Former President Trump aide Kellyanne Conway on Friday defended payments she reportedly made to Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, at the behest of a conservative judicial activist.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that legal activist Leonard Leo instructed Conway, then a GOP pollster, to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K” in January 2012, emphasizing that there should be “no mention of Ginni, of course” in the paperwork.
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Conway’s firm, the Polling Company, billed a nonprofit Leo advises, then known as the Judicial Education Project, for $25,000 that day, the Post reported.
In total, Conway’s Polling Company paid Thomas’s Liberty Consulting firm $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012, according to the Post. It was expected to pay another $20,000 by the end of 2012.
Conway said Friday that Thomas was one of her contractors, emphasizing Thomas’s long history of involvement in the conservative movement.
“[Thomas] had worked with the Heritage Foundation. She was part of the grassroots, is part of the grassroots. She had worked in the Reagan administration,” Conway told Fox News. “This is a serious person who for years had worked in public policy.”
“And at the Polling Company, we did public opinion research and data analytics,” she added. “We had no business before the court.”
The Judicial Education Project, however, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court later in 2012, according to the Post.
Conway also appeared to connect critical reporting on Supreme Court justices to an incident last year in which a man was charged with attempted murder after he was arrested outside of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home carrying several weapons.
“Viciousness from 10 years ago, 11 years ago, has turned into violence now, where people are outside of Supreme Court justices’ homes trying to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh while his wife and daughters are sleeping in that home,” Conway said. “So, these people will stop at nothing.”
Justice Clarence Thomas is facing intense public scrutiny after several recent reports from ProPublica revealed the justice’s close relationship with GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.
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