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Trump Lawyers Hoped that Clarence Thomas Would Help Them Overturn the Georgia Vote

After the votes were counted in Georgia in Nov. 2020 and Donald Trump failed to get Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" another 11,780 votes, his legal team came up with another plan. This plan was to appeal to the Supreme Court justice in charge of the 11th Circuit (which includes Georgia) and ask that justice to do something to help them. The justice who handles the 11th Circuit is Clarence Thomas. This new information comes from emails a court ordered John Eastman to turn over to the Select Committee. The emails quickly (accidentally) leaked to Politico.

Trump's lawyers knew that Thomas could not overturn the count on his own, but they were hoping he would order Georgia to refrain from certifying the vote until the state legislature could get involved—and potentially appoint its own slate of electors. Or at the very least, with Georgia's electoral votes uncertain, maybe the Jan. 6 count could be stopped,especially if the Supreme Court was scheduled to take the case up soon. Trump lawyers Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro discussed this in emails. Trump himself did not write any of the emails, but given his extreme interest in the matter, might well have been at least aware of the plan.

Nevertheless, a case can be made that Eastman and Chesebro engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election. If they are indicted for it, it is certainly possible that one or both of them will flip and tell the DoJ everything they know about Trump's involvement and whether he was also part of the criminal conspiracy.

Both of them were disappointed when Thomas didn't take any action to block certification until the Supreme Court could take up the matter. In fact, he took no action at all, pretty much scuttling this plan. (V)



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