John C. Eastman
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

John Charles Eastman (born 1960) 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. He is a former professor and dean at the
Chapman University School of Law Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, commonly referred to as Chapman University School of Law or Chapman Law School, is a private, non-profit law school located in Orange, California. The school offers the Juris Doctor degree (JD), ...
. He ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for
California's 34th congressional district California's 34th congressional district is a U.S. congressional district in California. Located in Los Angeles County, the district is represented by Democrat Jimmy Gomez. Its previous U.S. representative, Democrat Xavier Becerra of Los Ange ...
in 1990, and for the office of California Attorney General in
2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
. He is a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 199 ...
. Eastman has received widespread attention for his role as attorney to then-president
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
during which he suggested that vice president
Mike Pence Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th ...
could refuse the results of some states' election results during the
2020 United States presidential election The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...
. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Eastman wrote a controversial
op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
in August 2020 that falsely suggested the then-presumed Democratic nominee for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was not an American citizen and thus not legally eligible for the position. Eastman was a key participant in the subsequent attempts to overturn the election; during President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
's last efforts before the certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory, Eastman incorrectly told Vice President
Mike Pence Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th ...
in an
Oval Office The Oval Office is the formal working space of the President of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is located in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C. The oval-shaped room ...
meeting, on January 5, 2021, that Pence had the constitutional authority to block the certification. 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. On January 6, 2021, Eastman presented a speech at the White House Trump rally that preceded the
2021 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...
. Eastman subsequently implored Vice President Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act to delay certification of the election, via Pence's legal counsel Greg Jacob, who responded by calling Eastman a "serpent in the ear of the president of the United States". On January 13, 2021, Eastman retired from the
Chapman University Chapman University is a private research university in Orange, California. It encompasses ten schools and colleges, including Fowler School of Engineering, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Fowler School of Law, and Schmid College of Scie ...
faculty after the controversy created by his having spoken at the Trump rally. On March 28, 2022, federal judge
David O. Carter David Ormon Carter (born March 28, 1944) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Education and military service In college he lettered in cross country and track on the teams o ...
found Eastman, along with Trump, was more likely than not to have "dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021".


Education

Eastman graduated from the Dallas-area
Lewisville High School Lewisville High School is a public high school in Lewisville, Texas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The oldest of five high schools in the Lewisville Independent School District, it was opened in 1897, making it the only school in the district to ...
and received his undergraduate degree from the
University of Dallas The University of Dallas is a Private university, private Catholic church, Catholic university in Irving, Texas. Established in 1956, it is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The university comprises four academi ...
. He then earned his
Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...
from the
University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dist ...
, and a
Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...
in Government from the Claremont Graduate School. During his time in law school, Eastman worked on the ''
University of Chicago Law Review The ''University of Chicago Law Review'' ( Maroonbook abbreviation: ''U Chi L Rev'') is the flagship law journal published by the University of Chicago Law School. It is among the top five most cited law reviews in the world. Up until 2020, it util ...
''.


Career

In 1989, prior to attending law school, Eastman served as the director of Congressional and public affairs at the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He was also the unsuccessful 1990 Republican candidate for the
United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
in
California's 34th congressional district California's 34th congressional district is a U.S. congressional district in California. Located in Los Angeles County, the district is represented by Democrat Jimmy Gomez. Its previous U.S. representative, Democrat Xavier Becerra of Los Ange ...
. Following law school, he clerked for Judge
J. Michael Luttig John Michael Luttig ( ; born June 13, 1954) is an American corporate lawyer and jurist who was a U.S. federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006. Luttig resigned his judgeship in 2006 to become general coun ...
at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 199 ...
at the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
; he then was an attorney with the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, specializing in civil and constitutional litigation. He later joined
Chapman Chapman may refer to: Businesses * Chapman Entertainment, a former British television production company * Chapman Guitars, a guitar company established in 2009 by Rob Chapman * Chapman's, a Canadian ice cream and ice water products manufacturer ...
to teach constitutional law. He has also appeared on conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt's
Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
program ''The Hugh Hewitt Show'', commenting on law. Eastman served as an attorney for the State of
South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...
, representing it in a denied petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in a constitutional challenge to federal spending. Eastman has represented the North Carolina legislature and the State of Arizona in unsuccessfully petitioning the Supreme Court in cases involving
same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...
,
abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
, and
immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
. He testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2014 arguing that President
Barack Obama's Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
unilateral suspension of deportation for undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional.


Elections


1990 congressional campaign

In 1990 Eastman was unopposed in the primary to become the Republican challenger of long-time 34th District incumbent
Esteban Torres Esteban Edward Torres (January 27, 1930 – January 25, 2022) was an American politician who served as member of the United States House of Representatives for California's 34th congressional district from 1983 to 1999. Early life Torres was bo ...
in California's
San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley ( es, Valle de San Gabriel) is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, lying immediately to the east of the eastern city limits of the city of Los Angeles, and occupying the vast majority of the eastern part ...
.


California Attorney General campaign

On February 1, 2010, Eastman resigned as dean of the Chapman University School of Law to pursue the Republican nomination for California Attorney General. On April 1, a Superior Court judge denied Eastman's choice for ballot designation as "Assistant Attorney General", fearing that use of this title, temporarily 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. 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%. Cooley advanced to the
2010 California Attorney General election The 2010 California Attorney General election was held on November 2, 2010, to choose the Attorney General of California. The primary election was held on June 8, 2010. Incumbent Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat, was elected Governor ...
, where he was defeated by Kamala Harris.


Board affiliations

Eastman is chairman of the Federalist Society's practice group on
federalism Federalism is a combined or compound mode of government that combines a general government (the central or "federal" government) with regional governments (Province, provincial, State (sub-national), state, Canton (administrative division), can ...
and
separation of powers Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typic ...
. He is chairman of the board of the
National Organization for Marriage The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is an American non-profit political organization established to work against the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. It was formed in 2007 specifically to pass California Proposit ...
, which opposes
same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...
. He is a director of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which brings election lawsuits. He is both a member of the board and on the faculty at the Claremont Institute. He sits on the board of advisors of St. Monica Academy and the advisory board of the St. Thomas More Law Society of Orange County.


Controversies


Kamala Harris citizenship op-ed

In August 2020, ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' published an
op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
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 Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...
, 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. All prominent legal scholars disagreed with Eastman's position, and many compared it to the
birtherism During Barack Obama's Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign, campaign for president in 2008 United States presidential election, 2008, throughout Presidency of Barack Obama, his presidency and afterwards, there was extensive news coverage ...
theory against President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
. ''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 ( , , ; 'right of blood') is a principle of nationality law by which citizenship is determined or acquired by the nationality or ethnicity of one or both parents. Children at birth may be citizens of a particular state if either or both of t ...
or
jus soli ''Jus soli'' ( , , ; meaning "right of soil"), commonly referred to as birthright citizenship, is the right of anyone born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship. ''Jus soli'' was part of the English common law, in contras ...
debate. However, '' Axios'' noted that other constitutional scholars do not accept Eastman's view, labeling it "baseless". ''Axios'' also criticized Eastman for dismissing the eligibility concerns of 2016 presidential candidate
Ted Cruz Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (; born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Texas since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from ...
, born in
Calgary, Canada Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, making ...
, in a 2016 '' National Review'' op-ed, claiming they were "silly".
Erwin Chemerinsky Erwin Chemerinsky (born May 14, 1953) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of United States constitutional law and federal civil procedure. Since 2017, Chemerinsky has been the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. Previously, he a ...
, the dean of Berkeley Law School, told the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
, "Under section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen. The
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
has held this since the 1890s. Kamala Harris was born in the United States."
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
Professor
Laurence Tribe Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar who is a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He previously served as the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School. A constitutional law sc ...
was similarly dismissive, telling ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' "I hadn’t wanted to comment on astman’s ideabecause it's such an idiotic theory. There is nothing to it." One day after publishing 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 The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...
and is therefore eligible to be vice president. Lorelei Laird, in an '' Above The Law'' article, pointed out that Eastman was arguing that Harris was not even a U.S. citizen. This op-ed was cited by the ''New York Times'' as helping Eastman come to the attention of
Jenna Ellis Jenna Lynn Ellis (born November 1, 1984) is a conservative lawyer known for her work as a member of Donald Trump's legal team. She is a former deputy district attorney in Weld County, Colorado and a former assistant professor of legal studies a ...
, a Trump campaign adviser. Eastman briefly met with Trump campaign advisors in a Philadelphia hotel room the weekend after the
2020 presidential election This national electoral calendar for 2020 lists the national/federal elections held in 2020 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *5 January: **C ...
. According to Eastman, he caught
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
at that time. In early December 2020, Trump contacted Eastman, asking him to challenge the results of the 2020 United States presidential election before the Supreme Court.


2020 presidential election


Legal strategies to reject electoral votes

On December 9, 2020, Eastman represented Trump in a motion to intervene in ''
Texas v. Pennsylvania ''Texas v. Pennsylvania'', 592 U.S. ___ (2020), was a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the administration of the 2020 presidential election in certain states, in which Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump. Fil ...
'', 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
rump Rump may refer to: * Rump (animal) ** Buttocks * Rump steak, slightly different cuts of meat in Britain and America * Rump kernel, software run in userspace that offers kernel functionality in NetBSD Politics *Rump cabinet * Rump legislature * Ru ...
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 The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica ...
, these officials put our nation's belief in elected self-government at risk." 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." On December 13, 2020, 159 Chapman University faculty members (including two from the law school) published a statement condemning Eastman for the filing. On December 22, 2020, Ivan Raiklin, an attorney and associate of
Michael Flynn Michael Thomas Flynn (born December 24, 1958) is a retired United States Army lieutenant general and conspiracy theorist who was the 24th U.S. National Security Advisor for the first 22 days of the Trump administration. He resigned in light of ...
, tweeted to Trump a two-page memo entitled "Operation
Pence Card After Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, then-incumbent Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election, with support and assistance from his campaign, proxies, political allies, and many of ...
," which Trump retweeted two days later. The day of the Trump retweet, someone in the
Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
called Eastman asking him to write a memo "asserting the vice president's power to hold up the certification" of the presidential election. Eastman circulated a two-page outline and memo to the Trump legal team several days later, followed by a more extensive memo later. Eastman called the vice president "the ultimate arbiter" of the election in his two-page memo. 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. 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". In a video taken secretly and made public that same month, Eastman suggested he believed that Pence's actions served Washington politics. An audience member 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." On December 24, 2020, in an email exchange with New York appellate attorney
Kenneth Chesebro Kenneth John Chesebro ( ; born June 5, 1961) is an American attorney known as the architect of the Trump fake electors plot that conspired to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election. On August 14, 2023, Chesebro was indicted along with eigh ...
and Trump campaign officials, Eastman wrote he was aware of a "heated fight" within the Supreme Court about whether to hear a case. The court had already rejected a major election challenge, ''
Texas v. Pennsylvania ''Texas v. Pennsylvania'', 592 U.S. ___ (2020), was a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the administration of the 2020 presidential election in certain states, in which Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump. Fil ...
'', 13 days earlier, and the participants in Eastman's email exchange were discussing whether to file papers in the hopes that four U.S. Supreme Court justices would agree to hear a Wisconsin case. 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 apparently referred to Trump's tweet five days earlier inviting supporters to a "wild" January 6 protest.) Chesebro had emailed Rudy Giuliani 11 days earlier 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. On January 2, 2021, Eastman joined Trump, the president's personal attorney
Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...
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. That same day, together with Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn, he appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast ''
The War Room ''The War Room'' is a 1993 American documentary film about Bill Clinton's campaign for President of the United States during the 1992 United States presidential election. Directed by Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker, the film was released on D ...
'' and promoted the idea that state lawmakers needed to reconsider the election results. On January 5, 2021, Eastman met with Pence in the
Oval Office The Oval Office is the formal working space of the President of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is located in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C. The oval-shaped room ...
to argue, incorrectly, that the vice president has the constitutional authority to alter or otherwise change electoral votes. 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. Pence rejected Eastman's argument and instead agreed with his counsel, Greg Jacob, and conservative legal scholars and other advisors, such as
John Yoo John Choon Yoo (; born July 10, 1967) is a Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Yoo became known for his legal opinions ...
and
J. Michael Luttig John Michael Luttig ( ; born June 13, 1954) is an American corporate lawyer and jurist who was a U.S. federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006. Luttig resigned his judgeship in 2006 to become general coun ...
. 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.


Actions during the January 6th attack on the Capitol

On January 6, Eastman spoke alongside Giuliani at the "Save America" rally that preceded the
2021 storming of the United States Capitol On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-United States President, U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol, U ...
and asserted without evidence that balloting machines contained "secret folders" that altered voting results. 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: “Now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations as well as to allow the full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that occurred here,” Eastman wrote.


Aftermath


=Congressional and FBI/DOJ investigations

= According to testimony given to the January 6 Committee by former White House lawyer
Eric Herschmann Eric Herschmann (born May 7, 1962) is an American political advisor and attorney who served as a Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, senior advisor to former President Donald Trump. Legal career Herschmann served as a partner a ...
, Eastman emailed Giuliani several days after the storming of the Capitol, asking to be placed on the list of those to be given a
presidential pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...
before Trump's term in office ended. The request came a few days after a heated exchange between Herschmann and Eastman that ended with Herschmann suggesting that Eastman hire a criminal defense lawyer. Eastman emailed Giuliani, saying "I've decided that I should be on the pardon list if that is still in the works." Trump did not issue a pardon to Eastman. 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. The
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
had announced two weeks earlier there was no evidence of antifa involvement in the siege. Eastman referred to an "antifa and
BLM BLM most commonly refers to: * Black Lives Matter, an international anti-racism movement and organization * Bureau of Land Management, a U.S. federal government agency BLM may also refer to: Organizations * BLM (law firm), United Kingdom and ...
guy" who had been arrested after the Capitol incursion, an apparent reference to
John Earle Sullivan John Earle Sullivan (born July 18, 1994), also known as Activist John, is an American political activist and self-identified photojournalist who participated in the 2021 United States Capitol attack. Before the January 6 attack, Sullivan organi ...
, 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 an antifa activist. Black Lives Matter Utah had for months disassociated itself from Sullivan on concerns he might be associated with the
Proud Boys The Proud Boys is an American far-right, neo-fascist, and exclusively male organization that promotes and engages in political violence in the United States.Far-right: * * Fascist: * * * * * Men only: * * * Political violence: * * * It has ...
. Eastman asserted his Fifth Amendment right to avoid
self-incrimination In criminal law, self-incrimination is the act of exposing oneself generally, by making a statement, "to an accusation or charge of crime; to involve oneself or another ersonin a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof". (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 The United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (the January 6th Committee) is a bipartisan Select or special committee (United States Congress), select committee of the U.S. House of ...
. CNN reported Eastman met with the committee but invoked the Fifth Amendment 146 times. 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. Eastman relinquished nearly 8,000 emails to the committee in February 2022 but asserted privilege for about 11,000 others. 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 Conspiracy against the United States, or conspiracy to defraud the United States,§ 92318 U.S.C. § 371—Conspiracy to Defraud the United States U.S. Department of Justice's ''United States Attorneys' Manual''. is a federal offense in the United ...
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 f the Electoral Count Actand 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." 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." Eastman's assertion of privilege for 101 emails was rejected by Judge
David O. Carter David Ormon Carter (born March 28, 1944) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Education and military service In college he lettered in cross country and track on the teams o ...
in March 2022, who ordered the emails to be produced 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." Seventeen months after the election, Eastman continued to press state legislatures to "de-certify" 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. In May 2022, the University of Colorado, where Eastman was a visiting professor, released an email Eastman sent to Pennsylvania legislator
Russ Diamond Russell H. Diamond (born July 26, 1963) is a far-right American politician and businessman from Pennsylvania. Following a string of unsuccessful runs for various offices, he was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 102nd D ...
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. 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. On June 7, 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 to the 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. Carter concluded it showed the Trump legal team had decided to "evade judicial review to overturn a democratic election" and "forged ahead with a political campaign to disrupt the electoral count." On June 15, 2022, the ''Washington Post'' reported that the January 6 committee had recently acquired emails between Eastman and
Ginni Thomas Virginia "Ginni" Thomas ( Lamp; born February 23, 1957) is an American attorney and conservative activist. In 1987, she married Clarence Thomas, who became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1991. Her conservativ ...
, wife of Supreme Court justice
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 199 ...
, and the ''New York Times'' reported that the committee had obtained the Eastman–Chesebro email exchange from December 24, 2020. Eastman and the Thomases are longtime friends. Days after it became known Eastman and Thomas had communicated by email, Eastman posted on his new Substack blog one email that he captioned, "OMG, Mrs. Thomas asked me to give an update about election litigation to her group. Stop the Presses!" In the December 4, 2020 email, Thomas invited Eastman to speak four days later at a gathering of "Frontliners," which she described as a group of "grassroots state leaders." A private Facebook group named "FrontLiners for Liberty," which included over 50 people and was created in August 2020, showed Thomas as an administrator. The group's front page carried a banner stating, "the enemy of America...is the radical fascist left." After
CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...
asked Thomas about the group, its public pages were either made private or deleted. The Thomas email was among those Carter ordered Eastman to release to the January 6 committee. On June 22, 2022, several FBI agents approached him as he was leaving a New Mexico restaurant and, pursuant to a warrant, seized his phone. According to the warrant, the phone was to be taken to a forensic lab of the Department of Justice’s
Office of Inspector General In the United States, Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or unlawful operations within their parent agency. Such offices are attached to man ...
. On June 27, Eastman asked a federal judge to compel the government to return his phone and destroy its records of the phone's contents. Federal judge Robert Brack rejected Eastman's request on July 15. Federal investigators obtained a subsequent warrant to search the phone on July 12. Judge Carter ruled in October 2022 that Eastman must turn over an additional 33 documents to the January 6 committee, including eight he determined were ineligible for attorney-client privilege because they related to possible criminal activity. Carter found that one Eastman email exchange showed Trump had sworn under oath that the number of alleged voting fraud cases his attorneys cited in a Georgia federal suit was accurate, though he knew it was not. One of the eight emails showed Eastman agreeing with Chesebro that bringing a legal argument to Supreme Court justice
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 199 ...
would be "our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress." Chesebro continued, "We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt." Thomas was the justice assigned to hear emergency arguments from cases in Georgia.


=State Bar investigation

= 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 The State Bar of California is California's official attorney licensing agency. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate disciplin ...
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." 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. Eastman's attorney said he expected Eastman to be exonerated.


=Repercussions at universities

= On January 9, 2021, the chairman of Chapman's board of trustees and two other members (including former Democratic Congresswoman
Loretta Sanchez Loretta Lorna Sanchez (born January 7, 1960) is an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1997 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, she was first elected in 1996, when she defeated long-serving Repu ...
) 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. Four days later, Chapman announced that Eastman had agreed to retire from the university, and the university's president, Daniele C. Struppa, said that Eastman and the university had "agreed not to engage in legal actions of any kind, including any claim of defamation that may currently exist, as both parties move forward". 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 The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...
and intended to then devote full-time effort to his position as director of the Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. The University of Colorado cancelled Eastman's Spring 2021 courses due to low enrollment. The university also revoked some of Eastman's public-facing duties but permitted him to conduct scholarship.


=Criminal referral

= On December 19, 2022, Eastman and Trump were publicly named during a televised January 6 Committee hearing as being among those who the committee wanted charged for the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack.


=Other

= On January 7, 2021, Eastman edited this
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
article to portray his post-election role in a more favorable light. 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.


See also

* List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 10)


References


External links

* *
Biography
Claremont Institute; accessed April 27, 2014.
papers.ssrn.com
accessed April 27, 2014. * Eastman, John C
"Born in the USA-Rethinking Birthright Citizenship in the Wake of 9/11."
University of Richmond School of Law 42 (2007): 955.
Video (4:48) – John Eastman Defends Trying To Overturn 2020 Election
(
MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...
; October 27, 2021) {{DEFAULTSORT:Eastman, John C. 2020 United States presidential election Date of birth missing (living people) American legal scholars California Republicans Chapman University School of Law faculty Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Living people National Organization for Marriage people People from Lincoln, Nebraska University of Chicago Law School alumni University of Dallas alumni Claremont Graduate University alumni People associated with Kirkland & Ellis Conservatism in the United States Law clerks of J. Michael Luttig Controversies of the 2020 United States presidential election Trump administration controversies Protests against results of elections 1960 births