More than 200 judges have been embedded in the federal judiciary by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. The huge majority of those judges come from the Federalist Society, the right-wing dark money association that has been working for years to erode civil rights, end abortion, oppose LGBTQ equality, stop gun safety laws, and fight regulations protecting the environment, health care, and worker safety—aka everything achieved in roughly half a century of progress. They are responsible for the current makeup of the Supreme Court and most of the Republican Senate. And they also have at least partial responsibility for the insurrection that happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
John Eastman, until this week the chairman of the Federalist Society’s Federalism & Separation of Powers practice group, spoke at the pre-insurrection rally. “Anybody that is not willing to stand up and [vote to overturn the election] does not deserve to be in the office!” Eastman told the crowd. Standing next to Rudy Giuliani at the rally, he broke into a smile when Rudy incited the crowd with “Let’s have trial by combat!”
Those linked tweets are from Slate‘s Mark Joseph Stern, who highlighted Eastman’s role in pushing Trump’s various plots to overturn the election: “As the president’s actual attorneys backed away from his coup, Eastman rushed in to fill the void, attempting to bolster the scheme with incoherent legal theories,” Stern writes. “When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged the Supreme Court to overturn the election by nullifying millions of votes, it was Eastman who intervened on Trump’s behalf to endorse Paxton’s suit.” Continue reading.