The Free-Lance Star: Wall Street Journal: John Eastman offers sorry excuse for Jan. 6
Nov 28, 2022
Updated 9 hrs ago
In the lead-up to the Jan. 6 riot, John Eastman gave President Trump legal advice that was terrible, and now he’s trying to argue it was merely awful. In a letter to the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 14, Eastman, a former law professor of some distinction, denies he argued that Vice President Mike Pence “could unilaterally reject electoral votes and simply declare President Trump reelected.”
Eastman claims he made only a modest proposal, Swiftian allusion intended: “The advice I gave to then-Vice President Pence was that he accede to requests from hundreds of state lawmakers to delay proceedings for a short time so that they could assess the effect of illegalities on the conduct of the election.” Eastman specifically refers to a conversation during an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4, 2021.
But his position is contradicted by the sworn testimony of Pence’s legal counsel, Greg Jacob. According to Jacob, Eastman argued at the Jan. 4 meeting that it would, in fact, be “legally viable” for the VP to reject electors. Eastman advised against this plan only because it would be “less politically palatable.” That concession apparently didn’t last.
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A final thing to point out is that the argument in Eastman’s letter isn’t a defense. It’s more like a plea bargain to a lesser transgression against the American republic. Asking Pence to reverse the 2020 election directly was appalling. Asking the VP to stall the Electoral College, so that state legislatures could reverse the 2020 election, was also appalling.
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