In a first, conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas recused himself from a case related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The high court, which opened its new term on Monday, rejected an appeal brought by John Eastman, a conservative legal scholar and former Donald Trump adviser who pushed a plot to keep the president in power after his 2020 presidential election loss.

“The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied. Justice Thomas took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition,” was all that was written on a list of rulings released Monday by the Supreme Court. No reason for Thomas’ recusal was given.

At questions was whether the congressional select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack should have been able to obtain emails from Eastman that the California attorney claimed were subject to attorney-client privilege. The emails were already given to the committee and subsequently released to the public when they were erroneously included in a court filing by the committee in fall of 2022, something the House panel denied was intentional. 

Thomas was specifically discussed in the emails by Eastman, attorney Kenneth Chesebro, and other Trump allies. In one email, Chesebro described Thomas as “our best shot” at delaying the certification of the vote in disputed states ahead of Congress certifying the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Possibly Thomas would end up being the key here,” Chesebro wrote in another email on Dec. 31, 2020. The leaked emails are subject to formatting errors and are missing all of the letters “i” and “l,” which Spectrum News has added back for clarity. “We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt.”

“I think I agree with this,” Eastman responded, saying a Thomas ruling could help “kick the Georgia Legislature into gear” in assisting the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state based on false claims of election fraud.

Both Eastman and Chesebro, along with Trump and 16 others, have been charged in a racketeering case in Georgia alleging they participated in an illegal scheme to undo the will of the voters. 

The former dean of the Chapman University School of Law in Orange County, Calif., Eastman was recently described as a “brilliant constitutional scholar” in his career prior to helping Trump try to stay in office. That description came from J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative movement figure and longtime federal judge who the indicted attorney once clerked for. Luttig advised then-Vice President Mike Pence not to go along with the plot crafted by Eastman in the days before Jan. 6, 2021.

In their May petition to the court imploring the justices to review an appeals court ruling that declined to overrule the committee’s access to the emails, Eastman’s attorneys noted the case was already “moot” because the committee was given the emails already.

But they argued the case was of “exceptional importance” because the leak of Eastmans’ emails “cast aspersions not just on Dr. Eastman but also on his former client, the former President of the United States who is a candidate for the office of President in 2024.”

Eastman, who once clerked for Thomas as well, was also in contact with the longtime justice’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas during the period in question, by the attorney’s own admission. Though he denied discussing “any matters pending or likely to come before the Court” with either Ginni or Clarence Thomas,” Eastman wrote last year he did exchange emails with Ginni Thomas, including one where she invited him to give an update about “election litigation” to a group of “grassroots state leaders” she was associated with.

In that Dec. 4, 2020 email, which Eastman published himself, Ginni Thomas does refer to herself as “on sabbatical until this election stuff is resolved” but praised Eastman as “doing an unbelievably great job” and was attempting to coordinate a Zoom call with the group she was affiliated with. In one court filing, House Jan. 6 select committee investigators refer to their efforts obtaining documents related to a Dec. 8, 2020 meeting that Eastman spoke at after being invited by “the group’s high-profile leader.”

“Based on the agenda, Dr. Eastman discussed ‘State legislative actions that can reverse the media-called election for Joe Biden,” the committee’s attorneys wrote in the June 7, 2022, filing. “Another speaker gave an ‘update on [state] legislature actions regarding electoral votes.’”

Ginni Thomas has been an active figure in conservative politics for decades and was in frequent communication with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the lead up to Jan. 6, urging him to push election fraud claims and keep now-President Joe Biden from assuming the presidency, according to the Washington Post and CBS News.

In September 2022, the chair of the House Jan. 6 select committee, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said that Ginni Thomas was still promoting false claims about the 2020 election during a four hour interview with investigators.

Clarence Thomas’ recusal comes after months of scrutiny for his relationships with powerful conservative movement figures and Republican donors, and years of questions over whether he should rule on cases related to Trump’s election scheme due to his wife’s advocacy during those tumultuous months. He repeatedly has declined to recuse himself in numerous cases, including in one ruling that allowed the House committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, access to records from the Trump White House.

He was the only one of the nine justices to dissent in the ruling. There was no explanation, as is customary with the high court.