She used her face time with Trump to cajole him about her floundering efforts to install friends and allies into plum administration positions, two former senior White House officials told CNN, one of whom said Trump encouraged her to get in touch with his staff about the matter.
But when Ginni Thomas contacted Trump’s aides inside the Presidential Personnel Office, her requests were slow-walked, former officials said. Fearful that she might turn Trump against his own criminal justice reform bill, which she fervently opposed, they delayed granting her ask for a sit-down meeting with Trump, while the legislation made its way through Congress.
These previously unreported details are emblematic of how Ginni Thomas tried to maneuver her way into Trump’s orbit during his presidency.
Sources said Ginni Thomas leveraged existing connections to conservative figures and sought inroads with Trump staffers, to become a recurring presence at his White House. She became part of a larger group of Republican activists who met in the White House on a near-monthly basis, though not with Trump, a source told CNN. Along the way, sources said she became a persistent nuisance to some of the Trump aides tasked with managing her entreaties.
“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Thomas texted Meadows on November 10, 2020, three days after the election was called in favor of President-elect Joe Biden. She continued, saying, “the majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”
This story is based on interviews with 14 sources familiar with Ginni Thomas, her dealings with the Trump White House and her relationship with Justice Thomas. They spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could candidly describe how she tried to enmesh herself within the Trump administration and how her efforts culminated with an embrace of fringe election conspiracies.
As for their marriage, a source close to the Thomases said, “by modern standards we accept the fact that two professionals who are spouses can have distinctive and separate professional lives.” The source said they aren’t preoccupied with the day-to-day of each other’s careers, and stressed that Justice Thomas isn’t interested in politics and “doesn’t like the back and forth.”
A ‘connector’ with a rolodex
But sometimes, her networking style meant she was “getting into other people’s business,” as one former Trump administration official put it. One source close to Ginni Thomas acknowledged to CNN that her efforts at times caused others — even those who shared her hardline views — to question whether her actions were “prudent,” or if they were doing damage to the conservative movement.
One source said she was a “known quantity” within the Trump White House as someone who interacted frequently with staffers across the White House complex, from top staffers in the West Wing to public liaison officials who often sought her input on religious freedom initiatives.
“No one said, ‘yeah, we can ignore her calls.’ But on other hand, we weren’t like, ‘drop everything, Ginni is on the line,'” the source said. “I don’t know that I saw her be that effective”
She never explicitly invoked her husband in her dealings with the Trump administration, according to the sources who spoke with CNN. But it’s unlikely she would need to invoke Justice Thomas’ role on the Supreme Court, because everyone knew who he was.
A former White House official said Trump liked Justice Thomas, which was a big reason why he gave Ginni Thomas any time of day. Another former senior White House official said she had “name recognition” due to her husband as well as her affiliation with conservative groups, which gave her a modest level of sway with top officials.
“Her husband is a great justice,” Trump said. “And she’s a fine woman. And she loves our country.”
But there were limits to Ginni Thomas’ influence in Trump’s orbit. A source said she didn’t have Trump’s personal cell phone number. She did not communicate with Trump on January 6, the source added.
Pushing for hirings and firings
She would regularly prod Trump administration officials, and even Trump himself, to hire her right-wing allies and contacts, according to multiple sources and previous press reports. One former Trump administration official told CNN that staffers would annotate Thomas’ spreadsheet with reasons why her candidates were unsuitable.
Multiple sources on the receiving end of such pleas recalled that several candidates who Thomas sought to install in the administration had previously failed background checks or turned down lower-level positions that they were ultimately offered. One candidate “didn’t believe women should serve in the military,” a former official recalled.
Some of the other candidates posted inappropriate things on social media, an ironic twist, considering Trump’s own social media presence was littered with controversial material.
“There’s a good reason they didn’t get hired,” a former Trump administration official said.
Sources told CNN that during the lunch, Ginni Thomas told Trump that she knew about several candidates for administration jobs, and Trump asked her to follow up with his staff.
During the meeting, Thomas complained that hostile “deep state” officials within the White House were blocking her recommended candidates from getting jobs in the administration. She aimed some her of complaints directly at Trump aides who were in the room, accusing them of quashing her efforts to install MAGA devotees inside agency posts and the White House, according to two people who were present for the meeting.
She even gave Trump her list of recommended hires during the meeting, a source told CNN.
Top aides had briefed Trump before his meeting with…
Read More:How Ginni Thomas jockeyed for influence in Trump’s orbit
2022-04-11 00:48:00