House General Counsel Douglas Epistoli acknowledged Wednesday afternoon that his office effectively released the messages by including a link to them in copies of messages publicly filed with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. “We did not know that the links in the email of Dr. Eastman remained active and we had no intention of providing this type of public access to the materials at this stage. Providing public access to this material at this point was purely unintentional on our part,” Letter told the appeals court in a brief letter. The emails, as presented to the committee, included formatting errors that removed ‘i’s’ and ‘l’s. POLITICO has included the missing letters for clarity. Thomas is the judge assigned to handle urgent matters arising from Georgia and would be the one to accept any urgent appeal of Trump’s lawsuit to the Supreme Court – which appeared to be part of the Trump legal team’s calculus. Rulings by the so-called circuits are usually stopgap measures aimed at maintaining the status quo until the Supreme Court rules, but Trump lawyers had hoped a favorable order from Thomas would embolden the GOP-controlled legislatures, Congress — or then-Vice President Mike Pence — to block the final certification of Joe Biden’s victory. In another December 31 email, Chesebro laid out this strategy explicitly: “[I]If we can get this case pending before the Supreme Court by January 5th, ideally with something positive written by a judge or a judge, I hope Thomas, I think that’s the best way to keep a state’s count up in Congress,” Chesebro he said. Chesebro’s emails continued to offer detailed strategy suggestions on ways to delegitimize Biden’s victory on Jan. 6 and beyond. In one scenario, Chesebro suggested encouraging Senate Republicans to push for enough time to delay a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, ignoring debate time limits. He also described how Trump allies could use the courts’ inaction to build political pressure against Biden’s inauguration. “It’s hard to be hugely optimistic about what’s going to happen on Jan. 6, but a lot can happen in the 13 days until then, and I think having as many states as possible on the table (both judicially and in state legislatures ) is ideal,” Chesebro wrote to Trump campaign lawyer Justin Clark on December 24, 2020. It is unclear how or if Clark responded to Chesebro’s message. The New York-based lawyer was scrutinized by the Jan. 6 select committee, as well as by prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., who are investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the election there. The Trump team’s effort found virtually no traction at the high court. The only outward signs of dissent among the justices were mild, such as a Dec. 11 order in which the court rejected an attempt by Texas to challenge vote counts in four other states. Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito issued a brief statement saying they would have accepted jurisdiction over the case, but joined the other justices in denying Texas any relief. Eastman, an architect of Trump’s last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election, was once an employee of Thomas and had corresponded with his wife, Virginia, in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. Eastman played a central role in pushing Pence to single-handedly overturn the 2020 election when he presided over the Jan. 6 session of Congress — a legally required process to count electoral votes and certify election results. In his conversations with Pence’s staff on Jan. 4 and 5, Eastman suggested he believed Thomas would likely support their efforts. Eastman’s emails, which he fought to keep from the select committee, have provided some of the strongest evidence against Trump’s team — including a March 28 ruling by a federal judge saying it was possible that Trump and Eastman criminally conspired to overturn the elections. Federal prosecutors also scrutinized Eastman, who pleaded Thursday in his Jan. 6 panel testimony. FBI agents seized Eastman’s cellphone in June as part of a broad investigation related to efforts by Trump allies to undermine the election results. Ginny Thomas became the focus of congressional investigators after a text message surfaced showing her urging Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to continue efforts to keep Trump in office despite losing the 2020 election. Interviewed at the Jan. 6 panel earlier in the fall. The emails also shed new light on an effort to get Trump to sign documents related to a Dec. 31, 2020, federal lawsuit challenging the election results in Georgia, including strong concerns raised by Trump’s lawyers during that chaotic period that Trump could put himself in legal jeopardy if he confirmed the evidence of voter fraud contained in it. “I have no doubt that an aggressive DA or US Atty somewhere will go after both the President and his lawyers once all the dust settles on this,” Eastman wrote in an email to two other private attorneys working on the challenges of Trump election, Alex Kaufman and Kurt Hilbert. After some back-and-forth, including with Trump’s White House lawyer Eric Hersman, the lawyers agreed they would redact some of the specifics before Trump swore to the lawsuit’s accuracy. But they also debated whether the federal complaint should “incorporate by reference” the voter fraud data included in an earlier state-level lawsuit. Eastman warned that since the state lawsuit was filed, evidence has disproved some of the voter fraud data contained in it — and for Trump to point to the earlier data would be incorrect. “I know it’s late in the afternoon, but do we need to incorporate this complaint with a report?” Eastman wondered. It is 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 documents before Trump so they could be signed and certified in time for the filing of the lawsuit that evening. Trump, it was learned, was on the plane back to DC and needed to sign and notarize the document. Trump’s attorney Cleta Mitchell said Trump’s personal assistant informed her they did not have access to a notary until Monday. “And now what?” she wondered. “Can we find a way to submit this without verification? “Isn’t there anyone who can be a notary public to come to the White House?” Chris Gardner, a Virginia attorney and former GOP House aide who assisted the president’s legal team, asked in an email sent shortly before 4 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. “I don’t know how we file without it. Presidential trip to a UPS store?’ Mitchell later said she was exploring the possibility of having a notary public notarize Trump’s signature via a Zoom call. Court records show that Trump’s signature was ultimately confirmed by William McCathran, an executive assistant who works for the White House. Trump’s signature was key to U.S. District Court Judge David Carter’s Oct. 19 ruling that the emails must be disclosed to a House committee on Jan. 6. Carter said Trump signed the verification in a federal court complaint under penalty of perjury despite evidence he had been told many of the fraud allegations in the lawsuit were inaccurate. The messages “show that President Trump knew the specific voter fraud numbers were wrong, but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” wrote Carter, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.
