Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Donald Trump\u2019s attorneys saw a direct appeal to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as their best hope of derailing Joe Biden\u2019s win in the 2020 presidential election, according to emails newly disclosed to congressional investigators.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt,\u201d Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote in a Dec. 31, 2020, email<\/a> to Trump\u2019s legal team. Chesebro contended that Thomas would be \u201cour only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think I agree with this,\u201d attorney John Eastman replied later that morning, suggesting that a favorable move by Thomas or other justices would \u201ckick the Georgia legislature into gear\u201d to help overturn the election results.<\/p>\n The messages were part of a batch of eight emails \u2014 obtained by POLITICO \u2014 that Eastman had sought to withhold from the Jan. 6 select committee but that a judge ordered turned over anyway, describing them as evidence of likely crimes committed by Eastman and Trump. They were transmitted to the select committee by Eastman\u2019s attorneys last week, but they have not been publicly released.<\/p>\n Thomas is the justice assigned to handle emergency matters arising out of Georgia and would have been the one to receive any urgent appeal of Trump\u2019s lawsuit to the Supreme Court \u2014 a fact that seemed to be part of the Trump legal team\u2019s calculus.<\/p>\n Rulings from so-called circuit justices are typically stopgap measures aimed at preserving the status quo until the full Supreme Court weighs in, but the Trump lawyers hoped a favorable order from Thomas would embolden state GOP-controlled legislatures, Congress \u2014 or then-Vice President Mike Pence \u2014 to block final certification of Joe Biden\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n In another Dec. 31 email<\/a>, Chesebro explicitly laid out this strategy:<\/p>\n “[I]f we can just get this case pending before the Supreme Court by Jan. 5, ideally with something positive written by a judge or justice, hopefully Thomas, I think it’s our best shot at holding up the count of a state in Congress,\u201d Chesebro said.<\/p>\n The Trump\u2019s team\u2019s effort found virtually no traction at the high court. The only outward signs of dissension among the justices were mild, like a Dec. 11 order<\/a> where the court rejected a bid by Texas to challenge the vote counts in four other states. Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito issued a brief statement saying they\u2019d have accepted jurisdiction over the case, but joined the other justices in denying Texas any relief.<\/p>\n Eastman, an architect of Trump\u2019s last-ditch bid to subvert the 2020 election, once clerked for Thomas and had corresponded with his wife, Virginia<\/a>, in the weeks before Jan. 6. <\/p>\n Eastman played a central role in pressuring Pence to single-handedly subvert the 2020 election when he presided over the Jan. 6 session of Congress \u2014 a legally required proceeding to count electoral votes and certify the election results. In his conversations with Pence\u2019s staff on Jan. 4 and 5, Eastman suggested that he believed Thomas would likely support their efforts.<\/p>\n Ginni Thomas became the focus of congressional investigators after text message emerged showing her urging Trump\u2019s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to continue efforts to keep Trump in power despite losing the 2020 election. She interviewed with the Jan. 6 panel earlier in the fall.<\/p>\n The emails also shed new light <\/a>on an effort to get Trump to sign documents connected to a Dec. 31, 2020 federal lawsuit challenging the election results in Georgia, including acute concerns Trump\u2019s lawyers voiced during that chaotic period that Trump might put himself in legal jeopardy if he attested to the voter fraud data contained in it.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no doubt that an aggressive DA or US Atty someplace will go after both the President and his lawyers once all the dust settles on this,\u201d Eastman wrote in an email to two other private attorneys working on Trump election challenges, Alex Kaufman and Kurt Hilbert.<\/p>\n After some exchanges, including with Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, the lawyers agreed they would remove some of the specific figures before Trump swore to the accuracy of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n But they also debated whether the federal complaint should \u201cincorporate by reference\u201d the voter fraud data included in an earlier state-level lawsuit. Eastman warned that since the state lawsuit was filed, evidence had disproved some of the voter fraud data contained in it \u2014 and having Trump point to the earlier data would be erroneous.<\/p>\n \u201cI know it is late in the day, but do we need to incorporate that complaint by reference?\u201d Eastman wondered.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how the other attorney responded to Eastman. But in a separate email chain with additional lawyers, an intensive effort was underway to get the court filings in front of Trump so they could be signed and notarized in time to file the lawsuit that evening.<\/p>\n Trump, they were informed, was on a plane back to D.C. and they needed him to sign and notarize the document. Trump attorney Cleta Mitchell said Trump\u2019s personal assistant had informed her they had no access to a notary until Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, now what?\u201d she wondered. \u201cCan we figure out a way to file this without a verification?<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no one they can call to come to the White House that\u2019s a notary?\u201d Chris Gardner, a Virginia attorney and former GOP House aide assisting the president\u2019s legal team, asked in an email sent just before 4 P.M. on New Year\u2019s Eve. \u201cI don\u2019t know how we file without it. Presidential trip to a UPS store?\u201d<\/p>\n Mitchell later said she was exploring the possibility of getting a notary to certify Trump\u2019s signature via a Zoom call.<\/p>\n Court records show Trump\u2019s signature was ultimately attested to by William McCathran, an assistant executive clerk working for the White House.<\/p>\n