Former lawyer of former President Donald Trump, John Eastman, appears on screen through the fourth hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January sixth Attack on the US Capitol within the Cannon House Office Constructing on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol beneficial Monday that the Justice Department investigate and potentially prosecute former President Donald Trump’s election law attorney John Eastman on two counts, stemming from his role in advancing a plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Eastman’s referral was for his alleged violation of the statute that makes it a criminal offense to impede an official proceeding of america government, and secondly, the law that prohibits conspiring to defraud america.
Eastman is the creator of a memo that outlined several scenarios under which then-Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to certify the presidential electoral count on Jan. 6, and effectively prevent Biden from being formally declared the winner of the presidential election.
“The evidence shows that Eastman knew prematurely of the 2020 election that Vice President Pence couldn’t refuse to count electoral votes on January sixth,” the committee wrote in an executive report issued Monday.
“In the times before January sixth, Eastman was warned repeatedly that his plan was illegal and ‘completely crazy,’ and would ’cause riots within the streets.’ Nonetheless, Eastman continued to help President Trump’s pressure campaign in public and in private, including in meetings with the Vice President and in his own speech on the Ellipse on January sixth,” the report stated.
In response to news of the referrals, Eastman told a gaggle of reporters Monday that he genuinely believed the Electoral Count Act was unconstitutional, which is why he suggested Pence could be justified in violating it.
Eastman also said that in his face-to-face meeting with Pence on Jan. 4, 2021, he had never suggested that Pence should unilaterally declare Trump the winner, although this was considered one of several scenarios Eastman had specified by his memo.
As a substitute, Eastman said, he had beneficial that the vp merely delay certifying the electoral count.
The committee report released Monday argued that it was immaterial which path Eastman ultimately beneficial, because he knew that each of them were illegal and amounted to violations of the Electoral Count Act.
Eastman’s plan centered on Pence refusing to certify the outcomes of the presidential election in seven states because, Pence would claim, those states had “competing” slates of electors.
In point of fact, there have been no competing electors, there have been merely Trump allies who were going to falsely claim that they were electors. This strategy became often known as the “Fake Electors” scheme.
Eastman and Trump repeatedly attempted to persuade Pence to comply with the scheme, but he ultimately refused.
An aide to Pence later told the committee during a taped interview that Eastman knew the plan he was proposing was illegal, because it might violate the federal Electoral Count Act.
“But he thought that we could achieve this, because in his view, the Electoral Count Act was unconstitutional,” the aide, Greg Jacob said.
Eastman was subpoenaed by the committee in late 2021. But when the time got here for his deposition, Eastman asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 100 times, and did not answer any of the committee’s substantive questions.
Eastman’s attorneys said Monday this decision was a part of a legal technique to deny the committee, which they claimed was biased against Eastman, any information that might be used against their client.
Ethics Committee referrals
The committee also referred 4 Republican members of Congress to the bipartisan House Ethics Committee for defying subpoenas issued earlier this yr.Â
In its executive report, the committee said that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Calif., Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Jim Jordan of Ohio should all be sanctioned.
“Willful noncompliance [with congressional subpoenas] violates multiple standards of conduct and subjects them to discipline,” the committee report stated.
The committee also said the 4 Republicans should “be questioned in a public forum about their advance knowledge of and role in President Trump’s plan to forestall the peaceful transition of power.”Â
Perry, Biggs and Jordan were amongst a small group of Trump loyalists who each publicly and privately encouraged Trump to proceed denying the election results, even after his myriad lawsuits difficult the vote tallies in various states had failed.
The three men also attended a now-infamous meeting on the White House on Dec. 21, 2020, during which they and other staunch Trump allies discussed the fake electors scheme, which on the time was being promoted on the time by members of Trump’s outside legal team.
In a press release Monday, Biggs called the ethics committee referral “a political stunt,” and accused the committee of using the ethics panel inappropriately. A spokesman for Jordan also called the referral a “stunt.” A spokesman for Perry called the Jan. 6 committee “illegitimate.”
The ethics committee is all the time evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, a makeup that is meant to insulate it from partisan politics and changes in the bulk.
Nonetheless, the panel can have Republican chair in the following Congress, making it unlikely that the committee will vigorously pursue the Jan. 6 panel’s referrals.
