By any fair measure, John Eastman is among the most controversial figures in the larger Jan. 6 scandal. The Republican lawyer played a central role in trying to help Donald Trump overturn his 2020 defeat; a White House lawyer told Eastman directly that he should hire a criminal defense attorney; and a federal judge has already concluded that Eastman and the former president appear to have broken federal laws.
But no one should assume the important revelations about his efforts have run their course. The New York Times reported overnight:
A lawyer advising President Donald J. Trump claimed in an email after Election Day 2020 to have insight into a “heated fight” among the Supreme Court justices over whether to hear arguments about the president’s efforts to overturn his defeat at the polls, two people briefed on the email said. The lawyer, John Eastman, made the statement in a Dec. 24, 2020, exchange with a pro-Trump lawyer and Trump campaign officials over whether to file legal papers that they hoped might prompt four justices to agree to hear an election case from Wisconsin.
According to the Times’ reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Eastman wrote an email to Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump lawyer involved in the fake elector scheme.
“So the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices’ spines, and I understand that there is a heated fight underway,” Eastman reportedly wrote.
The article added that Chesebro replied that the “odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”
On the surface, the substance of what the scandal-plagued attorney was describing is itself deeply alarming: Eastman thought it was at least possible the Supreme Court would consider hearing arguments related to Team Trump’s coup scheme, and his ally saw the threat of chaos — or more specifically, “wild” chaos, referencing the word Trump used to describe Jan. 6 in advance of the fateful day — as a way to pressure the justices into action.
But just below the surface, there’s a related question: How would Eastman know about a “heated fight” among justices on the high court? At this point, that’s a difficult question to answer with confidence, but as it turns out, right around the time the Times was publishing its report, The Washington Post ran a related article.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has obtained email correspondence between Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and lawyer John Eastman, who played a key role in efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, according to three people involved in the committee’s investigation.
Again, there’s a surface-level significance to this, and then there’s the deeper meaning. At face value, the scope of Ginni Thomas’ lobbying efforts remains extraordinary: As we’ve discussed, the far-right activist played a role in the pre-riot Jan. 6 rally, had extensive communications with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, pressured congressional Republicans, reached out to Jared Kushner about legal options surrounding the larger offensive, and communicated with Republican state legislators about helping execute the plot.
If the Post’s reporting, which has also not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, is accurate, Thomas also corresponded with Eastman, who was helping lead the coup effort. But it’s against this backdrop that we’re also learning that Eastman was privately sharing his impressions about “heated” interactions among Supreme Court justices — while he was in communications with a Supreme Court justice’s wife. Maybe the dots shouldn’t be connected this way. Maybe Thomas and Eastman had conversations that had nothing to do with behind-the-scenes developments at the Supreme Court. Or maybe Eastman had thoughts about what was going on among the justices because he had a reliable source. The House Jan. 6 committee is holding its third public hearing on Thursday, June 16 at 1 p.m. ET. Get expert analysis in real-time on our liveblog at msnbc.com/jan6hearings.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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