Trump lawyers thought appealing to Clarence Thomas was their best option to block Biden's 2020 victory, emails show

• Emails obtained by Politico show Trump campaign lawyers discussing their 2020 litigation strategy.
• The lawyers viewed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as the most likely to be on their side.

Lawyers for the Trump campaign saw Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as their likeliest ally in their fight to overturn the 2020 election, with one writing that the judge — whose wife was herself fighting to block President Joe Biden's victory — represented their "only chance" to block the counting of Georgia's electoral votes before January 6, according to emails obtained by Politico.

"We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt," lawyer Kenneth Chesebro wrote in an email sent December 31, 2020. Thomas is "our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress."

According to Politico, the emails were first released to the congressional panel investigating the January 6 insurrection. Chesebro did not immediately respond to a message from Insider requesting comment.

In response to that December email, Politico reported, another Trump lawyer, John Eastman, wrote: "I think I agree with this." Eastman, a senior fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute, said a favorable ruling from Thomas would "kick the Georgia legislature into gear," referring to an effort to have the Republican-led body pass an alternate slate of fake, pro-Trump electors. "I've been getting a lot of calls from them indicating to me they're leaning that way," Eastman claimed.

Eastman is best known as the author of a memo, which he provided to Insider last year, falsely claiming former Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally block the certification of Biden's victory on January 6, an argument that one legal expert described as "a proposed coup cloaked in legal language."

Eastman did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Thomas has a reputation as a stalwart conservative voice at the Supreme Court. His wife, Ginni Thomas, is a right-wing activist who, after the 2020 election, urged legislators in her role as a leading member of the "Stop the Steal" movement, to overturn Biden's victory in battleground states such as Arizona. She recently testified before the House January 6 select committee, which uncovered messages between her and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and once more falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen, per the committee chairman, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson; she has claimed she does not speak with her husband about her own political dealings.

In January 2022, Justice Thomas was the only judge to side with former President Donald Trump in a case over whether he had to comply with a documents request from the January 6 committee. Three months later, following reporting on his wife's activism, two dozen Democrats wrote a letter arguing that Thomas should resign — or, at the very least, recuse himself from all future cases involving the 2020 election.

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