mean what really happened, as opposed to a narrative false, so I agree. “
“I hope (and trust) that you – and everyone on this list – will agree that the search for the truth does not in any way justify an insurrection, an attempt to kidnap and murder elected officials, attack police officers or make common cause with racists and anti-Semites committed to rampant violence and illegality, “wrote Smith, according to the Post.
Eastman and Smith did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
But the source familiar with Thomas’s emails, who didn’t see her post on Facebook, said that when reading the email chain, she wasn’t sure why Thomas was apologizing because the dispute seemed between employees and not over anything that Thomas had expressed – at least in the e-mail chain.