Among the most consequential decisions in the hands of the Supreme Court this term is a pair of lawsuits involving herring fishermen. On the surface, the nearly identical cases are simple disputes about fishing regulations. But they also have the potential to completely rejigger how federal agencies mediate everything from food and agriculture to taxes and air pollution—because they call into question one of the legal field’s most-cited legal precedents, a 40-year-old doctrine called “ Chevron deference.
” Many conservatives have sought to kill the legal doctrine for over a decade. And within the chorus, one has sung with notable passion: John Eastman. That’s the same John Eastman who, on January 6, 2021, stood at a podium in DC beside fellow Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and bellowed to an angry crowd that then–Vice President Mike Pence ought to halt the peaceful transfer of power.
About three hours later , rioters breached the Capitol. It was also Eastman, documents show, who drafted the “ coup memos ,” which included a multistep plan for Pence to hand the election to Trump and declared the vice president the “ultimate arbiter” of elections. (Eastman is believed to be an unindicted co-conspirator in Trump’s federal indictment; he is also facing possible disbarment in California.
He declined to comment on either situation.) “Eastman has been part of a project to take down federal regulation for a long time.” But before getting sucked into the gravitatio.