Politico reports:

Long before John Eastman helped devise Donald Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election, he had another pet cause: ending birthright citizenship.

The idea was once relegated to obscure articles in right-wing journals and little-noticed debates before conservative groups. But Trump ushered it into the limelight on his first day back in office last year by issuing an executive order purporting to upend the well-established understanding that virtually everyone born on U.S. soil gets American citizenship.

Now, Eastman is about to realize a decades-long dream: getting the Supreme Court to consider his radical theory that the Constitution doesn’t automatically confer citizenship on those born in the U.S. The justices are set to hear oral arguments Wednesday over the constitutionality of Trump’s policy.

Yet, when Trump signed his order on the subject last year, he made no mention of the former law school dean and Supreme Court clerk’s long advocacy for the cause. And while the Justice Department’s public briefs closely track Eastman’s arguments, they don’t cite his writings or acknowledge his role as the theory’s leading evangelist. [Continue reading…]