In one of her texts, the contents of which were earlier reported by The Washington Post and CBS News, Ms. Thomas sent Mr. Meadows a link to a video featuring Steve Pieczenik, a former State Department official who was claiming that mail-in ballots had been watermarked as part of an elaborate government sting operation to catch voter fraud. Mr. Pieczenik previously appeared on a webcast with the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and claimed that the 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Conn., was a false-flag operation, a notion that has been thoroughly debunked.
On Nov. 19, Ms. Thomas promoted the efforts of Sidney Powell, the Trump lawyer who spent much of the postelection period spreading conspiracy theories. “Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud,” Ms. Thomas wrote to Mr. Meadows. “Make a plan. Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.”
That same day, Ms. Powell held a news conference with Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington. There, she laid out baseless allegations that a cabal that included Chinese software firms, international shell companies and the financier George Soros had conspired to hack America’s voting machines.
At that time, Ms. Powell was in the early stages of preparing four federal lawsuits that would present this purported plot as a reason for judges to overturn the election results. She nicknamed her suits the “Krakens,” referring to a giant octopus-like sea creature.
Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key Developments
Card 1 of 3Virginia Thomas’ text messages. In the weeks before the Capitol riot, Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent several text messages imploring Mark Meadows, President Donald J. Trump’s chief of staff, to take steps to overturn the vote. The messages appear to have exposed a rift within the House committee investigating the attack.
Potential contempt charges. The House committee investigating the attack on Jan. 6 said that it would consider contempt of Congress charges against Peter Navarro, a former White House adviser, and Dan Scavino Jr., a former deputy chief of staff, for refusing to comply with its subpoenas.
Requests to “rescind” the election. Representative Mo Brooks, who challenged President Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, claimed that Donald J. Trump had asked him to illegally “rescind” the election. The statement came after Mr. Trump withdrew his endorsement of Mr. Brooks in the G.O.P. primary for Alabama’s Senate seat.
By Dec. 10, John Eastman, a former Supreme Court clerk for Justice Thomas and a close friend of the Thomases, went on “War Room,” a podcast hosted by Mr. Bannon.
Mr. Eastman urged the Supreme Court to intervene and said the country was in the midst of a constitutional crisis. Behind the scenes, he was advising Mr. Trump and his campaign on a proposal regarded as outlandish by many other lawyers — that Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to accept swing-state electoral votes and send them back to the state legislatures when he presided over the certification of the election in a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. Mr. Eastman’s role would only become fully clear months later.