Justice Thomas's Wife's Fundraising Makes Her a Tea Party Force

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Politico:

Justice Thomas's wife's fundraising makes her tea party force

By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 7/6/10 6:31 PM EDT

When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife announced in 2008 that she was going to help run Washington operations for a Michigan college once described as “a citadel of American conservatism,” she said the move was her “way of pulling away from politics” and the “safest place for me to be when it comes to conflicts” with her husband’s position on the court.

But, less than two years later, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas has returned to partisan politics as a fully engaged opponent of President Barack Obama, whom she has described as “hard left” and steering the nation “for tyranny.” As founder and president of a think tank and advocacy group called Liberty Central, she quickly established herself in the tea party movement by drawing on her longstanding ties to Washington’s conservative establishment and by landing two big donations — one for $500,000 and another for $50,000 —that put her group on the map.

The two donations are the only sources of money the group, which she established in November, reported to the Internal Revenue Service in 2009, according to a recently released report, which blocks out the donors’ names, as allowed by the section of the tax code under which the group is registered, 501©4. Yet, its size sets Liberty Central apart from other new tea party groups that have struggled to raise money from mostly small, grass-roots contributions.

In interviews with popular conservative media outlets, Thomas described her still-evolving vision for Liberty Central, which she recently said she envisions forming a bridge between the conservative establishment and the anti-establishment tea party.

“I’m getting to know the Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists,” Thomas told Human Events late last month. “What I think I can bring to the table is a connective (t)issue between the new people and the old people.”

The group appears to be positioning itself as a hybrid think tank/advocacy group/campaign arm for the tea party movement. Last month, it endorsed its first candidate, Mike Lee, who defeated incumbent Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah in a Republican primary, and it intends to roll out a larger round of endorsements this month, according to Sarah Field, its policy director and general counsel.

In the meantime, it’s been providing legislative analysis intended to help tea party activists lobby Congress against initiatives pushed by the Obama administration.

Neither a Liberty Central official, nor a Supreme Court spokeswoman would say whether the group would disclose the names of its donors to the Supreme Court legal office or to Thomas’s husband so he can avoid ruling on cases in which a major Liberty Central donor is a party.

“Liberty Central has been run past the Supreme Court ethics office and they found that the organization meets all ethics standards,” said Field. “As she has throughout her 30-year history in the policy community, Ginni will address any potential conflicts on a case-by-case basis.”

As Ginni Thomas has begun to emerge as a high-profile political player in her own right, friends and allies say has bristled at the focus on her husband, and questions about whether her involvement with Liberty Central could compromise his impartiality.