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More and more reports have emerged revealing the desperate attempts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to stay in power and overturn the 2020 election results. Trump lawyer John Eastman, who wrote the infamous coup memo, was revealed in emails to be aware that the pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn results was unlawful.
The Guardian reports that an email conversation between Eastman and Pence’s counsel Greg Jacobs, reveals that Eastman was aware that the plan to derail the certification of Joe Biden’s victory was a violation of the Electoral Count Act. Regardless of the fact that it was unlawful, Eastman urged Pence to move ahead with the plan and pressured Jacobs to support the effort.
The email conversation was revealed in court filings by the congressional committee last week. The conversation also showed that Eastman sought to take advantage of the Electoral Count Act and the fact that it was not followed exactly after the Capitol insurrection to Trump’s benefit.
The admission in the email exchange undermines the arguments Eastman and those in the “Trump war room” at the Willard Hotel made that there was nothing wrong in having Pence delay certification past January 6. This was one of the strategies they sought to carry out to stay in power.
The strategy to delay the joint session of Congress past January 6 would be to buy time for Trump and his allies to pressure state legislatures to send Trump slates of electors based on the false claims that the Biden slates of electors were illegitimate because of the widely debunked election fraud claim.
While many Trump allies have sought to avoid testifying before the congressional committee, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn also spoke with the panel while also engaging in a legal battle in the courts. According to NBC News, Flynn appeared before the committee this week, yet chose to invoke the 5th Amendment.
“During the deposition, committee staff insinuated that General Flynn’s decision to decline to answer their questions constituted an admission of guilt, consistent with the inaccurate similar statements of the Committee chair about the invocation of the 5th Amendment,” said the statement by Flynn’s attorney confirming Flynn’s decision invoke the 5th Amendment.
