A lawyer for former President Donald Trump has described Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as “key” to Trump’s plan to delay congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s victory through court proceedings after the 2020 election, according to emails. emails recently sent to the House select committee investigating in January. 6.
“We want to frame things so that Thomas will be the one to issue” a temporary injunction challenging the Georgia results, Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote in a Dec. 31, 2020 email, adding that a favorable order from Thomas was “their only chance” to hold out to stop Congress from counting Georgia’s electoral votes for Biden.
John Eastman, another Trump lawyer, responded to that email saying he agreed with the plan. In email exchanges with several other attorneys working on Trump’s legal team, they discussed filing a lawsuit that they hoped would result in a ruling that “DUPLICATELY” declared Biden’s Georgia electoral votes invalid due to voter fraud.
The pendency of a case before the Supreme Court, Chesebrough wrote, would be enough to prevent the Senate from counting Biden’s electors. Thomas would end up being “the key here,” Chesebro wrote, noting that Thomas is the attorney assigned to handle emergency matters coming from the southeast part of the county.
The email attributed to Thomas was first reported by Politico. It is part of a batch of court-ordered emails obtained by the House from Eastman that are still being litigated before an appeals court. The emails were available via link in a court filing filed by the House committee early Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge David Carter previously ruled that the emails show possible criminal activity in Trump’s efforts to reverse his election loss, finding that the Trump team was using litigation not to obtain judicial relief but to interfere with congressional proceedings . Carter, in ruling last month that the emails should be released to the House committee, said some of them showed evidence of obstruction of an official process.
In a separate email, one of the attorneys, Chesebro, acknowledged that their plans were a long shot, putting the odds of success at the Supreme Court before congressional certification on Jan. 6 at 1 percent.
This story has been updated with additional details.
