Thread by @SenWhitehouse

The tale of Trump and “his” justices — you need to understand this to understand what went down at the Supreme Court. The commonly understood story is wrong.

So here we go 🧵

Remember when Trump first ran, how the most powerful political force on the Republican side was the Koch political operation? Americans for Prosperity and the associated armada of Koch-funded, coordinated front groups?

Remember how they hated Trump, saying in 2016 that Trump is a “terrible role model” and that Trump’s idea to create a national registry for Muslims was “Nazi Germany” and “monstrous.”

Remember in August of 2015 how Trump hated them back? He mocked his rivals in the primary, calling them “puppets,” going out to the Koch annual political gathering (yes, the one Clarence Thomas shows up at), to kiss their ring.

Remember how much Koch and right-wing money was then being poured into the scheme to capture and control the Supreme Court? As of March 2022, it was over $580 million. Clearly capturing the Court was a Koch top priority.

Remember that the battle between House of Koch and House of Trump suddenly went quiet? And Kochs poured millions into Republican GOTV helping Trump? Odd pivot, no? With no explanation?

Remember May 2016, when Trump announced his so-called “Federalist Society list” of justices he would choose from? Remember that we then discovered that the Federalist Society never even considered, let alone approved, any such list? It was a cover.

So who did the list? Obviously, Leonard Leo as the Kochs’ minion was the central spider in the Koch web, helped by Don McGahn, long connected to the Kochs via Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity. In fact, it was a Koch/Leo list — a Creepy Billionaires List.

What did the Kochs know about Trump? They knew he was the least trusted person in the business world, who cheated left, right, and center, and that only a fool would accept his word on anything. So any deal with him had to put him on the record.

Do you see the deal shaping up? Kochs back off on Trump, and in return Kochs get to pick Supreme Court justices. Since a secret deal with Trump is no deal at all, they came up with the idea of announcing a public list to pin Trump down.

House of Trump likely promised that Leo would be the fixer in the mix, and McGahn put in as Trump’s White House counsel, no less — a Koch operative positioned inside the Trump White House in the job handling judicial nominations.

With the list public and Leo and McGahn locked in, the Kochs in fact went quiet on Trump, and poured money into Republican field operations (Trump was still too disgusting to them to help directly, but a deal is a deal, and field helps Trump).

Here’s another clue: Kavanaugh was not on the list. If the Koch list, falsely described as a “Federalist Society list,” was a real thing, why not stick to it; and why not complain when the deal was broken and the list not honored?

Because the deal was always between Kochs and Trumps, and moving Kavanaugh onto the list, to help get Kennedy to resign, was welcomed by both parties to the deal. A contract between two parties can be amended at will if both agree!

So there was not a peep from anyone, and there were no proceedings in the Federalist Society to amend the list, as the parties to the transaction shuffled the list around to get the outcome they desired: another seat, and a Koch-picked nominee.

Back to questions: What did Trump know about this? Was he told the whole story? Or is he just now discovering that “his” SCOTUS nominees were picked by the Koch operation through, in essence, Koch “moles” planted in Trump’s operation?

We know that the Koch/fossil fuel polluters’ batting record at the Court is better than Trump’s, which Trump may have noticed. We know that the front-group armada that steers the Court is funded and directed by Koch/fossil fuel polluters.

Just look at the 2021 SCOTUS case paving the way for a constitutional right to dark money. That case was brought by Koch flagship Americans for Prosperity Foundation along with a flotilla of at least 55 Koch-connected amici.

The Court Capture scheme was a long-standing Koch/fossil fuel polluter covert op, so why not have “moles” and secret deals and false fronts like the Federalist Society, as a covert operation would? If true, this makes Trump the chump in the Koch scheme.