This is the six-point plan advanced by Trump lawyer John Eastman for VP Pence to overturn election
This is the six-point plan advanced by Trump lawyer John Eastman for VP Pence to overturn the election on January 6th.
1. VP Pence, presiding over the joint session (or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley, if
Pence recuses himself), begins to open and count the ballots, starting with
Alabama (without conceding that the procedure, specified by the Electoral
Count Act, of going through the States alphabetically is required).
2. When he gets to Arizona, he announces that he has multiple slates of electors,
and so is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other States. This
would be the first break with the procedure set out in the Act.
3. At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States,
there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States. That
means the total number of “electors appointed” – the language of the 12th
Amendment -- is 454. This reading of the 12th Amendment has also been
advanced by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe (here). A “majority of the
electors appointed” would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for
Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected.
4. Howls, of course, from the Democrats, who now claim, contrary to Tribe’s prior
position, that 270 is required. So Pence says, fine. Pursuant to the 12th
Amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. That sends the
matter to the House, where the “the votes shall be taken by states, the
representation from each state having one vote . . . .” Republicans currently
control 26 of the state delegations, the bare majority needed to win that vote.
President Trump is re-elected there as well.
5. One last piece. Assuming the Electoral Count Act process is followed and, upon
getting the objections to the Arizona slates, the two houses break into their
separate chambers, we should not allow the Electoral Count Act constraint on
debate to control. That would mean that a prior legislature was determining
the rules of the present one — a constitutional no-no (as Tribe has forcefully
argued). So someone – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, etc. – should demand normal rules
(which includes the filibuster). That creates a stalemate that would give the
state legislatures more time to weigh in to formally support the alternate slate
of electors, if they had not already done so.
6. The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission
– either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court. Let the other side
challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President
of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would
press a lawsuit would have their past position -- that these are non-justiciable
political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The
fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the
ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind.
http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/09/20/eastman.memo.pdf
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... horrible man. The Republicans goal is to do this, still. The Electoral College helped them get losers GWB and The Donald into office... but even that is not dependable anymore.
