Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Clarence Thomas should resign: 'This is a tipping point'

• AOC said Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should resign.
• The Washington Post reported that Thomas' wife, Ginni, texted Mark Meadows, urging him to challenge the 2020 election.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday said Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas should resign in the wake of text messages that his wife sent to top White House officials to challenge the 2020 election.

"Clarence Thomas should resign," the New York Democrat wrote on Twitter. "If not, his failure to disclose income from right-wing organizations, recuse himself from matters involving his wife, and his vote to block the Jan 6th commission from key information must be investigated and could serve as grounds for impeachment."

Several House Democrats have raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest for Thomas and his work on the Supreme Court after news broke last week that his wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, sent several text messages to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows urging him to pursue efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In one message sent on November 10, 2020, just days after major news networks declared then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden the winner, Ginni wrote to Meadows: "Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!"

"You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America's constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History," the text continued, per The Washington Post.

Twenty-nine text messages exchanged between Meadows and Ginni from November 2020 to January 2021 are in the possession of the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot. Members of the panel have signaled that they plan to reach out to Ginni for an interview as part of the probe.

The texts also come after Ginni acknowledged that she attended the "Stop the Steal" rally at the Ellipse on January 6, but got cold and left early before then-President Donald Trump took the stage and a crowd of his supporters later stormed the Capitol.

"Congress must understand that a failure to hold Clarence Thomas accountable sends a loud, dangerous signal to the full Court - Kavanaugh, Barrett, & the rest - that his acts are fair game," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in another tweet. "This is a tipping point. Inaction is a decision to erode and further delegitimize SCOTUS."

Besides Ocasio-Cortez, at least nine other Democrats have also called for Thomas' resignation — and even for his impeachment. The only Supreme Court justice to ever be impeached was Associate Justice Samuel Chase and that occurred in 1805.

But, for the most part, lawmakers have only asked that Thomas recuse himself from Supreme Court cases related to the January 6 riot and the congressional investigation.

"For the good of the court, I think he should recuse himself from those cases," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told reporters on Capitol Hill.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters it would be up to Thomas to decide whether to recuse himself from cases involving January 6.

Thomas has come under scrutiny over a Supreme Court order handed down two months ago, in which the court's majority rejected Trump's request to withhold White House records from the January 6 committee. The ruling was 8-1, and Thomas was the sole dissenter.

This report has been updated with another tweet from Ocasio-Cortez.