Conservative super-lawyer John Eastman knows who is to blame for the Capitol riot and it’s Mike Pence

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(Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images)

At some point this week, the January 6 select committee is preparing to subpoena Conservative lawyer John Eastman to obtain documents and testimony about his role in the Capitol Riot. And you can bet your last dollar that the most prominent member of the Claremont Institute will claim all privileges – lawyer-client, executive and devil, maybe even clerical. Which may be something of an elevator considering the genie waved his yelp all over town about exactly what he said and did before the Capitol riot.

Just last week, Eastman gave this insane interview to the National Review in which he muttered endlessly about his contacts with the former president and called himself a “hero white knight here, speaking [Trump] compared to the most aggressive position. And he couldn’t help himself when The Washington Post asked for comment on an unpublished article by former Vice President Pence’s chief counsel, Greg Jacob, who described being shelled by “a roadblock. bankrupt legal theories ”from Eastman and his allies.

“Thanks to your bullshit we’re now under siege,” Jacob wrote to Eastman after the crowd shouting “Hang Mike Pence!” Invaded the Capitol and the vice president was pushed out of the room under guard.

“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be broadcast in public so that the American people could see for themselves what happened,” Eastman replied.

And even after law enforcement was finally able to regain control, Eastman still advised the vice president to unilaterally reject certified swing states voters lists. In fact, he went so far as to say that Pence allowing lawmakers to speak without deducting time from the allocation specified under the Election Tally Act served as a precedent for disregarding the law in its entirety. .

“My argument was that they had already violated the law on the electoral count by allowing the debate to exceed the two hours allotted and by not meeting” immediately “in joint session after the vote of the objection,” he said. he babbled at the Post. “It seemed like it had already set the precedent that it wasn’t a hindrance.”

This ties in with the legal argument of Eastman’s two notorious Election Notes in which he attempted to characterize the vice-president’s ministerial obligation to open envelopes containing certified voters lists as a right to unilaterally reject anything he did not like.

In the January opinion piece, which Jacobs ultimately decided not to publish, he demanded professional sanctions for “a group of lawyers outside the president. [who] has woven a web of lies and disinformation, for himself and for the public, in an effort to pressure the Vice President to betray his oath to uphold our laws and the United States Constitution.

“Now that the moment of immediate crisis has passed, the legal profession should dispassionately consider whether the lawyers involved should be penalized for using their credentials to sell a stream of snake oil to the world’s most powerful office,” wrapped up in the guise of a lawyer ‘s advice, ”he wrote.

And indeed, in the months since this article was written, that is exactly what happened, with a group of California lawyers urging that state’s bar to investigate Eastman’s conduct.

Meanwhile, Eastman continues to tell everyone he really meant everything he said about Pence overturning the election and hoping to make it through the courts.

EXCLUSIVE: The author of the January 6 coup memo, John Eastman, told us Mike Pence failed to take his solid legal advice and called off the election because Pence is “a man of the establishment”

(He previously told @NRO that the memo was not “viable” and would have been “crazy” to continue.)

Stay tuned for part 2. pic.twitter.com/RQeUceH1bn

– Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) October 26, 2021

But John Eastman is a very serious lawyer, so he can’t violate privilege by answering questions about it for Congress, can he?

In the January 6 riot, Trump’s lawyer told Pence’s team that the vice president’s inaction prompted an attack on Capitol [WaPo]Read: Pence collaborator Greg Jacob’s draft opinion piece denouncing Trump’s outside lawyers [WaPo]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes on law and politics.

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