WASHINGTON — Virginia Thomas, political activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has decided to relinquish control of Liberty Central, the conservative group she founded less than a year ago, so that the organization can escape the “distractions” of her media celebrity, a spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman, Caitlin Carroll of CRC Public Relations in Alexandria, Va., said Monday that an announcement was scheduled this morning detailing the merger of Liberty Central with another organization and Thomas’ decision to step down as chief executive.
“She’ll take a back seat so that Liberty Central can continue with its mission without any of the distractions,” Carroll said.
A source not authorized to speak publicly about the details said Liberty Central would be merging with the Patrick Henry Center, a Manassas, Va.-based conservative organization founded by Gary Aldrich, the former FBI agent who wrote a tell-all book about life inside the Clinton White House.
Thomas launched Liberty Central in May as a grassroots organizer and educator intended to serve as a clearinghouse of policy and candidate information for conservative activists and Tea Party groups.
More recently, however, Thomas has been in the news as a result of her phone call to Anita Hill, the lawyer who accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 Senate confirmation hearings. Virginia Thomas rekindled a long-ago controversy by leaving a voice mail message at Hill’s Brandeis University office seeking an apology.
The call to Hill is not the only controversy surrounding Thomas, however. On the morning she made the phone call, Thomas was the subject of a front-page New York Times article questioning whether her new prominence and acceptance of large, anonymous contributions for Liberty Central — including two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000 — might raise conflict-of-interest questions for her husband.
Also last month, Liberty Central blamed a staff error for a memo with Virginia Thomas’ name on it declaring health care legislation unconstitutional — perhaps reflecting a new sensitivity to the relationship between her activism and her husband’s job.
