A co-defendant in the Georgia election case, John Eastman, appeared on Fox News’s Laura Ingraham for a two-part interview and raised many eyebrows on Wednesday night with comments that many observers interpreted as an admission of guilt, leaving some people confused.
For MAGA supporters, there may be something much bigger to this story that the opponents of Trump are overlooking.
This is really weird though, considering that Eastman seemed so confident on the day he turned himself in for charges in Fulton, Georgia, affirming that he believed the 2020 election was stolen from the American people:
John Eastman isn’t backing down. Asked if he thought the 2020 election was stolen:
“Absolutely. No question.” pic.twitter.com/7b1Sf5c0u3
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) August 22, 2023
Eastman has some fantastic street cred as a leading Constitution expert, as seen here in a post by Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who posted in defense of Eastman recently:
Kangaroo court proceedings in California to disbar John Eastman, one of the nation’s leading constitutional lawyers, for daring to provide legal advice on the Biden election controversy. https://t.co/edslH74uXz
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) August 26, 2023
So now the Fulton, GA situation just got more confusing with the Ingraham interview.
63-year-old Republican Eastman is an American lawyer and former academic who assisted President Donald J. Trump in the days after the suspicious 2020 election.
Here is what he told Ingraham about his point of view, which has people talking about Eastman’s relationship with Trump:
“You know, I had written a very prominent article on birthright citizenship. That was one of the issues he wanted to take up in the campaign, and when other law firms were withdrawing, and they needed a Constitutional expert, I had that connection with him,” Eastman said.
“But I’d also been retained by the Florida legislature in 2000 as an expert on these very issues. So, there were probably half a dozen people in the country that had ever dealt with them before, and I was one of them. So, that kind of jumped me to the front of the line, I suspect.”
While working for CU, Eastman had written an op-ed claiming that Kamala Harris was ineligible to be vice president because her parents were immigrants, which made him a target of the administrative state, no doubt.
“After connecting with Trump, Eastman became a president’s legal team member in 2020. Eastman is now indicted in two recent cases involving Trump – the January 6 insurrection case and the case regarding election interference in Georgia,” according to Mediaite, who added:
The Jan. 6 Congressional Commission has called Eastman one of the scheme’s architects to overturn the 2020 election.
In the interview with Ingraham, Eastman said he has “lots of evidence of fraud.”
Ingraham asked Eastman at one point in the interview, “And just again, to clarify this, on January 6th, what did you want to happen?”
Here is how Mediaite broke it down:
Ingraham expanded on her question a bit, and Eastman added, “Several things. Some people had urged that Vice President Pence had the power to reject electors whose certification was still pending.”
Ingraham quickly interjected, “I don’t believe that.”
Eastman agreed with Ingraham and told Pence it “would be foolish to exercise such power even if you had it.”
Eastman continued, “What I recommended, and I’ve said this repeatedly, is that he accede to requests from more than 100 state legislators in the swing states to give them a week to try and sort out the impact of what everybody acknowledged was illegality in the conduct of the election.”
Ingraham interjected again and clarified, “Not everyone acknowledges, not everyone acknowledges, but that was the argument that was being made. Obviously, and there were obviously irregularities that everybody had seen. But whether that was yeah, whether it rose to the level of changing the outcome of the election again without a legal proceeding in the states that mattered, the argument ultimately was a difficult one to make.”
Eastman’s response that he wanted Pence to hold off on certification for a week quickly drew attention. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell noted, “Fmr Trump lawyer John Eastman says on Fox News that what he wanted on Jan. 6 was for VP Pence to delay certification from happening for a week. Not news but in his own words it sounds like he wanted to impede the certification.”
“It’s going to sound like that to prosecutors, judges, and juries too,” replied lawyer George Conway.
Journalist and commentator David Rothkopf added, “‘I only want to steal a little of the bank’s money’ is not a defense, it’s an admission of guilt.”
“I only want to steal a little of the bank’s money” is not a defense, it’s an admission of guilt.
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) August 31, 2023
National security lawyer Bradley P. Moss commented, “He literally just confessed to the crime.”
He literally just confessed to the crime. https://t.co/iPmU51f57E
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) August 31, 2023
Eastman and 18 others, including former President Donald Trump, face 41 charges related to their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state. Eastman, in particular, is accused of helping to craft the fake electors scheme and pressuring Pence to “either reject electoral votes from certain states or delay the joint session of Congress on January 6,” according to the 98-page indictment.
Below are some additional reactions to Eastman’s comments:
“How exactly were you going to pull off your coup?”
“Here was my exact plan to pull it off.” https://t.co/nw5USykJXR
— David Pepper (@DavidPepper) August 31, 2023
Pro legal tip:
If you’ve been indicted for doing something, don’t talk about that something on TV. https://t.co/51CI6OYXSm
— Xeorge Xonway (@gtconway3d) August 31, 2023
Eastman, a former Supreme Court law clerk, was also in the news this week for endorsing US Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas, an iconic Conservative.
NBC reported:
The undated letter, which appears to be in response to the fallout from a bombshell ProPublica article about lavish trips taken by Thomas and funded by a billionaire GOP donor, calls Thomas’ character “unimpeachable.”
“Different paths led us to our year with Justice Thomas, and we have followed different paths since. But along the way, we all saw with our own eyes the same thing: His integrity is unimpeachable,” said the letter, which Fox News first reported Tuesday.
“Lately, the stories have questioned his integrity and his ethics for the friends he keeps,” the letter said. “We are proud to have been his clerks and to remain his friends, and we unequivocally reject attacks on his integrity, his character, or his ethics.”
The post Trump’s Top Co-Defendant Makes Alarming Admission Live On Fox News appeared first on The Republic Brief.
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