At least, I haven’t seen any remarking on it; I found it gob-smacking.
The memo leads off with this statement of truthy purported “fact”:
“7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate.”
That is the premise for the coup plan, that seven states submitted dual slates of electors. From that, the “president of the Senate”*** was to nullify all electoral votes from those states, leaving Trump with a majority or, if the Dems insisted that 270 votes were required, throwing it to the House for a 12th Amendment resolution in which each state gets one vote and oh yeah, the undemocratic Constitution again awards the White House to the rural states’ minority party.
Eastman states as a fact that these seven states “transmitted dual slates of electors.” We know of course that those states’ only official acts were transmitting Biden slates. Bid-ass lie. We also know that the competing slates were signed by GOP operatives at, ultimately, Eastman’s direction.
Now, I would have conceded all day long that there is a credible rationale for those GOP operatives to have submitted the second slate. The law requires that electoral slates be submitted by a certain date; were Mike Lindell’s cavalry to arrive at the Supreme Court proving beyond doubt that Hugo Chavez fraudulently threw the election to Biden, well, these slates were provided just in case it turned out that Trump won after all, it wouldn’t be fair to deny that victory on the technicality of a missed date, would it?
Except now we see that these slates were not solicited just in case. It was Eastman’s intention all along to declare, as a fact, that there were two equally legitimate slates from seven states, giving him “dual slates” with which TrumpCo could invoke the 12th Amendment authority and historical precedent.
The culpability of the GOP operatives who signed the second slates will hinge on whether they were told that the slates were solicited purely as a just in case, or were fully aware Eastman’s plan. Eastman’s guilt is beyond doubt. One of the two statutes that have been named as a basis for criminal prosecution of the coup operatives is “fraud on the United States.” The basis for finding such fraud has been broadly interpreted, but this here is textbook fraud, a bald-faced lie: “Seven states have transmitted dual slates of electors.”
Finally on this point, you’ll recall that some operatives hedged, or appeared to hedge, by expressly making their competing slates conditioned on Trump being declared the winner. Seems like those operatives acted in good faith, made it clear they were not participating in Eastman’s game, right? But one of those I particularly recall, Pennsylvania’s I believe, is not quite so innocent on closer look. That slate was qualified by “in case Trump is declared the winner in the courts”—so far so good—“or other official proceeding.” An “other official proceeding,” like, say, an act of Congress?
So, was this a sly maneuver by the Pennsylvania operatives, a cynical trick in which the very transmission of the competing electoral slate creates the means by which its condition is satisfied? “There are dual slates from Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania’s votes must therefore be thrown out; the House votes and Trump is declared the winner in an “’official proceeding’”; the condition is satisfied and the competing slate no longer has any qualifications as to its intended effectiveness.”
If those evil pricks don’t serve time for this, I fucking give up.
***The other gob-smacker, which has been remarked on but not nearly enough, is that Eastman’s plot openly envisioned that it wouldn’t be Pence acting as the “President of the Senate,” but Grassley. (“VP Pence, presiding over the joint session, or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley, if Pence recuses himself)…”) Eastman’s predicate there is that Pence just happens to “recuse himself.” (Hm, why would Pence do that?****) We know that on January 5, Grassley remarked that it would be he, not Pence, presiding.
If it can be shown that the mob’s violent intimidation of Pence was fully intended to be the reason Pence decided to “recuse” himself, then every knowing GOP operative can be swept into the seditious conspiracy.
****The definition of “recuse” denotes that the person removes himself from a decision-making role due to bias or conflict of interest. Eastman plays as fast-and-loose with the language as he does with facts.
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