🧵THREAD: Is Trump's hunch about foreign influence in SCOTUS correct? After the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling on tariffs,…

🧵THREAD: Is Trump's hunch about foreign influence in SCOTUS correct? After the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling on tariffs, Trump said "It's my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think." Trump is likely referring to the ideology of supranationalism -- a centuries-old ideology that considered tariffs to be among the highest economical blunders, not for economic reasons, but because tariffs dare to assert national rights in a telos of universal liberalism. But is he right about the foreign influence? As has been widely reported, @MikeBenzCyber has unpacked the details of the friendship between John Roberts and Norm Eisen, and their Prague vacations where they discussed "American and European rule-of-law issues" together. But there's more to it. A lot more. 👇 As always, patience as I pull the thread together.

Read all about Mike's exposure here:

Mike Benz@MikeBenzCyber · Apr 3, 2025

Chief Justice John Roberts spent a week living at Norm Eisen's 150-room palace in the Czech Republic where they "worked on American and European Rule of Law issues together." Eisen was Ambassador 2011-2014. Roberts became Chief Justice in 2005. This was while Roberts ran SCOTUS.

Eisen is a leading figure in the supranational democracy network being an expert in color revolutions (but don't dare suggest that he's orchestrating one here). He's a co-founder of the States United Democracy Center (which I called out for simply producing a Muppet show), co-counsel for Trump's first impeachment council, formerly US Ambassador to Czech Republic, CREW chair. He's

I don't know how accurate it is, but Propublica reports that John Roberts reported payments from foreign government-funded universities: University of Melbourne ($10K), Victoria University of Wellington ($10K), University of Tokyo ($13,559).

According to whistleblower documents obtained by Business Insider, Roberts' wife Jane earned $10.3 MILLION in commissions recruiting lawyers at firms with Supreme Court interests.

Beyond Roberts, Justice Kagan met with 15 foreign ambassadors in a private roundtable as part of the Lugar Diplomacy Series, a program to "strengthen diplomatic relationships" between foreign diplomats. Senator Collins and former CIA director Petraeus were involved as well.

Kagan was also the "guest of honor" at a 2017 Aspen Institute dinner on "Billionaire Mountain" for $10K/year donors, including lawyers with active Supreme Court cases. @businessinsider obtained the guest lists. Kavanaugh attended but was not on the SCOTUS at the time. Kagan was.

@BusinessInsider George Mason University flew Kagan to Iceland, put her up for almost a WEEK, and paid all expenses... for ONE DAY of teaching. Kagan's trip cost thousands.

@BusinessInsider The most direct foreign influence appears to reside with Justice Sotomayor. In 2009, she said: "International law and foreign law will be very important in the discussion of how to think about the unsettled issues in our own legal system."

@BusinessInsider Sotomayor left 6 trips off her 2016 financial disclosure and had to amend it. Fix the Court found the omissions via public records request.

@BusinessInsider I found a press release where Sotomayer taught international law in Prague in 2020. Same city where Roberts visited Eisen.

Overall - I don't think there's much actual foreign influence in the sense of one country influencing any SCOTUS justice. But do any of the SCOTUS justices see the "rules-based international order" as a higher virtue than the nation-state model that our country was founded upon? That's a different question altogether.