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Election 2020

‘He Confessed!’: John Eastman Proves Why You Should NEVER Give a Televised Interview When You’re Awaiting Trial

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Former Donald Trump lawyer John Eastman is now facing accusations of admitting to an allegation that he tried to prevent the certification of the 2020 election results during an appearance on Fox News in which he discussed the events that led up to the January 6 attack.

Eastman is one of 19 defendants, including Trump, who has been charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as part of a sprawling election interference case. He defended his and the ex-president’s actions while being interviewed by Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on Wednesday evening, Newsweek reports.

While Eastman has been indicted in the Georgia case, he was also listed as one of Trump’s six alleged co-conspirators in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment against Trump in connection with the investigation into attempts to upend the 2020 election results. Trump has pleaded not guilty to four charges as part of Smith’s probe, while Eastman hasn’t been charged.

He is, however, alleged to have been a major part of the fake elector scheme to falsely declare that Trump had beaten Joe Biden in key swing states. He’s also allegedly been involved in attempts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to delay certification of the election results despite realizing such a move may be illegal.

Ingraham asked what his “constitutional” plan was on January 6, 2021, Eastman responded: “Some people had urged that Vice President Pence simply had power to reject electors whose certification was still pending.”

“I explicitly told Vice President Pence in the Oval Office on January 4, that even though it was an open issue, under the circumstances we had I thought it was the weaker argument, and it would be foolish to exercise such power.”

“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,” Eastman explained.

Wow, way to shoot yourself in the foot dude. Dayum.

Bradley P. Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security also seemed to be shocked, posting on X: “He literally just confessed to the crime.”

And Democratic strategist Max Burns posted: “John Eastman, on trial for trying to impede the certification of presidential electors, admits on Fox News that he explicitly wanted to impede the certification of presidential electors.”

https://twitter.com/themaxburns/status/1697042225794883978

The Guardian’s political reporter Hugo Lowell wrote: “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.”

George Conway, a former lawyer and one of Trump’s most fervent critics, shared Eastman’s clip on X and added: Pro legal tip: If you’ve been indicted for doing something, don’t talk about that something on TV.”

Although Eastman hasn’t been charged in Smith’s federal January 6 probe, page 34 of the indictment reveals how Trump and Eastman met with Pence on January 4, 2021, trying to convince him that the vice president should “reject or send to the states Biden’s legitimate electoral votes, rather than count them.”

One section on page 42 includes a section that states that in the hours after the January 6 attack, Eastman wrote to Pence to “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.”

It’s pretty amazing that Eastman implicated himself on Fox News. I don’t know if the man is stupid or brave, but Ingraham also said she had some doubts, noting she hadn’t seen evidence to suggest widespread voter fraud had caused Trump to lose the 2020 election. She added that the claim that election irregularities “rose to the level of changing the outcome of the election” is unproven.

Of course, her comments remind me of Fox News’s fun with Dominion Voting Systems. That didn’t work out terribly well for the cable news network, since it settled a whopping $787 billion lawsuit with the company stemming from its continual stream of claims that the voting company rigged ballots in favor of Biden.

MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes couldn’t help but chuckle over this, and while sharing a clip of Eastman’s interview, he wrote: “Lol. You can almost see the $800 million Dominion settlement sitting on screen in great big sacks looming over her as she tries to avoid another one.”

Hey, he said it, I didn’t.

Megan Hamilton
meet the author

Megan has lived in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida and she currently lives in Central America. Living in these places has informed her writing on politics, science, and history. She is currently owned by 15 cats and 3 dogs and regularly owns Trump supporters when she has the opportunity. She can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GaiaLibra and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/politicalsaurus

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