Justice Thomas recuses from considering ex-Trump lawyer Eastman’s Supreme Court petition
Kaelan Deese
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recused himself from considering a petition from Donald Trump attorney John Eastman to avoid exposing emails related to the Capitol riot to the House Jan. 6 committee.
The Justices on Monday denied a request to review a trial court order that forced Eastman to forfeit information to the U.S. House committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol. A line on the orders list indicated that Thomas “took no part” in considering the petition.
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Eastman’s case surrounds an attempt to block the committee from forcing his former employer, Chapman University, from handing over emails. The former law professor previously pushed a theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally refuse to certify the 2020 presidential election results.
The former law professor has also been indicted over alleged efforts to undo President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in Fulton County, Georgia.
Eastman is a former law clerk to Thomas and recently signed a letter joined by around 100 people vouching for Thomas’s ethics standards following news reports alleging that justice had fallen short of ethical standards.
Notably, Thomas’s spouse Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist, was interviewed by the committee before it dissolved earlier this year and reiterated her belief that the 2020 election was stolen, a regular line of former President Donald Trump since he lost his reelection bid in November that year.
Eastman’s emails were inadvertently made public during a his legal fight with congressional investigators, revealing top Trump advisers describing Thomas as the justice who could be the most poised to grant consideration of Trump’s election litigation efforts. Thomas did not offer a specific reason for his recusal.
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The recusal note comes as Thomas has faced demands by dozens of Democrats to recuse from a major administrative law case to be heard later this term, and additional calls by watchdog groups from a Tuesday oral argument involving the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism.
Justices on the Supreme Court granted a handful of cases on Monday but rejected dozens more, including another Trump-related case that sought to block him from being on the ballot under the 14th Amendment.