There was an actual, documented GOP plan to overturn the 2020 election. Like any point-shaving scandal, the GOP vote suppression plans resemble the ability to throw out legal votes and ballots and reduce the numerical proportions to favor them. Like in the Tilden-Hayes Compromise of 1877, Congress in 2021 would “decide the winner”, with not a bit of post-ironic ‘rigging’.
The 1/6 Select Committee might ask some questions of John Eastman about his memo. VP Pence’s unwillingness to follow the blueprint seems now even more important.
Having a concurrent ‘national emergency’ with martial law and an insurrectionist mob(s) would help pressure the result. The military’s tacit role was simply an ornamental feature. “It's really sad that the thing most responsible for preventing utter chaos was Mike Pence's lingering sense of country club propriety.”
A new CNN report on Monday revealed a memo from a lawyer working with former President Donald Trump that detailed a plan to overturn his loss to Joe Biden on Jan. 6. The report reveals findings from the new book, "Peril," by reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
It included a copy of the memo from conservative law professor John Eastman, showing a six-point plan to leverage then-Vice President Mike Pence's role as the president of the Senate to control Congress's vote counting and throw out the votes of seven states.
This would leave Trump in the lead with 232 Electoral College votes over Biden's 228. Then, according to Eastman, Democrats would let out "howls." (The whole memo shows open contempt for Democrats.) But if they object, he argued, Pence could declare the election inconclusive, at which point it would move into the House. And because Republicans control a majority of the House delegations, they could select Trump to carry out a second term.
"The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session [of Congress] or from the Court," the memo said. "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."
Pence, of course, ultimately disagreed with these arguments and refused Trump's pleas to carry out the plan. And despite the insurrection carried out by Trump's followers on the Capitol that day, Pence fulfilled his role as expected, and Congress counted all the Electoral Votes as they were actually awarded, affirming Biden as the winner.
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Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, agreed: "This memo is horrifying. As is the fact that it was written by a (former) law professor. As is the reporting that Pence agonized over the matter. As is so much else about how close we came to a coup (fine — an autogolpe) on 1/6. As is how little we're doing to respond to it."
Asha Rangappa, who teaches at Yale Law School, called the memo a "sinister plan" that would let "Trump to unconstitutionally grab and hold on to power." She added: "Note, by the way, that he's pretty confident the R's would go along with it until the end."
www.alternet.org/...
What happened between Trump and the Georgia officials is being investigated by the Fulton County district attorney. Meanwhile, Trump is trying to revise the story, saying that he didn't want Vice President Mike Pence to overthrow the 2020 election he just wanted Pence to throw it back to the states.
The two-page memo from Trump's lawyer, John Eastman, makes it clear that there was not only a discussion but an actual documented plan to overturn the election.
www.rawstory.com/...
'Peril' loss: Eastman memo where Trump's auto-coup would have stolen the election but for Mike Pence