This is fun: It turns out Antonin Scalia spent his last hours with a num­ber of mem­bers from an Aus­tri­an-based secret-soci­ety ded­i­cat­ed to the Saint Hubert, the Catholic saint of deer hunt­ing, whose con­ver­sion sto­ry is depict­ed on bot­tles of Jager­meis­ter. So the next time you’re slam­ming that shot of Jager, you’re sort of cel­e­brat­ing one of Scali­a’s secret­ly cel­e­brat­ed saints:

The Wash­ing­ton Post
Jus­tice Scalia spent his last hours with mem­bers of this secre­tive soci­ety of elite hunters

By Amy Brit­tain and Sari Hor­witz Feb­ru­ary 24 at 7:37 PM

When Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin Scalia died 12 days ago at a West Texas ranch, he was among high-rank­ing mem­bers of an exclu­sive fra­ter­ni­ty for hunters called the Inter­na­tion­al Order of St. Huber­tus, an Aus­tri­an soci­ety that dates back to the 1600s.

After Scalia’s death Feb. 13, the names of the 35 oth­er guests at the remote resort, along with details about Scalia’s con­nec­tion to the hunters, have remained large­ly unknown. A review of pub­lic records shows that some of the men who were with Scalia at the ranch are con­nect­ed through the Inter­na­tion­al Order of St. Huber­tus, whose mem­bers gath­ered at least once before at the same ranch for a cel­e­bra­to­ry week­end.

Mem­bers of the world­wide, male-only soci­ety wear dark-green robes embla­zoned with a large cross and the mot­to “Deum Dilig­ite Ani­malia Dili­gentes,” which means “Hon­or­ing God by hon­or­ing His crea­tures,” accord­ing to the group’s web­site. Some hold titles, such as Grand Mas­ter, Pri­or and Knight Grand Offi­cer. The Order’s name is in hon­or of Hubert, the patron saint of hunters and fish­er­men.

Cibo­lo Creek Ranch own­er John Poindex­ter and C. Allen Fos­ter, a promi­nent Wash­ing­ton lawyer who trav­eled to the ranch with Scalia by pri­vate plane, hold lead­er­ship posi­tions with­in the Order. It is unclear what, if any, offi­cial asso­ci­a­tion Scalia had with the group.

“There is noth­ing I can add to your obser­va­tion that among my many guests at Cibo­lo Creek Ranch over the years some mem­bers of the Inter­na­tion­al Order of St. Huber­tus have been num­bered,” Poindex­ter said in an email. “I am aware of no con­nec­tion between that orga­ni­za­tion and Jus­tice Scalia.”

An attor­ney for the Scalia fam­i­ly did not respond to requests for com­ment for this arti­cle.

Two oth­er pri­vate planes that land­ed at the ranch for the week­end are linked to two men who have held lead­er­ship posi­tions with the Texas chap­ter of the Order, accord­ing to a review of state busi­ness fil­ings and flight records from the air­port.

After Scalia’s death, Poindex­ter told reporters that he met Scalia at a “sports group” gath­er­ing in Wash­ing­ton. The U.S. chap­ter of the Inter­na­tion­al Order of St. Huber­tus lists a suite on M Street NW in the Dis­trict as its head­quar­ters, although the address is only a mail­box in a Unit­ed Par­cel Ser­vice store.

The Inter­na­tion­al Order of St. Huber­tus, accord­ing to its web­site, is a “true knight­ly order in the his­tor­i­cal tra­di­tion.” In 1695, Count Franz Anton von Sporck found­ed the soci­ety in Bohemia, which is in mod­ern-day Czech Repub­lic.

The group’s Grand Mas­ter is “His Impe­r­i­al High­ness Ist­van von Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen, Arch­duke of Aus­tria,” accord­ing to the Order’s web­site. The next gath­er­ing for “Ordens­broth­ers” and guests is an “investi­ture” March 10 in Charleston, S.C.

The society’s U.S. chap­ter launched in 1966 at the famous Bohemi­an Club in San Fran­cis­co, which is asso­ci­at­ed with the all-male Bohemi­an Grove — one of the most well-known secret soci­eties in the coun­try.

In 2010, Poindex­ter host­ed a group of 53 mem­bers of the Hous­ton chap­ter of the Inter­na­tion­al Order of St. Huber­tus at the Cibo­lo Creek Ranch, accord­ing to a Hous­ton soci­ety pub­li­ca­tion. A num­ber of mem­bers from Mex­i­co were also part of the ranch fes­tiv­i­ties that includ­ed “three days of orga­nized shoots and ‘gala’ lunch­es and din­ners.”

Poindex­ter told Cul­tureMap Hous­ton that some of the guests dressed in “tra­di­tion­al Euro­pean shoot­ing attire for the boxed bird shoot com­pe­ti­tion” and for the shoot­ing of pheas­ants and chukar, a type of par­tridge.

For the hunt­ing week­end ear­li­er this month, Poindex­ter told The Wash­ing­ton Post that Scalia trav­eled to Hous­ton with his friend and U.S. mar­shals, who pro­vide secu­ri­ty for Supreme Court jus­tices. The Post obtained a Pre­sidio Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office report that named Fos­ter as Scalia’s close friend on the trip.

Sher­iff Dan­ny Dominguez con­firmed that a pho­to­graph of Wash­ing­ton lawyer C. Allen Fos­ter is the same man he inter­viewed at the ranch the day of Scalia’s death.

From Hous­ton, Scalia and Fos­ter char­tered a plane with­out the mar­shals to the Cibo­lo Creek Ranch airstrip. In a state­ment after Scalia died, the U.S. Mar­shals Ser­vice said that Scalia had declined a secu­ri­ty detail while at the ranch.

The friend, Louisiana-born Fos­ter, is a lawyer with the Wash­ing­ton firm White­ford, Tay­lor & Pre­ston. He is also known for his pas­sion for hunt­ing and is a for­mer spokesman for the hunt­ing group Safari Club.

In 2006, Fos­ter was fea­tured in The Post when he cel­e­brat­ed his 65th birth­day with a six-day cel­e­bra­tion in the Czech Repub­lic. He flew his fam­i­ly and 40 Wash­ing­ton friends there to stay in Moravia’s Zid­lo­chovice, a baroque cas­tle and hunt­ing park. The birth­day bash includ­ed “tours of the Czech coun­try­side, wine tast­ing, wild boar and mou­flon (wild sheep) hunts, clas­sic dance instruc­tion and a masked cos­tume ball.”

A sec­re­tary at Foster’s law firm said he is trav­el­ing in Argenti­na. The firm’s direc­tor of mar­ket­ing, Mindee L. Mosh­er, said Fos­ter was trav­el­ing and she would try to con­tact him. A woman answer­ing a phone asso­ci­at­ed with Fos­ter hung up when asked for com­ment.

Planes owned by Wal­lace “Hap­py” Rogers III and the com­pa­ny of A.J. Lewis III left from San Anto­nio and arrived at the ranch just after noon Feb. 12. The planes depart­ed the ranch about 30 min­utes apart Feb. 14, accord­ing to flight records pro­vid­ed to The Post by FlightAware.

Rogers owns the Buck­horn Saloon and Muse­um in San Anto­nio. He has donat­ed $65,000 to Repub­li­can can­di­dates since 2008. Lewis is the own­er of a restau­rant sup­pli­er com­pa­ny, also based in San Anto­nio. He has giv­en $3,500 to GOP can­di­dates since 2007.

Rogers and Lewis have both served as pri­or offi­cers in the Texas chap­ter of the Inter­na­tion­al Order of St. Huber­tus, accord­ing to Texas busi­ness records. Rogers spoke to a Post reporter briefly on the phone and con­firmed that he was at the ranch the week­end of Scalia’s death. He declined to com­ment fur­ther.

Lewis did not respond to sev­er­al attempts for com­ment.

The Pre­sidio Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office released an inci­dent report to The Post on Tues­day that revealed Foster’s name as Scalia’s trav­el­ing com­pan­ion and pro­vid­ed details about the dis­cov­ery of his body.

...

Law enforce­ment offi­cials told The Post that they had no knowl­edge of the Inter­na­tion­al Order of St. Huber­tus or its con­nec­tion to Poindex­ter and ranch guests. The offi­cials said the FBI had declined to inves­ti­gate Scalia’s death when they were told by the mar­shals that he died from nat­ur­al caus­es.

“The group’s Grand Mas­ter is “His Impe­r­i­al High­ness Ist­van von Hab­s­burg-Lothrin­gen, Arch­duke of Aus­tria,” accord­ing to the Order’s web­site.”
Note that the John B. Poindex­ter isn’t the same Opus Dei-affil­i­at­ed John Poindex­ter of Iran Con­tra fame. That would be quite a twist, although dying dur­ing a secret hunt­ing excur­sion with a secret soci­ety with the Arch­duke of Aus­tria as its Grand Mas­ter is a pret­ty good twist too!

As the GOP and con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment con­tin­ues to dou­ble and triple down on the stolen elec­tion nar­ra­tive — a ‘lost cause’ revan­chist insur­rec­tion­ist nar­ra­tive that has become nec­es­sary to win GOP pri­maries head­ing into the 2022 mid-terms — it’s going to be increas­ing­ly impor­tant to keep in mind that Don­ald Trump is far from the only fig­ure who invest­ed their future into this stolen elec­tion nar­ra­tive and we should­n’t treat the rapid capit­u­la­tion of the GOP estab­lish­ment to the Big Lie as a capit­u­la­tion to Trump’s pow­er and influ­ence alone. Because as the fol­low­ing sto­ry about the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety bul­ly­ing a Stan­ford Law Stu­dent reminds us, Don­ald Trump’s 2020 lost cause is also the man­i­fes­ta­tion of decades of right-wing insti­tu­tion­al invest­ments in Big Lies about mass Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­er fraud in order to jus­ti­fy increas­ing­ly restric­tive vot­ing mea­sures. Right-wing audi­ences were primed for Trump’s stolen elec­tion nar­ra­tive by those decades of right-wing pro­pa­gan­da about stolen elec­tions. The insur­rec­tion was both an oppor­tunis­tic Trump pro­duc­tion and the fruition of a long-term GOP estab­lish­ment insti­tu­tion­al project to sow doubts in the pub­lic’s mind about any elec­tion the Repub­li­cans lose. In oth­er words, the GOP estab­lish­ment forged this stolen elec­tion weapon long before Don­ald Trump picked it up and used it.

And as the fol­low­ing sto­ry about the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety’s failed attempt to ‘can­cel’ the grad­u­a­tion of Stan­ford Law School stu­dent Nicholas Wal­lace makes clear, the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety has played one of the most sig­nif­i­cant insti­tu­tion­al roles in that mul­ti-decade right-wing estab­lish­ment effort that made Trump’s stolen elec­tion insur­rec­tion pos­si­ble. Hans Spakovksy’s Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety-endorsed ‘vot­er fraud’ ‘activism’ in par­tic­u­lar. But it’s not anoth­er sto­ry about the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety push­ing bogus vot­er fraud claims. It’s a sto­ry about the Fed­er­al Soci­ety try­ing to derail the grad­u­a­tion of a law stu­dent who made a bla­tant joke fli­er under­scor­ing the promi­nent role Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers like Sen­a­tor Josh Haw­ley and Texas Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton played in per­pet­u­at­ing those base­less stolen elec­tion nar­ra­tives and even suing to force states to over­turn their results. And it’s a sto­ry about how that bul­ly­ing back­fired. The vic­tim just lev­eled a pow­er­ful rebuke. The kind of pow­er­ful con­cise rebuke that does­n’t feel like the last word on the top­ic. It’s a reminder that you prob­a­bly don’t want to piss off a tal­ent­ed law stu­dent with a nui­sance com­plaint when you’re bla­tant­ly guilty.

It all start­ed for Wal­lace in late Jan­u­ary of this year when he cre­at­ed an obvi­ous­ly satir­i­cal fli­er for a fake Stan­ford Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety event. A fake “The Orig­i­nal­ist Case for Incit­ing Insur­rec­tion,” event fea­tur­ing Sen­a­tor Josh Haw­ley and Texas AG Ken Pax­ton, sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 6. This was post­ed to the stu­dent law-talk list­serv on Jan. 25. It was obvi­ous­ly just pok­ing fun at how Hawly and Pax­ton played their roles in fuel­ing ques­tions about the valid­i­ty of the elec­tion, every­one had a chuck­le, and that was that. Or at least it seemed like that was that. Until Wal­lace received a let­ter on May 27 inform­ing him he was under inves­ti­ga­tion but vio­lat­ing Stan­ford’s code of con­duct. This was two weeks before his grad­u­a­tion, putting his law degree on hold.

And, of course, this hold up on Wal­lace’s grad­u­a­tion was due to a com­plaint filed by Stan­ford Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers alleg­ing he defamed the group, its offi­cers, Haw­ley and Pax­ton. It was the kind of bad-faithed com­plaint the right-wing has come to spe­cial­ize in where it’s only valid if every­one plays dumb. In this case, we all have to play dumb about not just the promi­nent role played by Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers like Haw­ley and Pax­ton in sup­port­ing Trump’s stolen elec­tion claims, but also ignore the group’s decades of invest­ment in vot­er fraud myths pro­mul­gat­ed by fig­ures like Hans von Spakovsky. The kind of past and present that one would have to active­ly play dumb to ignore. It was such a poor­ly found­ed com­plaint against Wal­lace that when it was sug­gest­ed he con­tact the Foun­da­tion for Indi­vid­ual Rights in Edu­ca­tion (FIRE), a group that has iron­i­cal­ly tak­en mon­ey from right-wing foun­da­tions like the Lyn­de and Har­ry Bradley Foun­da­tion, the Sarah Scaife Foun­da­tion and the Charles Koch Insti­tute, Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty dropped the inves­ti­ga­tion a day after FIRE sent a let­ter con­test­ing the com­plaint. The uni­ver­si­ty went on to claim admin­is­tra­tors had no knowl­edge of the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety’s com­plaint and was angered when they learned about Wal­lace’s treat­ment. A com­plete backpedal in a day.

And don’t for­get that the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety has indis­putably had more influ­ence of the selec­tion of the cur­rent crop of Supreme Court Jus­tices than any oth­er enti­ty. The Supreme Court’s 6 Jus­tice right-wing major­i­ty real­ly is a Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety pro­duc­tion.

So it would appear that the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety exploit­ed its immense pow­er at Stan­ford Law School to pun­ish Wal­lace for his obvi­ous prank, but when push came to shove and Wal­lace made clear he was­n’t going to accept this absurd inves­ti­ga­tion, the uni­ver­si­ty was forced to cave. Imme­di­ate­ly. And that’s part of what makes this such an inter­est­ing episode: it’s the sto­ry about one of the most pow­er­ful legal insti­tu­tions in the US being forced to back off from its attempt to intim­i­date an up and com­ing lawyer because the fact were on Wal­lace’s side. Unde­ni­able facts about the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety’s his­to­ry of pro­mot­ing exact­ly the memes and false­hoods that Trump has relied on in his stolen elec­tion claims. The Stan­ford inves­ti­ga­tion rapid­ly ruled in Wal­lace’s favor because his­to­ry is on his side:

Reuters

Just kid­ding! How a Stan­ford 3L got the last laugh against the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety

Jen­na Greene
June 8, 2021 4:53 PM CDT Updat­ed

(Reuters) — “Com­plete­ly sur­re­al.” That’s how Nicholas Wal­lace described his last two weeks as a Stan­ford Law School stu­dent.

One minute the 32-year-old 3L from Ann Arbor, Michi­gan, was fin­ish­ing his last class and get­ting ready to take finals while look­ing for­ward to start­ing work at the Fed­er­al Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion.

The next, his entire future was jeop­ardy because the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety – or at least the local Stan­ford chap­ter – could­n’t take a joke.

In late Jan­u­ary, three weeks after the Capi­tol insur­rec­tion, Wal­lace cre­at­ed a satir­i­cal fli­er for a fake Stan­ford Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety event: “The Orig­i­nal­ist Case for Incit­ing Insur­rec­tion,” fea­tur­ing Sen­a­tor Josh Haw­ley and Texas AG Ken Pax­ton.

Like all good satire, it was a lit­tle bit believ­able. But you’d also think any­one smart enough to get into Stan­ford would have quick­ly real­ized that haha it’s a joke. A nerdy legal joke, but def­i­nite­ly a joke.

“Vio­lent insur­rec­tion, also known as doing a coup, is a clas­si­cal sys­tem of installing a gov­ern­ment,” the faux fli­er stat­ed. “Although wide­ly believed to con­flict in every way with the rule of law, vio­lent insur­rec­tion can be an effec­tive approach to uphold­ing the prin­ci­ple of lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment.”

Pax­ton, the fli­er con­tin­ued, “will explain that when the Supreme Court fails to exer­cise its Arti­cle III author­i­ty to over­turn the results of a free and fair elec­tion, call­ing on a vio­lent mob to storm the Capi­tol rep­re­sents an appro­pri­ate alter­na­tive rem­e­dy.”

“RSVP here. Riot infor­ma­tion will be emailed the morn­ing of the event.”

Clear­ly satire, right?

Anoth­er clue: The “event” was for Jan. 6 and Wal­lace post­ed the announce­ment to the stu­dent law-talk list­serv on Jan. 25

“I want­ed to draw atten­tion to the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s con­nec­tion to the insur­rec­tion,” Wal­lace told me, as well his con­cerns about the way the orga­ni­za­tion uses law schools to con­fer “a veneer of respectabil­i­ty to its over­all mis­sion.”

After he post­ed the fli­er, Wal­lace said many of his law school peers told him they thought it was hilar­i­ous. Oth­ers respond­ed that it was in poor taste, prompt­ing what Wal­lace termed a “real­ly good” back-and-forth dis­cus­sion.

As far as Wal­lace knew, that was the end of it.

That is, until May 27, when the university’s Office of Com­mu­ni­ty Stan­dards (not the law school, Wal­lace stress­es) informed him that he was under inves­ti­ga­tion for vio­lat­ing Stanford’s code of con­duct and that – two weeks before grad­u­a­tion – his law degree was being placed on hold.

The rea­son? Stan­ford Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers filed a com­plaint alleg­ing that Wal­lace “defamed the stu­dent group, its offi­cers, Sen­a­tor Josh Haw­ley and Texas Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton.”

More­over, the com­plaint stat­ed, Wal­lace “imper­son­at­ed” Stan­ford Fed­Soc and insin­u­at­ed that the group was “encour­ag­ing and host­ing a riot.”

The com­plaint con­clud­ed that “we, as offi­cers of the orga­ni­za­tion, feel that our indi­vid­ual rep­u­ta­tions have been harmed.”

...

Wal­lace told me he was “shocked and kind of dis­gust­ed and appalled that any class­mates would do that to some­one they know per­son­al­ly,” he said, adding that the offi­cers nev­er expressed their con­cerns to him direct­ly.

More than that, though, he was “ter­ri­fied. The whole process was so unfa­mil­iar,” he said. “I had no idea how it might turn out.”

Would he be able to grad­u­ate on June 12 with his class­mates? Would the com­plaint dis­rupt his bar appli­ca­tion process? His job work­ing in FERC’s Office of Admin­is­tra­tive Law Judges?

Stan­ford Law class­mate Shawn Mus­grave, a for­mer inves­tiga­tive reporter and First Amend­ment spe­cial­ist, sug­gest­ed Wal­lace con­tact the Foun­da­tion for Indi­vid­ual Rights in Edu­ca­tion, or FIRE, whose mis­sion “is to defend and sus­tain the indi­vid­ual rights of stu­dents and fac­ul­ty mem­bers at America’s col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties.”

After Adam Stein­baugh, the direc­tor of FIRE’s indi­vid­ual rights pro­gram, got the call, he told me, “I took a look and thought ‘Well, there goes my Memo­r­i­al Day week­end.’”

Stein­baugh sprang into action, send­ing an eight-page let­ter to the uni­ver­si­ty on June 1 that evis­cer­at­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion.

“In sat­i­riz­ing nation­al polit­i­cal fig­ures and a stu­dent chap­ter of a promi­nent legal orga­ni­za­tion, the (fli­er) con­veys a crit­i­cal polit­i­cal opin­ion, which can­not con­sti­tute unpro­tect­ed defama­tion,” Stein­baugh wrote. “By insti­tut­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion and plac­ing a hold on Wallace’s degree days before his grad­u­a­tion, Stan­ford betrays its legal and moral com­mit­ments to respect its stu­dents’ expres­sive rights.”

Specif­i­cal­ly, he not­ed, California’s “Leonard Law” gives First Amend­ment pro­tec­tions to stu­dents at pri­vate col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties.

The uni­ver­si­ty dropped the inves­ti­ga­tion the next day. It did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to my request for com­ment.

Stan­ford Law Dean Jen­ny Mar­tinez in a state­ment to the law school com­mu­ni­ty said she was unaware of the inves­ti­ga­tion until June 1, and that no one in the law school’s admin­is­tra­tion “had any role in plac­ing the grad­u­a­tion hold, and we were shocked when we learned about it. I would nev­er have approved such a thing.”

She added, “I think it is imper­a­tive that we take action to ensure that some­thing like this does not hap­pen again and will be work­ing with fac­ul­ty col­leagues at the law school and around the uni­ver­si­ty to do that.”

If so, Wal­lace said, his ordeal will have mean­ing. “I’m a law stu­dent. I have some under­stand­ing of the admin­is­tra­tive process and the First Amend­ment,” he said. “If an under­grad­u­ate was placed in this sit­u­a­tion, they’d be total­ly at sea.”

...

———–

“Just kid­ding! How a Stan­ford 3L got the last laugh against the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety” by Jen­na Greene; Reuters; 06/08/2021

“Like all good satire, it was a lit­tle bit believ­able. But you’d also think any­one smart enough to get into Stan­ford would have quick­ly real­ized that haha it’s a joke. A nerdy legal joke, but def­i­nite­ly a joke.”

Like all good satire, Nicholas Wal­lace’s fli­er was a lit­tle bit believ­able. But only a lit­tle. You would have be play­ing dumb to believe it. So of course the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety’s com­plaint against Wal­lace — exe­cut­ed two weeks before grad­u­a­tion — was pred­i­cat­ed on that bad-faithed lit­er­al inter­pre­ta­tion of Wal­lace’s satire. But the com­plaint was accu­rate in one sense: it real­ly did harm the rep­u­ta­tion of Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers. Deserved­ly so:

...
After he post­ed the fli­er, Wal­lace said many of his law school peers told him they thought it was hilar­i­ous. Oth­ers respond­ed that it was in poor taste, prompt­ing what Wal­lace termed a “real­ly good” back-and-forth dis­cus­sion.

As far as Wal­lace knew, that was the end of it.

That is, until May 27, when the university’s Office of Com­mu­ni­ty Stan­dards (not the law school, Wal­lace stress­es) informed him that he was under inves­ti­ga­tion for vio­lat­ing Stanford’s code of con­duct and that – two weeks before grad­u­a­tion – his law degree was being placed on hold.

The rea­son? Stan­ford Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers filed a com­plaint alleg­ing that Wal­lace “defamed the stu­dent group, its offi­cers, Sen­a­tor Josh Haw­ley and Texas Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton.”

More­over, the com­plaint stat­ed, Wal­lace “imper­son­at­ed” Stan­ford Fed­Soc and insin­u­at­ed that the group was “encour­ag­ing and host­ing a riot.”

The com­plaint con­clud­ed that “we, as offi­cers of the orga­ni­za­tion, feel that our indi­vid­ual rep­u­ta­tions have been harmed.”
...

But Wal­lace did­n’t stop after forc­ing Stan­ford to back down. He just pub­lished a piece in Slate is open­ly call­ing for a boy­cott of the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety, not because it tried to intim­i­date and ‘can­cel’ him over his joke, but because of the pro­found dam­age the group has done and con­tin­ues to do to the very idea of democ­ra­cy. And as we might expect from a fresh Stan­ford Law School grad­u­ate, Wal­lace piece is pret­ty bru­tal. An unde­ni­able. It’s why this sto­ry is going to be so inter­est­ing to watch play out: the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety picked a fight with a law stu­dent, tried to ‘can­cel’ him, lost bad­ly because their com­plaints have no basis in fact, and now that stu­dent is pub­licly walk­ing all over the group expos­ing their anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic agen­da. And there’s not real­ly any­thing the group can do to dis­pute Wal­lace’s pub­lic cri­tiques. Because, again, his­to­ry is on Wal­lace’s side. And he knows it:

Slate

Boy­cott the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety

The group refus­es to con­demn insur­rec­tion­ists in its ranks. It should not occu­py a place of respect in the legal com­mu­ni­ty.

By Nicholas Wal­lace
July 16, 2021 12:43 PM

Two months ago, on the eve of my grad­u­a­tion from Stan­ford Law School, I learned that the Stan­ford chap­ter of the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety had filed a com­plaint against me over a satir­i­cal fly­er I sent to a law school list­serv in Jan­u­ary. The fly­er adver­tised an event at which Sen­a­tor Joshua Haw­ley and Texas Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton, both long-time Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers, would make “The Orig­i­nal­ist Case for Incit­ing Insur­rec­tion.”

The fly­er was a joke, but the offi­cers of the Stan­ford Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety weren’t laugh­ing. Instead, in a let­ter of com­plaint filed with Stanford’s Office of Com­mu­ni­ty Stan­dards, these third-year law stu­dents alleged that I had defamed Haw­ley, Pax­ton, and the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety itself. The imme­di­ate impli­ca­tions of this alle­ga­tion were seri­ous: Stan­ford put a hold on my diplo­ma pend­ing the out­come of their inves­ti­ga­tion, jeop­ar­diz­ing my grad­u­a­tion and admis­sion to the bar.

In one sense, the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety stu­dents who filed the com­plaint against me had a point. Defama­tion is a false state­ment of fact that caus­es harm to the rep­u­ta­tion of the per­son or orga­ni­za­tion tar­get­ed. And I can­not deny that I hoped “The Orig­i­nal­ist Case for Incit­ing Insur­rec­tion” would do just that. Where the complaint’s authors went off course, how­ev­er, was in con­tend­ing that “The Orig­i­nal­ist Case for Incit­ing Insur­rec­tion” pre­sent­ed a state­ment of fact—that the adver­tised event was actu­al­ly going to occur. In real­i­ty, I trust­ed that the audi­ence for my fly­er, a group of law stu­dents, would deploy their well-honed crit­i­cal read­ing skills and spot the clues that this event was not for real. (The fly­er explained, for exam­ple, that vio­lent insur­rec­tion is also known as “doing a coup,” and adver­tised an event that would have occurred weeks ear­li­er, on Jan. 6.)

In oth­er words, rather than impair­ing the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s rep­u­ta­tion by spread­ing a lie, a nec­es­sary ele­ment of defama­tion, I hoped to do so by draw­ing atten­tion to the organization’s all-too-real con­nec­tions to the Jan. 6 insur­rec­tion. In the six months since the attack, the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety lead­ers who sought to over­turn the results of a free and fair elec­tion have faced vir­tu­al­ly no con­se­quences, and the orga­ni­za­tion itself has refused to con­demn the insur­rec­tion­ists in its ranks. An orga­ni­za­tion that tol­er­ates efforts to under­mine democ­ra­cy should not be per­mit­ted to remain in good stand­ing in the legal com­mu­ni­ty. At min­i­mum, attor­neys, law schol­ars, and law stu­dents should refuse to par­tic­i­pate in the organization’s events until it takes mean­ing­ful steps to dis­avow the anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment so many of its mem­bers have sup­port­ed.

My fly­er itself empha­sized the events imme­di­ate­ly pre­ced­ing the Jan. 6 attack: Haw­ley famous­ly raised his fist in sup­port of the mob that stormed the Capi­tol, while Pax­ton (along with John East­man, who was at the time the head of a Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety prac­tice group) spoke with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump at the now-infa­mous “Save Amer­i­ca Ral­ly.” But the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s con­nec­tions to the insur­rec­tion stretch well beyond the day of the attack. Con­sid­er the Octo­ber 2020 speak­ing tour of Hans von Spakovsky. Von Spakovsky was a mem­ber of the Trump administration’s “vot­er fraud” pan­el, from which he con­tro­ver­sial­ly sug­gest­ed exclud­ing Democ­rats and “main­stream” Repub­li­cans. For more than two decades, von Spakovsky has been at the fore­front of the right wing’s “vot­er-sup­pres­sion effort in dis­guise,” push­ing unfound­ed claims of vot­er fraud as a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for restric­tions on the fran­chise. And in the month before the 2020 elec­tion he par­tic­i­pat­ed in at least nine Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety events, deliv­er­ing talks with names like “Con­se­quences of Mail-In Bal­lots” and “Elec­tion Fraud 2020: Fact or Fic­tion?” At one of his talks, von Spakovsky warned: “If it’s a close elec­tion, we may have a lot of chaos in a lot of dif­fer­ent places, and a lot of lit­i­ga­tion con­test­ing the out­come.”

Von Spakovsky’s warn­ing—or per­haps threat is the bet­ter word—proved pre­scient: in the months fol­low­ing the elec­tion, lit­i­ga­tion filed by Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety attor­neys helped to fos­ter the grow­ing chaos that cul­mi­nat­ed on Jan. 6.

Most noto­ri­ous among the law­suits that sought to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion was Paxton’s chal­lenge to the vot­ing pro­ce­dures of four oth­er states, an unprece­dent­ed legal maneu­ver that was sum­mar­i­ly reject­ed by the Supreme Court. Of the 17 attor­neys gen­er­al who joined Pax­ton in that wide­ly ridiculed effort, 13 are affil­i­at­ed with the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety.

Oth­er law­suits chal­leng­ing the elec­tion filed by Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety offi­cers include Stod­dard v. City Elec­tion Com­mis­sion, filed by Edward Greim, a mem­ber of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s “Free Speech & Elec­tion Law Prac­tice Group”; and Kel­ly v. Penn­syl­va­nia, filed by Gre­go­ry H. Teufel, who heads the organization’s Pitts­burgh chap­ter.

Like Paxton’s Texas v. Penn­syl­va­nia law­suit, these cas­es sought rad­i­cal­ly dis­rup­tive judi­cial orders that would have thrown the out­come of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion into doubt. The argu­ment advanced in Stod­dard mim­ic­ked the unfound­ed griev­ance voiced by a mob out­side of Detroit’s TCF Cen­ter on elec­tion day, and called for a pause in final­iz­ing the vote in Wayne Coun­ty, the most Demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­ty in Michi­gan. Teufel’s Kel­ly com­plaint went even fur­ther, call­ing for an order “nul­li­fy­ing a governor’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of pres­i­den­tial elec­tion results,” as the State of Penn­syl­va­nia put it in its brief before the Supreme Court. As with Paxton’s law­suit, Greim’s and Teufel’s cas­es were quick­ly dis­missed.

This far­ci­cal streak of court loss­es for Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety offi­cers did not deter oth­er Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers from con­tin­u­ing to spread elec­tion mis­in­for­ma­tion. In late Decem­ber, Haw­ley promised to object to the elec­tion results dur­ing the Elec­toral Col­lege cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz, anoth­er mem­ber of the senate’s unof­fi­cial Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety Cau­cus, fol­lowed suit.

All of which is to say that while “The Orig­i­nal­ist Case for Incit­ing Insur­rec­tion” was indeed sup­posed to be fun­ny, the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s con­nec­tions to the attack on the Capi­tol are no joke. The col­lec­tive efforts of the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s mem­ber­ship pro­vid­ed a veneer of legal legit­i­ma­cy to the false­hoods that fueled the insur­rec­tion­ist mob. Mean­while, the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety itself has res­olute­ly refused to dis­avow those mem­bers who played a role in incit­ing the insur­rec­tion.

No orga­ni­za­tion with such exten­sive ties to a vio­lent attack on our democ­ra­cy should occu­py a place of respect with­in the legal com­mu­ni­ty. The Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety has long relied on the par­tic­i­pa­tion of ven­er­at­ed attor­neys and influ­en­tial schol­ars in cam­pus events to shore up its rep­u­ta­tion as a law school debate club. But those who engage in Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety debates lend the orga­ni­za­tion an air of non-par­ti­san cred­i­bil­i­ty that is com­plete­ly at odds with real­i­ty.

The Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety can­not be allowed to suc­cess­ful­ly employ this cyn­i­cal strat­e­gy while its most promi­nent mem­bers con­tin­ue to fan the flames of a dan­ger­ous anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment. Law pro­fes­sors, law stu­dents, and prac­tic­ing attor­neys should refuse to par­tic­i­pate in Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety events until the orga­ni­za­tion renounces the insur­rec­tion inciters in its ranks. Although dis­course between those of dif­fer­ing per­sua­sions is crit­i­cal to the health of a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy, some issues, like the mer­its of vio­lent insur­rec­tion, should not be up for debate.

...

————-

“Boy­cott the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety” by Nicholas Wal­lace; Slate; 07/16/2021

“In oth­er words, rather than impair­ing the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s rep­u­ta­tion by spread­ing a lie, a nec­es­sary ele­ment of defama­tion, I hoped to do so by draw­ing atten­tion to the organization’s all-too-real con­nec­tions to the Jan. 6 insur­rec­tion. In the six months since the attack, the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety lead­ers who sought to over­turn the results of a free and fair elec­tion have faced vir­tu­al­ly no con­se­quences, and the orga­ni­za­tion itself has refused to con­demn the insur­rec­tion­ists in its ranks. An orga­ni­za­tion that tol­er­ates efforts to under­mine democ­ra­cy should not be per­mit­ted to remain in good stand­ing in the legal com­mu­ni­ty. At min­i­mum, attor­neys, law schol­ars, and law stu­dents should refuse to par­tic­i­pate in the organization’s events until it takes mean­ing­ful steps to dis­avow the anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic move­ment so many of its mem­bers have sup­port­ed.”

As Wal­lace read­i­ly admits, his fli­er was indeed intend­ed to impair the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety’s rep­u­ta­tion. By point­ing out the group’s very real and seri­ous con­nec­tions to the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion and foun­da­tion of lies that led up to it. The Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety’s own track record is its own indict­ment. No decep­tion is nec­es­sary. Just the well doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of the exten­sive efforts of fig­ures like Hans von Spakovksy, who spent the last decade focused on per­pe­trat­ing a myth of mass Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­er fraud. Efforts that Spakovsky tur­bo-charged as the 2020 elec­tion drew clos­er. And efforts that have been large­ly under-rec­og­nized by the broad­er pub­lic. Sim­ply put, Spakovksy has been a walk­ing scan­dal for years. And that scan­dal has only explod­ed in the wake of the insur­rec­tion. But it’s not just a Spakovsky scan­dal. It’s a Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety scan­dal. There’s no hon­est way to deny it:

...
My fly­er itself empha­sized the events imme­di­ate­ly pre­ced­ing the Jan. 6 attack: Haw­ley famous­ly raised his fist in sup­port of the mob that stormed the Capi­tol, while Pax­ton (along with John East­man, who was at the time the head of a Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety prac­tice group) spoke with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump at the now-infa­mous “Save Amer­i­ca Ral­ly.” But the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s con­nec­tions to the insur­rec­tion stretch well beyond the day of the attack. Con­sid­er the Octo­ber 2020 speak­ing tour of Hans von Spakovsky. Von Spakovsky was a mem­ber of the Trump administration’s “vot­er fraud” pan­el, from which he con­tro­ver­sial­ly sug­gest­ed exclud­ing Democ­rats and “main­stream” Repub­li­cans. For more than two decades, von Spakovsky has been at the fore­front of the right wing’s “vot­er-sup­pres­sion effort in dis­guise,” push­ing unfound­ed claims of vot­er fraud as a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for restric­tions on the fran­chise. And in the month before the 2020 elec­tion he par­tic­i­pat­ed in at least nine Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety events, deliv­er­ing talks with names like “Con­se­quences of Mail-In Bal­lots” and “Elec­tion Fraud 2020: Fact or Fic­tion?” At one of his talks, von Spakovsky warned: “If it’s a close elec­tion, we may have a lot of chaos in a lot of dif­fer­ent places, and a lot of lit­i­ga­tion con­test­ing the out­come.”

Von Spakovsky’s warning—or per­haps threat is the bet­ter word—proved pre­scient: in the months fol­low­ing the elec­tion, lit­i­ga­tion filed by Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety attor­neys helped to fos­ter the grow­ing chaos that cul­mi­nat­ed on Jan. 6.
...

And then there’s the shock­ing law­suits waged by 18 Repub­li­can state attor­neys gen­er­al to over­turn elec­tion results in oth­er states. It’s a scan­dal, but it’s not just a GOP scan­dal. These attor­neys gen­er­al were over­whelm­ing­ly Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers. And that was just one exam­ple of Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers in elect­ed office abus­ing their pow­ers using spe­cious legal rea­son­ing. As Wal­lace puts it, no orga­ni­za­tion with such exten­sive ties to a vio­lent attack on our democ­ra­cy should occu­py a place of respect with­in the legal com­mu­ni­ty:

...
Most noto­ri­ous among the law­suits that sought to over­turn the 2020 elec­tion was Paxton’s chal­lenge to the vot­ing pro­ce­dures of four oth­er states, an unprece­dent­ed legal maneu­ver that was sum­mar­i­ly reject­ed by the Supreme Court. Of the 17 attor­neys gen­er­al who joined Pax­ton in that wide­ly ridiculed effort, 13 are affil­i­at­ed with the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety.

Oth­er law­suits chal­leng­ing the elec­tion filed by Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety offi­cers include Stod­dard v. City Elec­tion Com­mis­sion, filed by Edward Greim, a mem­ber of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s “Free Speech & Elec­tion Law Prac­tice Group”; and Kel­ly v. Penn­syl­va­nia, filed by Gre­go­ry H. Teufel, who heads the organization’s Pitts­burgh chap­ter.

...

All of which is to say that while “The Orig­i­nal­ist Case for Incit­ing Insur­rec­tion” was indeed sup­posed to be fun­ny, the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s con­nec­tions to the attack on the Capi­tol are no joke. The col­lec­tive efforts of the Fed­er­al­ist Society’s mem­ber­ship pro­vid­ed a veneer of legal legit­i­ma­cy to the false­hoods that fueled the insur­rec­tion­ist mob. Mean­while, the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety itself has res­olute­ly refused to dis­avow those mem­bers who played a role in incit­ing the insur­rec­tion.

No orga­ni­za­tion with such exten­sive ties to a vio­lent attack on our democ­ra­cy should occu­py a place of respect with­in the legal com­mu­ni­ty. The Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety has long relied on the par­tic­i­pa­tion of ven­er­at­ed attor­neys and influ­en­tial schol­ars in cam­pus events to shore up its rep­u­ta­tion as a law school debate club. But those who engage in Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety debates lend the orga­ni­za­tion an air of non-par­ti­san cred­i­bil­i­ty that is com­plete­ly at odds with real­i­ty.
...

It’s all a reminder that if the Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety was tru­ly inter­est­ed in inves­ti­gat­ing the peo­ple respon­si­ble for dam­ag­ing its rep­u­ta­tion it would inves­ti­gate itself. Ide­al­ly the inves­ti­ga­tion would include the fig­ures cit­ed on Wal­lace’s fli­er (Josh Haw­ley and Ken Pax­ton), but it can’t leave out long-stand­ing Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety fig­ures like Hans von Spakovsky. And then hope­ful­ly the inves­ti­ga­tion can pro­ceed to include all of the promi­nent Fed­er­al­ist Soci­ety mem­bers who con­tin­ue to refuse to pub­licly denounce the insur­rec­tion or even con­tin­ue to sup­port the stolen elec­tion Big Lies under­pin­ning it.

Or the group can con­tin­ue to ignore the role it’s play­ing in this ongo­ing assault on democ­ra­cy and become the pari­ah orga­ni­za­tion it deserves to be, with the help of peo­ple like Nicholas Wal­lace. Either/or.