John Eastman, a Trump-allied lawyer indicted in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, is among more than 100 former law clerks of Clarence Thomas defending the Supreme Court justice’s integrity in an open letter.
The undated letter, which appears to be in response to the fallout from a bombshell ProPublica article about lavish trips taken by Thomas and funded by a billionaire GOP donor, calls Thomas’ character “unimpeachable.”
“Different paths led us to our year with Justice Thomas, and we have followed different paths since. But along the way, we all saw with our own eyes the same thing: His integrity is unimpeachable,” said the letter first reported by Fox News on Tuesday.
“Lately, the stories have questioned his integrity and his ethics for the friends he keeps,” the letter said. “We are proud to have been his clerks and to remain his friends, and we unequivocally reject attacks on his integrity, his character, or his ethics.”
The letter bears the names of 112 people identified as Thomas’ former law clerks. Eastman clerked for Thomas during the Supreme Court term that started in 1996.
When reached for comment, Eastman attorney Harvey Silverglate said: “John Eastman was a law clerk for Justice Thomas. There is obviously a cordial relationship between them.”
A spokesperson for the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter Tuesday evening.
Other names on the letter include John Eisenberg, who served as as deputy counsel in the Trump White House and a top lawyer for the National Security Council, as well as John Yoo, a Justice Department official during the George W. Bush administration who crafted the so-called torture memos that empowered Bush to order “enhanced interrogation” of terrorism suspects. Yoo expressed “grave concerns about Mr. Trump’s uses of presidential power” in a New York Times op-ed shortly after Trump took office.
The letter surfaced days after Trump and his 18 co-defendants surrendered in Georgia. Eastman, who is accused of crafting a memo that falsely suggested that then-Vice President Mike Pence could overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, agreed to a $100,000 bond as part of his surrender.
Silverglate has argued that Eastman was providing legal advice and guidance to Trump while he was president, and didn’t do anything wrong.
Eastman is also facing disbarment proceedings in California, where counsel for the state bar is asking a court to revoke his license to practice law in the state over his alleged involvement in a plot to keep Trump in power after losing the 2020 election.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
