Just because the coup plot was hair-brained(sic) doesn’t mean that they didn’t want to overthrow the government. It just means that some fascists are stupid.
Instead of answering, Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Over the course of five depositions that summer, he was asked approximately 100 questions related to marital infidelity. He pleaded the Fifth on 97 of them.
In a move that would probably make his father proud, Eric Trump invoked the 5th amendment over 500 times in the span of just six hours after being questioned by prosecutors investigating suspected corruption with the Trump organization.
Attorney John Eastman has worked to try to block his former employer from handing over approximately 19,000 emails that are being requested by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S.
CNN justice reporter Katelyn Polantz reported from the case that it was established Eastman worked for former President Donald Trump without getting permission from his existing employer, Chapman University. According to his attorney, Eastman worked for Trump during many relevant moments, without asking permission.
Judge David Carter, who is presiding over the case, asked for specifics about what kind of work Eastman was doing for Trump. He admitted to briefing hundreds of state legislators, and also said that he was at the Willard with Trump strategists on Jan. 6 and that he met with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 3, 2021.
It was ten days later that Eastman resigned from the University.
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That didn’t stop Eastman, who imagined that Congress would go along with Pence’s pronouncement that there were “disputes” to resolve and had the next step prepared. Senate Republicans — the memo suggests Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) or Rand Paul (Ky.) — would gum up the works by declaring the Electoral Count Act unconstitutional and demanding “normal rules (which includes the filibuster).” Eastman imagined this would create a “stalemate” for the Democrats to take to court. He further imagined that the courts (which had already indicated by early January that they were not willing to set aside the will of the voters and hand Trump the election) would take the patently absurd position that the Constitution grants the sitting vice president the power to decide the winner of a presidential election.
The scheme also presumed that the American people, the vast majority of whom knew that Trump lost the election, would tolerate Trump setting aside the results of the election and remaining in power. After a year that saw passionate nationwide protests over George Floyd’s death, it’s clear that Americans would not have sat back and tolerated such a coup. It would have been obvious to everyone that if Trump could indeed overturn an election and remain in power, nothing at all could constrain him. The president who once said that Americans should give lifetime presidential appointments “a shot someday” would, in effect, be a dictator. It was never within the realm of possibility that Americans would passively tolerate this, and at any rate, U.S. military leaders had no interest in using force to keep Trump in power, either.
While Eastman’s scheme would not have succeeded in keeping Trump in power, it could have given further credence to his lie that the election had been stolen from him, thus stoking more unrest and resentment among his supporters. It also could have caused widespread chaos and perhaps additional violence. After all, at the precise moment that Pence was supposed to enact this plan, a mob of insurrectionists was prepared to do battle on Trump’s behalf.
The harebrained scheme outlined in Eastman’s memo would not have kept Trump in office, but it nonetheless has evidentiary value. Trump introduced Eastman at a rally near the White House as “one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country.” Trump also appeared to refer to the scheme outlined in Eastman’s memo (which was, of course, not yet available to the public) when he told the assembled crowd on Jan. 6 that Eastman “looked at this and he said, ‘What an absolute disgrace that this can be happening to our Constitution.’ And he looked at Mike Pence, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win.”
As historian Heather Cox Richardson pointed out, the memo thus serves as evidence that Trump intended to subvert the election and have himself declared the winner.
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