Just how did the January 6th Committee get Ginni Thomas’ text messages?
The real question we should all be asking is how the January 6th Committee obtained Ginni Thomas’ text messages. Those don’t just fall out of the sky. Someone told the committee about them, or gave them to the committee – which means a key person in Trump world has been cooperating big time.
The first thought would be that Mark Meadows turned these text messages over during his brief cooperation period. We know that he turned over a ton of his own communications, including ones that incriminated him, before abruptly changing his mind days later. If this did come from Meadows, then it means the committee pulled off a huge win by scaring Meadows into temporarily cooperating. So much for the doomsday pundits’ claims that Meadows somehow “played” the committee.
But if the committee also has Ginni Thomas’ texts with other Trump world people, in addition to Thomas’ texts with Meadows, then they can’t all have come (directly) from Meadows. It’s possible Meadows gave the committee his texts with Thomas, prompting the committee to subpoena all of Thomas’ other texts in that timeframe. Keep in mind these kinds of records can be obtained under subpoena directly from the communications provider, without the target of the investigation even knowing.
This could also explain why the DOJ is taking all this time to indict Meadows for contempt. The DOJ’s overall criminal case against him, which now includes criminally conspiring with Ginni Thomas, must be massive in scope. It would be understandable if the DOJ is hesitant to indict Meadows for contempt before it’s ready to indict him on broader charges, for fear of tipping off anyone who’s still under investigation as part of the Meadows probe.
But what if these Ginni Thomas text messages didn’t come from Meadows? That would point to another member of Trump’s inner circle being hugely cooperative with the committee. Since nothing like that has leaked, it would mean this person’s cooperation is still a secret – suggesting it’s still ongoing.
It’s not entirely clear which would be worse for Trump and his people – that the stuff Meadows turned over has blown the lid off the entire thing all on its own, or that some other big player in Trump world is secretly cooperating against all of them.
We’ll find out once the televised 1/6 committee hearings begin. A lot of folks will likely be shocked at what the committee now has up its sleeve. This kind of evidence doesn’t just fall from trees. The committee must have achieved a serious level of overall cooperation. We keep seeing headlines about the Trump world people who have invoked the Fifth and refused to cooperate. But it’s the people who do cooperate that you generally don’t hear about until the investigation is complete.
So why haven’t the January 6th Committee’s public hearings begun yet? The only reason it could be taking this long is that the committee has obtained so much evidence that it has to work through, follow the new leads uncovered, and so on. The longer we have to wait, the bigger the boom will likely be. And no, the committee is not going to “run out of time.” It will, obviously, complete its public hearings and make all of its criminal referrals before the midterm elections. Trump-connected Republican politicians should be terrified about the timing.
