POLITICO Playbook: The Ginni Thomas story grows larger

In a Friday evening scoop, NBC’s Scott Wong reported that Thomas pressed Republican members of Congress to protest the election results.

In a November 2020 email, “Thomas told an aide to incoming Republican Study Committee Chairman JIM BANKS (R-Ind.) .… that Freedom Caucus members were tougher than RSC members, were in the fight and had then-President DONALD TRUMP’s back, according to the source familiar with the email contents. Until she saw RSC members ‘out in the streets’ and in the fight, she said, she would not help the RSC, the largest caucus of conservatives on Capitol Hill. …

“The email exchange suggests Thomas was pressuring Republicans in Congress to get more aggressive in fighting for Trump at a key moment when the lame-duck president and his inner circle were devising a strategy to overturn the results of the 2020 election and keep him in power.”

2. Legal experts say Thomas’ texts present a real problem for the Supreme Court. 

One thing worth noting: This isn’t just coming from liberal scholars. ADAM WHITE, a prominent conservative legal fellow at AEI, “said that, in general, previous criticisms of Ginni Thomas’s political work, as well as calls for the justice to recuse himself from participating in cases, were overstated and unfair,” write WaPo’s Robert Barnes and Ann Marimow. “But, he said, the recent disclosures are ‘somewhat different because they pertain to a specific course of events that did give rise to Supreme Court litigation. This does raise real questions about the need for Justice Thomas to recuse from future cases related to the Jan. 6 insurrection.’”

STEPHEN GILLERS, a longtime professor of legal ethics at NYU, spoke to NYT’s Adam Liptak about whether Clarence Thomas violated federal recusal law by participating in cases related to Jan. 6 or the 2020 election.

— What the law states: “any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

“A more specific provision concerning relatives, including spouses, might also apply to his situation,” writes Liptak. “Judges should not participate, the law says, in proceedings in which their spouse has ‘an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.’”

— Gillers said the word “interest” was the key: “By writing to Meadows, who was chief of staff and active in the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, she joined the team resisting the results of the election,” he said. “She made herself part of the team and so she has an interest in the decisions of the court that could affect Trump’s goal of reversing the results.”

3. Will the Jan. 6 committee call Ginni Thomas to testify? 

That question, and the many others related to it, are the subject of considerable debate playing out in private on the committee, per NYT’s Luke Broadwater, Jo Becker, Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer.

— The internal dynamics: “The panel’s Republican vice chairwoman, Rep. LIZ CHENEY of Wyoming, has led the charge in holding Mr. Trump to account for his efforts to overturn the election, but has wanted to avoid any aggressive effort that, in her view, could unfairly target Justice Thomas.”

— The double-standard concerns: “If the committee does not summon Ms. Thomas, some legal analysts said, it runs the risk of appearing to have a double standard. The panel has taken an aggressive posture toward many other potential witnesses, issuing subpoenas for bank and phone records of both high-ranking allies of the former president and low-level aides with only a tangential connection to the events of Jan. 6.”

— Where things get really dicey: “Investigators could ask her the name of the friend she was referring to when she wrote back to thank Mr. Meadows, saying: ’Needed that! This plus a conversation with my best friend just now…I will try to keep holding on.’ (Ms. Thomas and her husband have publicly referred to each other as their best friends.) Ultimately, they could ask her whether she had discussed Mr. Trump’s fight to overturn the election with her husband.”

— And if that happens … “Privately, some Republicans … who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they worried about being seen as critical of Ms. Thomas, predicted that if Democrats increased pressure on the Thomases, the right would counter with more calls for investigations of Democrats if Republicans win back the House in the November elections.” Speaking of which…

VOTE COUNT BATTLE — Trump-fueled conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have inspired state and local Republican lawmakers around the country to move to ban machine-counting of votes. There are a few big problems with that, as Zach Montellaro reports:

— Hand counts are obviously slower and much more expensive. “Moving to hand counting in midsize jurisdictions like Nevada’s Nye County, let alone a megacounty like Maricopa County, Ariz., where more than 2 million people cast ballots in the 2020 election, would spike the cost of elections, drastically extend the amount of time it takes to get results and make final tallies potentially less accurate,” Zach writes.

“There’s not a serious person anywhere in or adjacent to election administration who will tell you that hand counting is better than machine counting,” said ADRIAN FONTES, the former Maricopa County recorder running in the Democratic primary for Arizona secretary of state.

— It would require a huge increase in personnel at the same time election workers are fleeing the industry. “Typically, election workers work in bipartisan pairs, and election offices would need significantly more workers to actually count the ballots than to oversee a machine tabulation process.”

— Also: “Above all else, election experts say that hand-counting large numbers of ballots is simply less reliable than a machine count.”

Good Saturday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

UKRAINE/RUSSIA LATEST …

— Russian Lt. Gen. YAKOV REZANTSEV was killed “in a strike near the southern city of Kherson,” the BBC reports. “A western official said he was the seventh general to die in Ukraine, and the second lieutenant general — the highest rank officer reportedly killed. It is thought that low morale among Russian troops has forced senior officers closer to the front line.”

— This morning, President JOE BIDEN dropped by a meeting in Poland between Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN, Secretary of Defense LLOYD AUSTIN and their Ukrainian counterparts.

— In remarks after his bilateral with Polish President ANDRZEJ DUDA, Biden reiterated the U.S.’ “sacred obligation” to Article V of NATO, and said that Ukrainian refugees reminded him of the southern border here at home, according to pooler Aurélia End.

— Near the Ukrainian border in Poland on Friday, Biden met with leaders and refugees, ruing his inability to go into Ukraine itself. He’ll wrap up his trip today with a bilateral meeting in Warsaw and a “major address” on the war. More from CNN

— Ukraine wasn’t satisfied with the West’s big week of summits. “We expected more bravery. We expected some bold decisions,” the chief of staff to president VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY said, per WaPo.

— New U.S. sanctions will hit Russian companies supporting the country’s military and intelligence, WSJ’s Vivian Salama and Ian Talley scooped. The official announcement may come next week, and will focus on “companies that are part of Russia’s procurement networks that produce and buy goods that have both civil and military purposes.”

— Incoming: Russian mercenaries and other troops. The Wagner Group fighters who have reportedly done Russia’s dirty work everywhere from the Central African Republic to Syria are more than tripling their numbers in the eastern Donbas region, the U.S. said, per NYT’s Eric Schmitt. They’re also moving people, “artillery, air defenses and radar” from Libya to join the fight. Meanwhile, the U.S. assessed that Russia is starting to move additional troops from Georgia and elsewhere to Ukraine, per WaPo.

BIDEN’S SATURDAY (all times Eastern): After the meetings and speech we outlined above, Biden will depart Warsaw at 2:50 p.m. to head home, stopping in Mildenhall, England, for an hour and a half on the way. He’ll arrive back at the White House at 2:30 a.m.

VP KAMALA HARRIS’ SATURDAY — The VP has nothing on her public schedule.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

1. NYT’s Patricia Mazzei, Tariro Mzezewa and Jill Cowan have a good read on how Black women viewed KETANJI BROWN JACKSON’s confirmation hearings this week, split between “feelings of pride and hope” and “pain and disgust.” Said one woman from Los Angeles: “Every sigh, every time her jaw tightens, every time her eyebrow raises a certain way. Every Black woman speaks that language.”

2. The man convicted of possessing child pornography — whose case was the center of many Republican attacks on Jackson this week — spoke to WaPo’s Aaron Davis for a fascinating, nuanced story about his crime, his life after prison and his feelings about the judge who sentenced him. Davis was the one to tell WESLEY HAWKINS that his teenage case had become a national talking point. “Perhaps most surprising, Hawkins said, was that he found himself feeling sympathy for the judge he had once been angry with for sending him to prison.”

3. On gas prices, the White House is weighing a wide range of options to reduce pain at the pump, WaPo’s Jeff Stein reports. Among the likelier possibilities are “a major release of the nation’s oil reserves, loans and other incentives to energy producers to encourage production, and a federal gas tax holiday.” Some congressional liberals, including Sens. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.), SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-R.I.) and SHERROD BROWN (D-Ohio) are urging new taxes on the profits of big companies, and the White House is listening.

4. DONALD TRUMP’s D.C. hotel cleared the last hurdle to be sold to Miami’s CGI Merchant Group-led investment fund, which plans to turn it into a Waldorf Astoria. “The $375 million price tag is far more than many expected for a hotel that lost tens of millions of dollars while Trump was president,” AP’s Bernard Condon reports. “The deal is a significant victory for the ex-president’s company after business partners cut ties following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.”

5. The Biden administration is planning to offer — but not explicitly recommend — second booster shots for Americans ages 50 and up, NYT’s Sharon LaFraniere reports, with an FDA authorization as soon as next week. Officials have grappled with whether the doses would save lives ahead of a coming wave or waste resources before a surge that doesn’t materialize. “Major uncertainties have complicated the decision, including how long the protection from a second booster would last, how to explain the plan to the public and even whether the overall goal is to shield Americans from severe disease or from less serious infections as well, since they could lead to long Covid.” By the fall, it’ll be time for another shot for everyone.

6. “For Georgetown, Jesuits and Slavery Descendants, Bid for Racial Healing Sours Over Reparations,” by WSJ’s Lee Hawkins and Douglas Belkin: “The drive for racial reconciliation and reparations that has broken out at U.S. institutions in recent years was meant to settle longstanding tensions. It is often stoking new ones. Amid pledges and battles, pressure campaigns and apologies, fissures are opening on the issue that have inflamed emotions on all sides.”

7. The Black News Channel is shutting down two years after its debut, WSJ’s Lillian Rizzo reports. “Black News Channel’s abrupt closure comes just a year after the network revamped its lineup with high-profile commentators like CHARLES BLOW and MARC LAMONT HILL, and added a new morning show. … BNC’s more than 200 employees didn’t receive their paychecks this week, the people said. They won’t receive severance pay or benefits beyond the end of the month,” people familiar told Rizzo.

8. ProPublica’s Melissa Sanchez and Anna Clark have a brutal story about the 190 Afghan child evacuees, mostly teenage boys, who ended up in the U.S. without family and have struggled for months in state custody. “Some children have run away, punched employees and stopped eating. Others have tried to kill themselves. At one shelter, ProPublica has learned, some children reported being hurt by employees and sexually abused by other minors.”

9. The U.S. legal system, like everything else, struggled during the height of the pandemic. And just like many other industries and segments of American society, it may take a while for things to pick back up with immense case backlogs, WSJ’s Laura Kusisto writes. “Tens of thousands of legal cases ranging from minor thefts to civil disputes to murder are stuck in limbo in state courts around the country, a situation that has left some defendants waiting in jail and strained prosecutors’ and defense attorneys’ ability to do their jobs.”

CLICKER — “The nation’s cartoonists on the week in politics,” edited by Matt Wuerker — 16 funnies

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza:

— “Has Goldman Sachs’s Dina Powell Finally Gone Too Far?” by N.Y. Mag’s Shawn McCreesh: “She’s helping her husband, David McCormick, run a shamelessly Trumpy campaign in Pennsylvania. Some of her insider pals are appalled.”

— “Why Global Supply Chains May Never Be the Same – A WSJ Documentary: The pandemic exposed breaking points in the system that would fundamentally alter consumer expectations of getting anything we want whenever we want it.”

— “Are the Oscars Over?” by Scott Johnson in Los Angeles Magazine: “Sinking ratings, shrinking movie stars, boring broadcasts, not to mention battles over its controversial new museum. And now a quota system that threatens to tear the Oscars apart. How the Academy Awards are struggling to get on with the show.”

— “Nicolas Cage Can Explain It All,” by GQ’s Gabriella Paiella: “He is one of our great actors. Also one of our most inscrutable, most eccentric, and most misunderstood. But as Cage makes his case here, every extraordinary thing about his wild work and life actually makes perfect ordinary sense.”

— “Notes on the State of Jefferson,” by James Pogue in Harper’s: “A secessionist movement brews in northern California.”

— “How My Great-Uncle Swindled Hitler Out of Precious Canadian Nickel Before WWII,” by Walter Shapiro in The New Republic: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created a global nickel shortage. Here’s what happened when the Führer tried to buy extra nickel right before the last time a major war broke out in Europe.”

— “You Don’t Know Much About Jay Penske. And He’s Fine With That,” by NYT’s Katherine Rosman: “A quiet Hollywood power broker with a famous name goes on a buying spree that has given him Rolling Stone, South by Southwest and a private island. What more does he want?”

Hillary Clinton memorialized Madeleine Albright in a NYT op-ed.

The McCain Institute at Arizona State University is adding Jack McCain and Jill Hazelbaker to its board of trustees.

IN MEMORIAM — “Dirck Halstead, Photojournalist Who Captured History, Dies at 85,” by NYT’s Neil Genzlinger: “Shooting for Time magazine and United Press International, he documented presidents, the Vietnam War and more.”

OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at a party for Christine Emba’s new book, “Rethinking Sex: A Provocation” ($27), hosted by Shadi Hamid on Friday night: Kirsten Powers and Robert Draper, David Brooks and Anne Snyder Brooks, Ramesh Ponnuru, Emily Yoffe, Christina Hoff Sommers, Daniel McCarthy, Osita Nwavenu, Jamie Kirchick, Molly Ball, Alex Nazaryan, Miranda Kennedy, Daniel Lippman and Sophia Narrett,Damir Marusic, Bria Sandford, Isaac Arnsdorf and Elizabeth Deutsch, Caitlin Carroll, Ian Tuttle, Tiana Lowe, Nihal Krishan, Kartik Das and Ethan Fichtner.

BIRTHWEEK (was Friday): Erika Moritsugu of the White House

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Speaker Nancy Pelosi … WaPo’s Bob Woodward … CBS’ Margaret Brennan … Center for Renewing America’s Russ Vought … Jon Huntsman … Matt Lira … James Gelfand … Chandler Hudson Bair … Caroline Darmody … Dan Caldwell … Michael Waxman of Waxman Strategies … Miriam Warren … Caren Street … FDIC’s Edward Garnett III … Planned Parenthood’s Melanie Roussell Newman … Juan Londoño of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation … Twitter’s Lexi Neaman … Melissa Toufanian … Carlos Mark Vera of Pay Our Interns … former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (92) … former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee … former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) … former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao

THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):

CNN “State of the Union”: U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith … Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) … Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) … José Andrés … Panel: Karen Finney, Scott Jennings, Rebeccah Heinrichs and Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) … Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova … Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) … Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) … Panel: retired Lt. Gen. James Clapper, Beth Sanner, retired Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard and Susan Glasser.

MSNBC “The Sunday Show”: Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) … Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) … Justin Gest … Hanna Hopko … Jane Harman … Jim Kessler … Jonatan Vseviov.

FOX “Fox News Sunday,” guest-anchored by John Roberts: Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) … U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith. Panel: Karl Rove, Gillian Turner, Chad Pergram and Marie Harf.

NBC “Meet the Press”: Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova … Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) … Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) … Richard Engel reporting from Ukraine. Panel: Yamiche Alcindor, Stephen Hayes, Jeh Johnson and Susan Page.

CBS “Face the Nation”: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) … Marie Yovanovitch … Will Hurd … Bob Costa … Bob Woodward … Michael Morell … David Martin.

ABC “This Week”: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) … retired Gen. David Petraeus. Panel: Donna Brazile, Jeffrey Goldberg, Vivian Salama and Ramesh Ponnuru.

Gray TV “Full Court Press”: Oleksandra Matviychuk … Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.).

CNN “Inside Politics”: retired Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson. Panel: Jonathan Martin, Asma Khalid and Manu Raju. Panel: Robin Wright and Jill Dougherty.

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