Trump Lawyer Claimed to Know of ‘Heated Fight’ at SCOTUS Over Election Challenges, Report Says

The lawyer behind Donald Trump’s bid to stay in power after his 2020 election loss claimed to have inside knowledge about a “heated fight” between Supreme Court justices weighing whether or not to hear Trumpworld election challenges, The New York Times reports. Attorney John Eastman is said to have made the claim in a Dec. 24, 2020, email exchange with pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Cheseboro—correspondence that is now under review by the Jan. 6 House committee. Discussing the likelihood of the court agreeing to hear an election challenge, Eastman reportedly wrote, “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.” It is not clear how Eastman, a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas whose contact with Thomas’ wife, Virginia, was revealed Wednesday, could have known about tensions among the justices. Cheseboro is also said to have suggested that putting pressure on the justices could help, reportedly writing 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.” The court had already rebuffed two earlier Trumpworld efforts to have election lawsuits heard at the time of the email exchange.