On the evening of January 6, 2021, retired North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin had a nine-minute conversation with former President Donald Trump. This call followed weeks of efforts by Martin to find any legal means to keep Trump in power, during which he peddled fringe theories of election fraud and constitutional law to state officials and the Supreme Court.
Just 20 days after the insurrection, Martin had another intimate audience with another powerful right-winger: He taught a three-day seminar on constitutional law with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for Regent University Law School in Virginia, where Martin was the dean at the time.
This link between a Supreme Court justice and such a close legal adviser to Trump’s Big Lie efforts has not been reported previously, and it adds to mounting questions about Alito’s sympathy for Trump heading into the election. ….more
