I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday, January 25th.

We'll hear now from New York or Washington correspondent, Jane Mayer, one of the leading chroniclers of far-right power and

influence in this country. She is author of the 2016 book, Dark Money, the Hidden History of

the Billionaires behind the Rise of the Radical Right. She wrote an article in the New Yorker

last year following the money behind Donald Trump's big lie about a stolen election.

She also wrote the book about Clarence Thomas some years ago called Strange Justice,

The Selling of Clarence Thomas, and her brand new New Yorker article looks at ties between

Thomas's wife and right-wing groups that have an interest in issues before the Supreme Court.

She writes the claim that justices are politically neutral is becoming increasingly hard to accept,

especially from Justice Thomas, whose wife Virginia Thomas is a vocal right-wing activist.

So we'll talk about the conservative activism of Jenny Thomas and some of

the issues she's involved in, which, by the way, are coming up in controversial cases appearing before

the court, and also put it into the larger context of Jane's work following the money of far-right

influence in the United States. Jane, welcome back to WNYC.

It's always great to have you.

Thanks so much.

I'm so glad to be with you.

So who is Jenny Thomas?

You know, like we rarely hear about Supreme Court spouses at all.

Well, you hear more about her than any of the others, I think.

But she is, she's been married to Clarence Thomas, I guess,

since about 1987. And she was a lawyer in her own right, though she doesn't practice. She's

...