Although Ginni Thomas has claimed, in carefully parsed words, that she doesn’t “involve” her husband, aka “my best friend,” “in my work,” Trump’s lawyers don't seem to be buying it any more than the rest of us are.
To be clear, John Eastman, et al. didn’t think Clarence Thomas would hold up the Congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory but that Thomas would be their “only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6," which they hoped would embolden legislatures, maybe Mike Pence, too, and hold up Congress’ certification.
From Politico:
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’s lawsuit to the Supreme Court — a fact that seemed to be part of the Trump legal team’s calculus.
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 — or then-Vice President Mike Pence — to block final certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
Another email, from Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro made that plan explicit, Politico reported:
"[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,” Chesebro said.
It’s not as though Eastman was just relying on public reporting about the Thomases. He knows them pretty well and he was in touch with Ginni during their efforts to overturn the election. The Washington Post explains:
Eastman clerked for Thomas and has remained in touch with his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, according to email correspondence obtained by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. At least one of the emails showed Ginni Thomas inviting Eastman to speak on Dec. 8, 2020, to a group of conservative activists to provide an update about election litigation.
Ginni Thomas lobbied state legislators in Arizona and Wisconsin via email, urging them to help overturn Biden’s victory, The Washington Post has previously reported. Neither Ginni nor Clarence Thomas appear to be included on any of the newly released email correspondence, and there is no indication in the emails that any of the lawyers directly appealed to Clarence Thomas regarding election litigation.
Unfortunately for the Trump gang, they “found virtually no traction at the high court,” Politico noted.
You may recall that John Eastman tried to withhold these emails from the January 6th committee under the attorney-client privilege. But he was ordered to turn them over when a federal judge ruled “the crime-fraud exception applies.” Meaning, they contained evidence of “a conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the judge wrote in his order. That was because the emails showed that Trump and his lawyers knew that the numbers of deceased voters, felons and unregistered voters he swore to was inaccurate.
Eastman has since filed an appeal of that ruling but, before that officially happened, he inadvertently provided them to the January 6th committee via a Dropbox link.
The Jan. 6 committee, unaware that the link was live, included it in its brief in response to Eastman’s appeal of the order.
Sad!
