Mike Pence made a statement that will go down in infamy after his attorney, Greg Jacob, showed him the message he got from Doctor John Eastman.
“That’s rubber-room stuff!”
Greg Jacob made a statement after being asked what would happen – IF Trump and Eastman had got Pence to reverse the results of the election. Greg said there would be much chaos and lawsuits, and
“Who knows what would happen in the streets?”
I assume he meant allot of PEOPLE OF COLOR would riot in the streets because those people VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS – who are still trying to prevent THE STEAL – from them! After today’s hearing, we know who the REAL PATRIOTS ARE, and, who deserves to OWN RIGHTEOUS ANGER in the protection of our Constitution. Don’t let it get into the streets again. Ask our real President to declare Marshall Law – and start rounding up THE REAL NUTS and locking them in Rubber Rooms – now! I believe Ginni Thomas needs to be – RUBBERIZED! She communicated with Eastman who had evil ideas about the Supreme Court.
My last post was posted six hours ago, around 6:30 A.M. Good anticipation – John! Doctor John went after Kamala Harris! Say – what?
“He is a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.”
John Presco a.k.a. Oakland Johnny
In August 2020, Newsweek published an op-ed by Eastman questioning 2020 vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris‘s eligibility for the office. He asserted she could not be a U.S. citizen by birth despite being born in Oakland, California,
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has new emails that show that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, corresponded with Trump-allied lawyer John Eastman, two sources said Wednesday.
The committee is mulling what to do about the emails, two people familiar with the documents told CBS News.
The news was first reported by The Washington Post.
Eastman first emerged as a Trump-affiliated lawyer in December 2020, when he filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to let Trump intervene in a longshot lawsuit to toss out election results in four swing states won by Joe Biden, which ultimately failed.
It’s not clear when Eastman formally became Trump’s attorney, but he revealed in a legal filing last month that he sometimes communicated directly with Trump, and the former president sent the attorney at least two “hand-written notes.”
John Eastman
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For the member of the Wisconsin State Senate, see John A. Eastman.
| John C. Eastman | |
|---|---|
| Eastman in 2013 | |
| Born | April 21, 1960 (age 62) Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S.[citation needed] |
| Education | University of Dallas (BA) University of Chicago (JD) Claremont Graduate School (PhD) |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Eastman |
John Charles Eastman (born April 21, 1960[1]) is an American lawyer who is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the conservative think tank Claremont Institute.[2][3] He is a former professor and dean at the Chapman University School of Law.[4] He ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for California’s 34th congressional district in 1990, and for the office of California Attorney General in 2010.[2] He is a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Eastman participated in the attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.[5][6][7][8] During President Donald Trump’s last efforts before the certification of Joe Biden‘s Electoral College victory, Eastman incorrectly told Vice President Mike Pence in an Oval Office meeting on January 5, 2021, that Pence had the constitutional authority to block the certification.[9][10] Pence did not accept Eastman’s argument. Eastman also sent to Republican senator Mike Lee a six-point plan of action for Pence to throw out the electors from seven states to keep Trump in power, which Lee rejected.[11] On January 6, 2021, Eastman presented a speech at the White House Trump rally that preceded the 2021 United States Capitol attack. Eastman subsequently implored Vice President Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act to delay certification of the election,[12] via Pence’s legal counsel Gregory Jacob. Jacob responded by calling Eastman a “serpent in the ear of the president of the United States”.[13] On January 13, 2021, Eastman retired from the Chapman University faculty after the controversy created by his having spoken at the Trump rally.[14][15]
Previously during the presidential campaign, Eastman wrote a controversial op-ed in August 2020 which falsely suggested that then-presumed Democratic nominee for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was not an American citizen and thus not legally eligible for the position.[16][17][18] On March 28, 2022, federal judge David Carter ruled Eastman, along with Trump, was likely to have “dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021”.[19][20]
Contents
Education[edit]
Eastman graduated from the Dallas-area Lewisville High School and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Dallas. He then earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Government from the Claremont Graduate School. During his time in law school, Eastman worked on the University of Chicago Law Review.[21]
Career[edit]
Prior to law school, he served as Director of Congressional and Public Affairs at the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1989.[22] He was also the unsuccessful 1990 Republican nominee for United States House of Representatives in California’s 34th congressional district.[23]
After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Justice Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court of the United States, then was an attorney with the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, specializing in civil and constitutional litigation. He later joined Chapman to teach constitutional law. He has also appeared on the nationally syndicated Hugh Hewitt show commenting on law.[24]
Eastman served as an attorney for the State of South Dakota, representing it in a denied petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in a constitutional challenge to federal spending.[25]
Eastman has represented the North Carolina legislature and the State of Arizona in unsuccessfully petitioning the Supreme Court in cases involving same-sex marriage,[26] abortion,[27] and immigration.[28]
He testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2014 arguing that President Barack Obama’s unilateral suspension of deportation for illegal immigrants was unconstitutional.[29]
Elections[edit]
1990 congressional campaign[edit]
In 1990 Eastman was unopposed in the primary to become the Republican challenger of long term 34th District incumbent Esteban Torres in California’s San Gabriel Valley.[30][31][32]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Esteban Torres (incumbent) | 55,646 | 60.70 | |
| Republican | John Eastman | 36,024 | 39.30 | |
| Total votes | 91,670 | 100.00 | ||
| Democratic hold |
California Attorney General campaign[edit]
On February 1, 2010, Eastman resigned as Dean of the Chapman University School of Law to pursue the Republican nomination for California Attorney General.[33] On April 1, a Superior Court judge denied Eastman’s choice for ballot designation, “Assistant Attorney General”, fearing that use of this title, granted by South Dakota for his work on a lawsuit, would be misperceived as a California title. The judge further denied Eastman’s second choice, “Taxpayer Advocate/Attorney”, but accepted his third choice, “Constitutional Law Attorney”. Such designations typically reflect a candidate’s current employment or elected office.[34] Eastman finished second in the three-way Republican primary with 34.2% of the vote, behind Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who received 47.3%.[35] Cooley advanced to the 2010 California Attorney General election, where he was defeated by Kamala Harris.[36]
Board affiliations[edit]
Eastman is chairman of the Federalist Society‘s Federalism & Separation of Powers practice group.[37][38] He is chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage.[39][40] He is a director of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which brings election lawsuits.[41][42] He is both a member of the board and on the faculty at the Claremont Institute.[43][44][45] He sits on the board of advisors of St. Monica’s Academy[46] and the advisory board of the St. Thomas More Law Society of Orange County.[47]
Controversies[edit]
Kamala Harris citizenship op-ed[edit]
In August 2020, Newsweek published an op-ed by Eastman questioning 2020 vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris‘s eligibility for the office. He asserted she could not be a U.S. citizen by birth despite being born in Oakland, California, if neither of her parents was a permanent resident at the time of her birth. Eastman said that she could have subsequently obtained citizenship derived from the naturalization of her parents if one of them had become a citizen prior to her 16th birthday in 1980, which would have allowed Harris to fulfill the nine-year citizenship requirement required to become a senator.[48]
All prominent legal scholars disagreed with Eastman’s position, and many compared it to the birtherism theory against President Barack Obama. Newsweek defended the column, while acknowledging that they were “horrified that this op-ed gave rise to a wave of vile Birtherism directed at Senator Harris”. They stated there was no connection between the op-ed and the birther movement. Rather, the op-ed focused on the “long-standing, somewhat arcane legal debate about the precise meaning of the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ in the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment”, also known as the jus sanguinis or jus soli debate.[49] However, Axios noted that other constitutional scholars do not accept Eastman’s view, labeling it “baseless”. Axios also criticized Eastman for brushing off the eligibility concerns of 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz, born in Calgary, Canada, in a 2016 National Review op-ed, claiming they were “silly”.[50]
Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School, told BBC: “Under section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen. The Supreme Court has held this since the 1890s. Kamala Harris was born in the United States.”[51] Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe was similarly dismissive, telling The New York Times “I hadn’t wanted to comment on [Eastman’s idea] because it’s such an idiotic theory. There is nothing to it.”[52] One day after they published Eastman’s op-ed, Newsweek published an opinion piece by legal scholar Eugene Volokh, titled “Yes, Kamala Harris is Eligible to be Vice President”, in which Volokh argues that Harris is a “natural-born citizen” under the U.S. Constitution and is therefore eligible to be vice president.[53] Chris Truax, in an earlier piece for USA Today, pointed out that tens of millions of Americans, including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, would not be “natural-born citizens” if Eastman’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment were correct.[54]
This op-ed was cited by the New York Times as helping Eastman come to the attention of Jenna Ellis, a Trump campaign adviser, and subsequently, Eastman briefly met with Trump campaign advisors in a Philadelphia hotel room the weekend after the 2020 presidential election, and, according to Eastman, caught COVID-19.[55] In early December, Trump called Eastman and asked him to challenge the results of the 2020 United States presidential election before the Supreme Court.[55]
2020 presidential election[edit]
 | This section is too long to read comfortably, and needs subsections. Please format the article according to the guidelines laid out in the Manual of Style. (June 2022) |
See also: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election and Eastman memos
On December 9, 2020, Eastman represented U.S. President Donald Trump in a motion to intervene in Texas v. Pennsylvania, a case filed directly in the U.S. Supreme Court by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, in which the state of Texas sought to annul the voting processes and, by extension, the electoral college results of at least four other states. Eastman’s brief included an array of unfounded claims and asserted “It is not necessary for [Trump] to prove that fraud occurred,” and asserted it was enough to show that elections “materially deviated” from the intent of state lawmakers, adding, “By failing to follow the rule of law, these officials put our nation’s belief in elected self-government at risk.”[56][57][58] Two days later, on December 12, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, finding that Texas did not have standing saying Texas “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.” [59] On December 13, 2020, 159 Chapman University faculty members (including two from the law school) published a statement condemning Eastman for the filing.[60]
On December 24, 2020, the Trump administration called Eastman asking him to write a memo “asserting the vice president’s power to hold up the certification” of the presidential election.[55] Eastman circulated a two-page outline and memo to the Trump legal team several days later, followed by a more extensive memo later.[55] Eastman called the vice president “the ultimate arbiter” of the election in his two-page memo.[61] After receiving sharp criticism about his role in the election aftermath, in October 2021 Eastman asserted the memos did not convey his advice but rather he had written them at the request of “somebody in the legal team” whose name he could not recall.[55] He also asserted in October that a scenario in which Pence would reject ballots was “foolish” and “crazy,” further claiming he had told Pence during their Oval Office meeting that his proposal was an “open question” and “the weaker argument.”[62] In a video taken secretly and made public that same month, Eastman suggested he believed that Pence’s actions served Washington politics. Someone posing as a Trump supporter asked “Why do you think Mike Pence didn’t do it?” Eastman responded that “Mike Pence is an establishment guy” who fears that Trump is “destroying the inside-the-Beltway Republican Party.”[63]
On January 2, 2021, Eastman joined Trump, the president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and others in a conference call with 300 Republican legislators from Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to brief them on allegations of voter fraud, with the objective of the legislators attempting to decertify their states’ election results.[64][65] That same day, together with Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn, he appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast and promoted the idea that state lawmakers needed to reconsider the election results.[65] On January 5, 2021, Eastman met with Vice President Mike Pence in the Oval Office to argue incorrectly that the vice president has the constitutional authority to alter or otherwise change electoral votes.[66] According to Eastman, he told the vice president that he might have the authority to reject electoral college votes, and he asked the vice president to delay the certification.[55] Pence rejected Eastman’s argument and instead agreed with his counsel, Greg Jacob, and conservative legal scholars and other Pence advisors, such as John Yoo and J. Michael Luttig.[67][68][69][70][71] Pence later released a letter stating he would not attempt to intervene in the certification process, citing Luttig by name, who later said it was “the highest honor of my life” to be involved in preserving the Constitution.[66][68][69][70]
On January 6, Eastman spoke alongside Giuliani at the “Save America” rally that preceded the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol and asserted without evidence that balloting machines contained “secret folders” that altered voting results.[72][73][74][75]
During the Capitol storming, when Pence was forced into hiding, Eastman exchanged e-mails with Greg Jacob, Pence’s chief counsel. Jacob wrote to Eastman, “Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.” Eastman replied by blaming Pence and Jacob for refusing to block certification of Trump’s loss in the election, writing, “The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened.” Later in the day, when the rioters were expelled from the Capitol and Pence was again presiding over Congress, Eastman told Jacob in another e-mail that Pence should still refuse to certify the election results.[76]
On January 7, 2021, Eastman edited this Wikipedia article to a less accusatory description of his post-election role. His editing was reverted due to conflict-of-interest rules of Wikipedia, and on January 9 he appealed on the article’s talk page, where some changes were approved but others were denied.[77]
On January 9, 2021, the chairman of Chapman’s board of trustees and two other members (including former Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez) called on the university’s president and provost and the law school’s dean “to promptly take action against Eastman for his role in the events of Jan. 6.” Eastman responded that he was speaking two miles away from the Capitol building.[78][79]
On January 13, 2021, Chapman University announced that Eastman had agreed to retire from the university. Daniele C. Struppa, the university president, said that “Chapman and Dr. Eastman have agreed not to engage in legal actions of any kind, including any claim of defamation that may currently exist, as both parties move forward”.[80] Eastman published a statement the next day saying that those who publicly condemned him “have created such a hostile environment for me that I no longer wish to be a member of the Chapman faculty, and am therefore retiring from my position, effective immediately.” He said he would continue with his Spring 2021 position as Visiting Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy at the University of Colorado and intended to then devote full-time effort to his position as director of the Claremont Institute‘s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.[79][81] The University of Colorado cancelled Eastman’s Spring 2021 courses due to low enrollment.[82] The university also revoked some of Eastman’s public-facing duties but permitted him to conduct scholarship.[83][71]
Appearing on CNN on January 23 to argue that the Trump rally did not incite the siege of the Capitol, Eastman asserted that “a paramilitary group as well as antifa groups” had been organizing “three or four days ahead of time”. Eastman asserted this had been reported by The Washington Post days earlier, though the article he appeared to reference did not support his assertion and did not mention antifa.[84][85][86] The FBI had announced two weeks earlier there was no evidence of antifa involvement in the siege.[87] Eastman referred to an “antifa and BLM guy” who had been arrested after the Capitol incursion, an apparent reference to John Earle Sullivan, a Utah man who some characterized as an “antifa leader” who had supposedly infiltrated the rally crowd to instigate the insurgency. Federal authorities had not identified the man as a member of antifa.[88] Black Lives Matter Utah had for months disassociated itself from Sullivan on concerns he might be associated with the Proud Boys.[89][90]
On October 4, 2021, a bipartisan group of attorneys, including two former federal judges and two former justices of the California Supreme Court, filed a complaint with the State Bar of California asking for an investigation of Eastman relating to “his representation of former President Donald J. Trump in efforts to discredit and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”[91][92] In March 2022, the State Bar of California announced that since September 2021, it had been investigating claims of possible violations of law and ethics rules by Eastman.[93] Eastman’s attorney said he expected Eastman to be exonerated.[94]
Eastman asserted his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination on December 1, 2021, in a letter in which he refused to testify to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.[95] CNN reported Eastman met with the committee but invoked the Fifth Amendment 146 times.[96]
In an effort to withhold 19,000 emails subpoenaed by the committee, in January 2022 an attorney for Eastman told a federal judge that they were protected by attorney-client privilege because Eastman had been representing Trump while participating in the January 2 conference call with state legislators; the January 3 Oval Office meeting with Trump and Pence; and while working as a member of the Trump team at the Willard Hotel command center. Eastman had not previously asserted privilege. The emails were stored on servers at Eastman’s former employer, Chapman University, which had been subpoenaed and did not object to their release. The judge ordered the emails released to Eastman’s legal team to identify which they asserted were privileged, before allowing a third party to scrutinize them.[97] Eastman relinquished nearly 8,000 emails to the committee in February 2022 but asserted privilege for about 11,000 others.[98]
As Eastman sought to withhold some emails, in March 2022 the committee continued to seek them, stating in a federal court filing that the evidence it had acquired “provides, at minimum, a good-faith basis for concluding” Trump and his campaign violated multiple laws in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States by attempting to prevent Congress from certifying his defeat. The filing included an excerpt of a January 6 email exchange with Pence aide Greg Jacob in which Eastman stated, “I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation [of the Electoral Count Act] and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations, as well as to allow a full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that has occurred here.”[99][100][101] Douglas Letter, general counsel to the House, said about Eastman asking Pence to delay Biden’s certification, “It was so minor it could have changed the entire course of our democracy. It could have meant the popularly elected president could have been thwarted from taking office. That was what Dr Eastman was urging.”[102] Eastman’s assertion of privilege for 101 emails was rejected by judge David O. Carter in March 2022, and they were ordered relinquished to the committee. Carter wrote that Trump and Eastman likely conspired in criminal obstruction of Congress, adding, “If Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution.”[20][103]
Seventeen months after the election, Eastman continued to press state legislatures to decertify their election results. Some legal experts said his continued efforts might increase his criminal legal exposure, though if he were charged he might assert his persistent efforts showed he truly believed the election was stolen.[104][105]
In May 2022, the University of Colorado, where Eastman was a visiting professor, released an email Eastman sent to Pennsylvania legislator Russ Diamond in December 2020. In the email, Eastman described a plan by which the Pennsylvania legislature could act to reverse Biden’s victory in the state and declare Trump the winner. The plan called for legislators to express concern about absentee ballots to justify disqualifying tens of thousands of them, then using historical voting data to “discount each candidates’ totals by a prorated amount” to arrive at a significant Trump lead. He wrote this new “untainted popular vote” would “help provide some cover” for the legislature to create a slate of Trump electors for certification.[106]
In a late-night court filing on May 19, 2022, Eastman disclosed he had routinely communicated with Trump directly or via “six conduits” regarding legal strategy leading up to January 6, detailing “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.” Eastman made the disclosure to claim attorney-client privilege to prevent the January 6 committee from obtaining 600 of his emails.[107]
On June 7, Judge Carter ruled that Eastman must disclose an additional 159 sensitive documents to the committee. Ten documents related to three December 2020 meetings by a secretive group strategizing about how to overturn the election, which included what Carter characterized as a “high-profile” leader. Carter noted one email in particular that contained what he found was likely evidence of a crime and ordered it disclosed under the crime-fraud exception of attorney-client privilege. The email content in question was a comment by an unidentified attorney that litigating a case regarding the January 6 session in Congress might “tank the January 6 strategy” and so the Trump legal team should avoid the courts.[108]
The Washington Post reported on June 15 that the January 6 committee had recently acquired emails between Eastman and Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas.[109] The New York Times reported the committee had obtained an email exchange dated December 24, 2020, between Eastman, attorney Kenneth Chesebro and Trump campaign officials. Eastman wrote he was aware of a “heated fight” within the Supreme Court about whether to hear a case, and participants in the email exchange discussed whether to file a Wisconsin case that four justices would agree to bring before the full court. A previous election challenge, Texas v. Pennsylvania, had been rejected by the court thirteen days earlier. Eastman wrote, “the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices’ spines.” Chesebro responded the “odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.” Chesebro’s quoted use of the term “wild” was an apparent reference to Trump’s tweet five days earlier inviting supporters to attend the January 6 protest, which he said “will be wild!” Chesebro, a New York appellate attorney, had eleven days earlier emailed Rudy Giuliani with a proposal for Pence to recuse himself from the January 6 certification so a senior Republican senator could count fraudulent elector slates to declare Trump the victor.[110][111][112]
Rosamond Press 
