Back in September, investigative journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa published a book titled Peril, outlining various crimes and juicy drama from the Trump administration. One of the most important things revealed by the book is that Trump lawyer John Eastman crafted one of the most coherent plots to overthrow the election.
The Eastman memo was a simple two-page document that outlined 6 clear steps on how the Vice President and Congress could overthrow the election during the counting of electoral votes on January 6th. Eastman soon fleshed this plan out into a six-page plan. CNN published both memos on September 21st. Below is an excerpt of the 6 steps:
"So here’s the scenario we propose:
1. VP Pence, presiding over the joint session (or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley, if Pence recuses himself), begins to open and count the ballots, starting with Alabama (without conceding that the procedure, specified by the Electoral Count Act, of going through the States alphabetically is required).
2. When he gets to Arizona, he announces that he has multiple slates of electors, and so is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other States. This would be the first break with the procedure set out in the Act.
3. At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States. That means the total number of “electors appointed” – the language of the 12th Amendment -- is 454. This reading of the 12th Amendment has also been advanced by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe (here). A “majority of the electors appointed” would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected.
4. Howls, of course, from the Democrats, who now claim, contrary to Tribe’s prior position, that 270 is required. So Pence says, fine. Pursuant to the 12th Amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. That sends the matter to the House, where the “the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote . . . .” Republicans currently control 26 of the state delegations, the bare majority needed to win that vote. President Trump is re-elected there as well.
5. One last piece. Assuming the Electoral Count Act process is followed and, upon getting the objections to the Arizona slates, the two houses break into their separate chambers, we should not allow the Electoral Count Act constraint on debate to control. That would mean that a prior legislature was determining the rules of the present one — a constitutional no-no (as Tribe has forcefully argued). So someone – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, etc. – should demand normal rules (which includes the filibuster). That creates a stalemate that would give the state legislatures more time to weigh in to formally support the alternate slate of electors, if they had not already done so.
6. The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court. Let the other side challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would press a lawsuit would have their past position -- that these are non-justiciable political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/politics/trump-pence-election-memo/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/read-eastman-memo/index.html
And here is an excerpt from the detailed six-page memo:
"BOLD, Certainly. But this Election was Stolen by a strategic Democrat plan to systematically flout existing election laws for partisan advantage; we’re no longer playing by Queensbury Rules, therefore.
[...]
I have outlined the likely results of each of the above scenarios, but I should also point out that we are facing a constitutional crisis much bigger than the winner of this particular election. If the illegality and fraud that demonstrably occurred here is allowed to stand—and the Supreme Court has signaled unmistakably that it will not do anything about it—then the sovereign people no longer control the direction of their government, and we will have ceased to be a self-governing people. The stakes could not be higher."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/read-eastman-full-memo-pence-overturn-election/index.html
The gaslighting is unbearable. Eastman needs to be put on trial and executed for treason. Otherwise, in Eastman's own words, "the illegality and fraud that demonstrably occurred here" will be "allowed to stand", and the people will "no longer control the direction of their government, and we will have ceased to be a self-governing people." I agree with those words 100%. But it is not the Democratic Party who is attempting to destroy the government, it is Eastman and the Republicans.
Eastman's own words are warning us of what is to unfold. We need to take them seriously.
***
Eastman had previously attempted to help overthrow the election by aiding in Trump's unsuccessful lawsuits. Eastman also joined Trump on January 6th and addressed Trump's rally. Now we know why Trump was putting so much pressure on Pence--he was going all in on the last-ditch plan authored by Eastman.
"After the election, Eastman represented the Trump campaign in its attempt to intervene in several Republican states’ unsuccessful attempt to have the Supreme Court overturn the election. The court rejected that suit on Dec. 11. The following month, Eastman, Trump and Pence discussed their options.
“You really need to listen to John,” Trump told Pence in the Jan. 4 meeting with Eastman, according to CNN’s description of “Peril”’s reporting. “He’s a respected constitutional scholar. Hear him out.”
Pence reportedly sought out his own counsel too, including from the Senate parliamentarian and former Vice President Dan Quayle — both of whom said his authority included counting the Electoral College votes and nothing more. Pence opted to take that advice and count the Electoral College votes as the states had submitted them, certifying Biden’s win.
Responding to the Post’s reporting on his memo, Eastman told the paper that the document merely “explored all options that had been proposed.” But on the day of certification itself, Jan. 6, Eastman was standing on a stage outside the White House to tout the memo’s theory. He was joined by Giuliani, who demanded “trial by combat!” over Trump’s election lies.
“All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people!” Trump would tell the crowd later that day.
Eastman was one of several speakers to address the D.C. rally Trump had beckoned — the rally that turned into a mob — and he didn’t mince words.
“We know there was fraud,” he said, falsely. “We know that dead people voted.”
Then, he aimed his fire squarely, and publicly, at Pence.
“All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1 o’clock, he let the legislatures of the states look into this so we get to the bottom of it and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not!”"
"Two speakers immediately preceded Trump on stage that day: Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, legal advisers to Trump who made the case that Pence could and should prevent the counting of slates of certified Electoral College votes that day.
“Every single thing that has been outlined as the plan for today is perfectly legal,” Giuliani said at the rally. He continued (emphasis added):
I have Professor Eastman here with me to say a few words about that. He’s one of the preeminent constitutional scholars in the United States. It is perfectly appropriate given the questionable constitutionality of the Election Counting Act [sic] of 1887 that the Vice President can cast it aside and he can do what a president called Jefferson did when he was vice president. He can decide on the validity of these crooked ballots, or he can send it back to the legislatures — give them five to 10 days to finally finish the work.
When Eastman spoke that day, he echoed Giuliani’s claims regarding the conspiracy theory that voting machines had fraudulently changed the vote tallies in Georgia. “We now know, because we caught it live last time in real time, how the machines contributed to that fraud,” Eastman said of the Georgia Senate and 2020 presidential-election results. “They put those ballots in a secret folder in the machines, sitting there waiting until they know how many they need.”"
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/john-eastman-vs-the-eastman-memo/
On the evening of January 6th, Eastman sent an angry email to Pence's office, which can only be interpreted as Eastman blaming Pence for the coup attempt's failure.
"The More We Learn About John Eastman’s Involvement in Trump’s Coup, the Worse it Gets
While rioters raged through the Capitol, he blamed Mike Pence for the insurrection.
[...]
According to an email obtained by the paper, Eastman (who was responding to an angry email from a Pence staffer) wrote that “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.” What’s more, the Post reported, Eastman continued to advocate for the electoral college results to be rejected after Congress returned to business following the riot.
Eastman, at the time (but no longer) a professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law, had spoken alongside Rudy Giuliani at Trump’s rally on the National Mall that morning, where he alleged widespread fraud from Georgia voting machines and stated that if Pence didn’t delay the certification of the Electoral College, “We no longer live in a self-governing republic.”"
***
On October 22, after Eastman started drawing media attention, he gave an interview where he tried to cover his criminal ass by saying his memo was not "viable" an was "crazy". ...Hmmm, he, Giuliani, and Trump sure thought it was viable during their coup attempt.
"“So anybody who thinks that that’s a viable strategy is crazy,” Eastman tells National Review.
[...]
“The memo was not being provided to Trump or Pence as my advice,” he insists. “The memo was designed to outline every single possible scenario that had been floated, so that we could talk about it.”
[...]
Whatever Eastman’s intent may have been when he wrote the memos, most media outlets have accurately described their content. The two-page memo includes prescriptive language: “So here’s the scenario we propose.” The final version of the memo is less prescriptive about how Pence should prevent the counting of Biden’s electoral votes on January 6, but both versions of the memo include the following sentences: “The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind.”
[...]
While Eastman calls the two-page memo a “preliminary” memo for “internal discussion” purposes only, there is plenty of evidence that it reflected the official position of Trump."
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/john-eastman-vs-the-eastman-memo/
***
Days later, on October 26, investigative journalist Lauren Windsor talked to Eastman and recorded Eastman reiterating his support for the coup plan. Eastman once again blamed Pence for the coup's failure (see the video at the link below):
https://twitter.com/lawindsor/status/1453110960638496770
In the following days, Windsor released 3 more videos of her conversation with Eastman.
Part 2:
https://twitter.com/lawindsor/status/1453365068779835393
Part 3:
https://twitter.com/lawindsor/status/1453885240707977217
Part 4. This is one of the most interesting videos, as Eastman says he, Trump, Giuliani, and 300 Republican legislators met on a conference call on January 2nd. He may be referring to state level legislators, who were being encouraged to decertify their states' electors. Although, it could also be referring to meeting with Republicans in federal Congress in order to run through their plan for the Coup Vote. Worse, Eastman says in "every precinct across the country" there are "homegrown" Republican agents who are preparing to steal the upcoming elections.
https://twitter.com/lawindsor/status/1454108075225276425
At the same event, she also recorded a video of Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams saying Eastman was "still very involved with a lot of the state legislators and advising them on election integrity stuff."
https://twitter.com/lawindsor/status/1453477418245574656
(Please watch the full videos, each one is only around 2 minutes long.)
"John Eastman Busted On Camera Bragging About His Coup Memo
[...]
Eastman told the activist that there was “no question” that his legal reasoning was solid.
Eastman also said that the reason why Pence ultimately didn’t go along with the lawyer’s plot was because the then-vice president was “establishment guy at the end of the day.”"
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/john-eastman-undercover-video-election-memo-coup
"Former Trump lawyer says his coup plan would have worked if it wasn't for Mike Pence
No regrets: John Eastman is caught on camera bragging about his plan to overturn the 2020 election
John Eastman, the former Trump lawyer who authored the infamous "coup memo" on how to overturn the 2020 election, was caught on camera saying his coup plan would have worked if it wasn't for former Vice President Mike Pence."
Is the Biden administration going to let him get away with that? Is Attorney General Garland going to allow an unrepentant coup plotter to continue plotting coups? General Flynn still hasn't been arrested, despite repeatedly advocating for a military coup, so I guess they don't care...
***
If every single Republican politician and member of Trump's inner circle who helped to organize the coup are not arrested, they will launch another coup in the near future. Eastman just boasted about how his plan is still "solid". If the Democratic Party decides there is no punishment for HIGH TREASON, then of course Republicans are going to try again and again and again until they finally seize power.
So far, nearly 700 people have been charged for participating in the Insurrection:
https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1
Many of them were arrested for nothing more than trespassing on the evidence that their phone GPS showed them inside the Capitol. Yet Eastman and others who CREATED AND IMPLEMENTED A PLAN TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT are not arrested? Yet Eastman and others (like General Flynn) who are on film bragging about the coup attempt and encouraging Republicans to attempt another coup are not arrested?
Meanwhile, more and more far-rightists are literally asking when they will be allowed to start murdering us:
"At this point, we're living under corporate and medical fascism. This is tyranny. When do we get to use the guns? No, and I'm not — that's not a joke. I'm not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?"
The fact that people like Eastman and Flynn have not yet been arrested demonstrate that the Democratic Party has abdicated their duty to govern, and that our nation does not have a functional federal government. Insurrection participants have been arrested over phone GPS data, but documents and videos from the COUP ORGANIZERS clearly showing how they organized and directed the coup attempt and how they continue to advocate for another coup apparently aren't enough evidence of a crime...? If that is so, we do not have a functional system of laws or a functional system of government.
We are not safe when Republicans are openly plotting another coup and when Republican voters are explicitly asking when they can cease being "civil" and just start murdering us. All non-treasonous Americans need to get armed, train, and organize within our communities to defend ourselves from the coming chaos.
The traitors aren't even trying to pretend to be nice anymore. They are literally plotting our murders as we speak. We should heed their warnings and prepare now, or it will be too late when they knock on our door to slaughter us.
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