This is how close we got to a REAL coup attempt. Forget Nixon & Co, who are choir boys compared to the Trump political machine. This trial is kind of flying under the radar, with all the noise over Trump’s own trial, but is every bit as important in what may end up coming to light.
www.politico.com
“It is no overstatement that democracy stood on the precipice. Had Vice President Pence followed [Eastman’s] baseless advice … the country would have plunged into a ‘profound constitutional crisis,’” writes Duncan Carling of the California State Bar’s office of trial counsel in a pretrial brief. “[Eastman] and Trump’s plan violated our Nation’s most fundamental commitments to the rule of law and the orderly transition of power. And it rested upon transparently false claims of election fraud that continue to harm our democracy to this day.”
Eastman spent the final weeks of the Trump administration stoking false claims of election fraud in order to put pressure on GOP-led state legislatures to appoint alternate slates of presidential electors. In Eastman’s view, those alternate slates would form the basis of a dispute that only Pence could resolve Jan. 6, when he presided over the joint session of Congress to count electoral votes and finalize the results of the election.
But no state legislatures agreed to appoint those alternate electors. Instead, in five states, groups of pro-Trump activists signed false documents claiming to be legitimate presidential electors — but without the backing of their state governments, which had certified the results in favor of Biden. Eastman would ultimately change tack, arguing that the false electors presented enough of a controversy for Pence to decide which ones to count — or at the very least refuse to count Biden’s votes and call for a delay in finalizing the election to permit those GOP-run states to revisit the outcome.
Jacob and Pence fiercely rejected that strategy, which they contended would require violating several provisions of longstanding election law with no credible evidence to support reversing the outcome.
But Eastman, undeterred, fought with Jacob even as rioters — infuriated by Pence’s refusal to acquiesce to Trump’s pressure — ransacked the Capitol. Jacob testified to the Jan. 6 select committee about his interactions with Eastman, even as the riot raged, and his email correspondence with Eastman from that day formed some of the most compelling evidence about Eastman’s efforts. Jacob has also testified to a federal grand jury in Washington.
He devised a fringe legal theory to try to keep Trump in power. Now he’s on the verge of being disbarred.
The trial of John Eastman may feature testimony from key participants in Jan. 6 who have rarely spoken publicly.
www.politico.com
“It is no overstatement that democracy stood on the precipice. Had Vice President Pence followed [Eastman’s] baseless advice … the country would have plunged into a ‘profound constitutional crisis,’” writes Duncan Carling of the California State Bar’s office of trial counsel in a pretrial brief. “[Eastman] and Trump’s plan violated our Nation’s most fundamental commitments to the rule of law and the orderly transition of power. And it rested upon transparently false claims of election fraud that continue to harm our democracy to this day.”
Eastman spent the final weeks of the Trump administration stoking false claims of election fraud in order to put pressure on GOP-led state legislatures to appoint alternate slates of presidential electors. In Eastman’s view, those alternate slates would form the basis of a dispute that only Pence could resolve Jan. 6, when he presided over the joint session of Congress to count electoral votes and finalize the results of the election.
But no state legislatures agreed to appoint those alternate electors. Instead, in five states, groups of pro-Trump activists signed false documents claiming to be legitimate presidential electors — but without the backing of their state governments, which had certified the results in favor of Biden. Eastman would ultimately change tack, arguing that the false electors presented enough of a controversy for Pence to decide which ones to count — or at the very least refuse to count Biden’s votes and call for a delay in finalizing the election to permit those GOP-run states to revisit the outcome.
Jacob and Pence fiercely rejected that strategy, which they contended would require violating several provisions of longstanding election law with no credible evidence to support reversing the outcome.
But Eastman, undeterred, fought with Jacob even as rioters — infuriated by Pence’s refusal to acquiesce to Trump’s pressure — ransacked the Capitol. Jacob testified to the Jan. 6 select committee about his interactions with Eastman, even as the riot raged, and his email correspondence with Eastman from that day formed some of the most compelling evidence about Eastman’s efforts. Jacob has also testified to a federal grand jury in Washington.
