More than 100 former law clerks of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have released an open letter vouching for the justice’s integrity after multiple reports indicating Thomas has secretly benefited from lavish gift-giving from conservative benefactors over several years.
One signee sticks out from the rest: John C. Eastman.
That’s right, the same John Eastman who stands accused, in both federal and state indictments, of devising the legal strategy used by Donald Trump to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election — and overthrow democratic governance for who knows how long.
Eastman now faces potential disbarment, which, to state the obvious, shows he might not be the best authority on legal integrity. (Eastman attorney Harvey Silverglate, who has argued that Eastman was providing legal advice and guidance to Trump while he was president and didn’t do anything wrong, told NBC News: “John Eastman was a law clerk for Justice Thomas. There is obviously a cordial relationship between them.”)
You can read the full letter below, but I’ll give you a quick breakdown here: It’s two pages of baroque lawyerspeak, and it opens with several paragraphs chronicling Thomas’ upbringing in the segregated South.
The first line had my eyes rolling like the wheels of a Bombardier Global 5000 jet — which Thomas should know all about, having taken numerous flights on right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow’s private jet.
On the U.S. Supreme Court is a Justice descended from West African slaves and born to a young mother, not more than 20, in segregated Georgia.
The letter claims Thomas is “ever the subject of political headlines taking aim at his character, his judicial philosophy, his marriage, even his race,” and it alleges that critiques of Thomas “are part of a larger attack on the Court and its legitimacy as an institution,” which sounds pretty lacking in self-awareness coming from Eastman and company.
In essence, the law clerks have distilled to two pages the “high-tech lynching” argument used by conservatives to shield Thomas during his confirmation to the Supreme Court in the early 1990s. Kinda funny ain’t it? Many of these clerks are aligned with a nationwide movement to whitewash the history of racism in the U.S., but here they are weaponizing that history in defense of Thomas.
Eastman’s inclusion takes the cake, though.
Did no one have the heart to break it to him that his involvement would make this entire letter seem even more ridiculous than it already was?
A simple “John, maybe you should sit this one out” would have sufficed.
Pro tip: If you’re going to collaborate on a letter vouching for one’s legal repute, it’s best to make sure none of the letter’s signees stand accused of some of the most heinous legal chicanery in modern history.