Analyst points out how Trump’s 12-page rant might have revealed where Eastman got his SCOTUS infighting claims
Washington Post analyst Phillip Bump made an observation as news swirled about Trump lawyer John Eastman, who somehow knew that the Supreme Court was dealing with infighting over whether to take up cases involving the 2020 election.
It was reported Wednesday evening that Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, emailed Eastman, who penned the so-called "coup memo." Eastman was formerly a law clerk of Thomas. The House Select Committee has the emails.
So, the question that has been asked for the past 12 hours is whether Eastman was using his relationship with Justice Thomas to discuss overturning the election or whether he was discussing it with Thomas' wife.
One clue Bump noticed came as part of former President Donald Trump's recent 12-page statement responding to the second day of Jan. 6 committee hearings. Bump wondered if the rant story that Eastman shared was nothing more than his own exposure to right-wing, conspiracy theory sites.
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"Part of the document centered on his long-standing claim that courts didn’t fully consider his legal arguments, a claim that has itself been debunked," wrote Bump. "Trump tried to argue, for example, that the Supreme Court rejected his last-ditch effort to block the election results, Texas v. Pennsylvania, out of fear."
According to the 12-page rant, "Judges, including Justices of the United States Supreme Court, were scared," he said. It went on to cite "rumors" that "circulated that the Justices devolved to shouting and argued intensely over how to handle the Texas v. Pennsylvania case.”
The link he used to verify it went to The Epoch Times, a pro-Trump platform affiliated with the Falun Gong "movement." In a story on the site, right-wing, fringe radio host Hal Turner was quoted for a report he made saying "a source deep inside the U.S. Supreme Court," who he said was a law clerk, overheard Justice John Roberts refusing to hear the Texas case out of a fear of violence. The same claim was made by a Texas elector.
As Bump points out, there's no proof of it, and the publication is known for promoting outright false stories to help Trump. The story even quotes the Supreme Court saying that the story wasn't true and that there weren't any in-person meetings with the Court due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, no one could have overheard a shouting match between the judges.
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Bump detailed that the timing is also suspicious. The Court rejected the Texas case on Dec. 11, 2020. The email between Eastman and pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro happened on Dec. 24, after the Court denied the case. There weren't any cases before the Court at that point.
Before the 24th email, however, was the Hal Turner story, which was published on Dec. 12. So, if there was a fight, the information wasn't coming from a law clerk during an official discussion. If it actually happened it would have to be a personal conversation between justices with very few who could have overheard it.
"In other words, we have an obvious conduit for claims about a heated argument making their way to Eastman even if Virginia Thomas didn’t raise them: online misinformation," Bump concluded.
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