Trump lawyer John Eastman said ‘courage and a spine’ would help Pence send election to the House in comments before January 6

Eastman made the comments unearthed by CNN’s KFile on the radio broadcast of former Trump White House Senior Advisor Stephen Bannon on the 2nd. Just four days before Jan. 6, when he was speaking at the rally leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol preceded. CNN reported Tuesday that the House of Representatives’ investigative committee investigating Jan. 6 is planning a subpoena against Eastman if he chooses not to cooperate with his investigation.

Eastman’s memo outlines a scenario in which Pence would ignore the electoral college votes of seven states – to ensure that no candidate received the 270 electoral college votes required to be declared a winner – and thus cast the House of Representatives election . Each country delegation could then have cast one vote for president, and since Republicans controlled 26 country delegations, a majority could have voted for Trump to win the election.

Eastman claims the memo does not reflect his own views, citing the scenario that Pence will reject votes and therefore the House of Representatives election is not “feasible” and “insane” to follow in comments on the National Review. He also told CNN the memo was a draft.

Speaking to CNN, Eastman said his statements were consistent and that he paid pence during their meeting on Jan.

“My statement to Bannon on Jan. 2 confirms that this was one of the scenarios that was discussed asking” which is true. And I said, “I think it’s the weaker argument,” which is true. And that’s why I did I recommended that he postpone this step instead of taking this step, “said Eastman.

After CNN pointed out that Eastman had failed to state on Bannon’s radio show that the option to postpone the election to the House of Representatives was the “weaker” option, Eastman replied, “That’s right. Because it was a radio show.”

“I haven’t gone into an entire legal treatise on weights and disadvantages. I said, ‘These are the things, these are a few things that have been suggested.’ It was surely one of the avenues suggested by many people. Was that the advice I ultimately gave Pence? No, because I told him I thought it would be foolish to do this even if he had that authority . “

After the attack on the Capitol and before the memo was first published last month, Eastman claimed he was encouraging postponing or pausing confirming the election, especially after the Vice President on the 6th or even overturning the election.

But days before the January 6 election certification, Eastman suggested that Pence could do exactly what his memo said.

In an interview with Bannon, Eastman was asked if it was possible to persuade Pence to hold the election through a contingent election – a process of electing the president when none of the candidates get 270 votes from the electoral college – or some other “alternative way”.

Eastman argued that a contingent choice was one of two possible avenues.

“I think if the Vice President, chairing the joint session, would at least agree that we cannot count these voters because these ongoing elections have not been resolved. That means no one has a majority of the vote, ”he said. “And either they delay things – so that these constitutional challenges are resolved – or they say, ‘Okay, we don’t have voters from these states where nobody has a majority. That goes into the house.'”

“With both routes we have to look at what actually happened here and get to the bottom of it,” said Eastman.

The recently unearthed comments follow a video of Democratic activist Laura Windsor posing as a supporter and fan of Eastman in an attempt to get him to speak to her. In the video, Eastman bragged about the importance of the memo, which he recently tried to downplay as a draft, and accused Pence of failing to pull it off because he was an “establishment guy”.

“Courage and the spine”

In the Jan. 2 interview with Bannon, Eastman hinted that if Pence had enough “courage and backbone” he could topple the election.

“Do we have to assume that this will be a climatic battle?” asked Bannon.

“Well, I think a lot of it depends on the courage and spine of the people involved,” Eastman replied.

“When you said courage and backbone,” said Bannon, “are you talking about the other side of football? President, Mike Pence? ”Asked Bannon.

“Yes,” replied Eastman.

Trump echoed Eastman’s rhetoric about courage when speaking at the Jan. 6 rally. “I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to,” Trump told Pence to present options to overthrow the election – Eastman said there was a “very compelling” view that the Vice President can reject the votes even though he doesn’t make it clear what he wants – delay or referral to the House of Representatives.

“So if someone just said I don’t like the results, even though they were done properly and there is no evidence of fraud, I will not like the results because I will be confirming my favorite shortlist. The political response to that would be so violent and so quick , and nobody would do that. And nobody has done it in 150 years. But what we have here is systematic violation of state law by election officials, “Eastman said.

“This level of corruption must just not persist. And I think that makes the exercise of the vice president’s power here very imperative,” he said.

Speaking to CNN, Eastman said he could not remember what he meant by saying that the vice president’s power was “very imperative,” but reiterated that he believed the vice president had the power to postpone the election and that the election to the House of Representatives is the weaker of two arguments.