luttig hon

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apostate

supports 14th?

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AN 10 16

Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote a Substack column Thursday warning that the next big Jan. 6 will be Jan. 3 and that Americans should prepare for it to get ugly.

On Jan. 6, a president refused to accept his loss and relinquish his power in a peaceful transfer of the office, recalled Luttig.

"Today, almost six years later, the 47th President – the very same man – and his Republican congressional allies are determined to prosecute the president’s war against American democracy to its catastrophic end," he wrote. "That catastrophic end for which they senselessly yearn could well come on January 3, 2027, when Donald Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in this president’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party."

The next date for the transfer of power comes when the House and Senate will be sworn in. Luttig fears it will be the final dying breath of the GOP as they are forced to hand over power to those who defeated them.

"Since his return to the White House, the president’s every unconstitutional act in his effort to seize control over the midterm elections five weeks away – each hailed by his prostrate Republican Congress — has been toward the end of ensuring that Republicans retain a majority in the 120th Congress," explained Luttig.

He cited a conversation between Trump and Dan Bogino on February 2 in which Trump said, “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting ... The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.’”

During his midterm convention in Dallas Trump pledged he'd give every American adult a $5,000 "dividend" if Republicans maintain power in the House and Senate. He also demanded that everyone attending the event swear an oath to him and the GOP to vote on Nov. 3.

"So unalterably subjugated to Trump is today’s Republican House that even a decisive victory for Democrats and a resounding repudiation of Trump and the MAGA Republicans at the polls in November will not guarantee that a Democratic majority-elect will be seated in the 120th Congress on January 3," Luttig cautioned.

The retired judge said that Trump has spent the past year pressuring Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other House Republicans to treat a possible Democratic midterm win as fraudulent, even if all of the votes haven't been completely counted or even cast.

In Luttig’s view, that pressure is working: if Democrats win control of the House, Republicans may claim the election was stolen and, on Jan. 3, try to block some of the Democratic winners from being seated in the new Congress.

It appears that Johnson is on board: “We cannot and will not allow [the Democrats] to take the majority in the House of Representatives," he told members the following day.

"Over the past year and a half since his return to the White House, the 47th President has exploited every conceivable unlawful means possible to rig the upcoming midterm elections in favor of the Republicans, and the federal courts have struck down as unconstitutional every one of these unlawful attempts," said Luttig.

He warned that Trump is likely to "try every unlawful means over the next five weeks to ensure that Republicans handily win the midterm elections in November. Those of us who oppose his illegality will look to the courts, but the federal courts will be institutionally incapable of checking his final unlawful rampage."

He said that the only hope for America to dodge a constitutional crisis on Jan. 3 is for Republicans to be forced to answer whether they'll betray their oath of office for Trump one last time.

"America’s time of testing has finally come," said Luttig.

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AN 9 26

On Thursday, a former federal judge detailed what he deemed “the final battle for America’s democracy,” laying out President Donald Trump’s plan to seize power on January 3, 2027. This is according to attorney and former U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Luttig, who warns that “Trump and his MAGA Republicans might bury our democracy once and for all.”

“Trump instigated a war against America’s democracy on January 6, 2021,” asserts Luttig. “Today, almost six years later, Donald Trump and his Republican congressional allies are even more determined to prosecute the president’s war against American democracy to its catastrophic end than they were on January 6, 2021. That catastrophic end could well come on January 3, 2027, when Trump and his Republican congressional allies wage the final battle in Trump’s determined war to corrupt America’s democracy and deliver a lasting political victory over the Democrats for his MAGA Republican Party.”

Over the course of his second term, says Luttig, Trump has taken steps to “seize control of the midterms” to ensure that Republicans retain a majority in the 120th Congress. As Trump himself declared in February, “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting.’ ... The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” And the Republicans, notes Luttig, “have dutifully fallen in line … So unalterably subjugated to Trump is today’s Republican House that even a decisive victory for Democrats and a resounding repudiation of Trump and the MAGA Republicans at the polls in November will not guarantee that a Democratic majority-elect will be seated in the 120th Congress on January 3.”

The core of the plan involves a Republican plot to claim the election was rigged after they lose. According to Luttig, “This is how the crisis would unfold. The precursor of the crisis will come sometime before noon on January 3, when Speaker [Mike] Johnson (R-LA) removes current House Clerk Kevin McCumber and replaces him with a person loyal to Johnson and House Republicans who they know will refuse to list on the statutory roll of representatives-elect to the 120th Congress any Democrat-elect whom Johnson and the Republicans direct him or her not to list. Under Rule II, Clause 1 of the Rules of the House, the Speaker of the House has the unilateral power to remove the incumbent clerk, and then the power under Title 2 U.S.C. § 5501(a) to replace him temporarily with whomever he wishes until the House elects a successor.

McCumber is a Republican appointed by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He is widely respected for his integrity and faithful adherence to the Constitution and is reputed to be unwilling to carry out orders he considers to be unconstitutional.”

“The constitutional crisis will begin, warns Luttig, when “sometime before the 120th Congress has been gaveled into session, the loyal temporary clerk refuses to list Democrat representatives-elect on the clerk’s roll of representatives-elect that determines who may participate in organizing the new Congress.” Such action will be met with lawsuits arguing that the clerk must perform its mandated action, which will work their way through appeals. “The next moment of constitutional crisis will come if and when,” says Luttig, the court orders the elected Democratic representatives be seated and the clerk refuses. “Judicial review of the House’s decision not to seat Democratic representatives-elect in the 120th Congress would take weeks, if not months, during which time the United States would be in the throes of a paralyzing constitutional crisis.”

From there, the matter would end up before the Supreme Court, which would be forced to answer “perhaps the most fundamental question under the Constitution: Is the United States of America a democracy, in which ‘We the People’ elect our representatives to the Congress and to the presidency, or is it not?” Should the Court decide to side with Republican claims of fraud, Luttig concludes, “two hundred and fifty years into the greatest experiment in self-government in the history of the world, the Republican Party would finally meet the fate to which it has been destined since January 6, 2021, and cement its place in history as the most corrupt political party ever to emerge in the United States of America.”

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4 26 clarence crAZY SP VELSHI LUTTIG

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AN 10 25

Like attorney George Conway, retired federal Judge J. Michael Luttig is a prominent figure in the conservative legal movement who became a blistering critic of President Donald Trump and considers him a dangerous threat to U.S. democracy.

Luttig rooted for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024, as did Conway. Now, nine and one-half months into Trump's second presidency, Luttig is still sounding the alarm.

During a, Luttig argued that because the U.S. Supreme Court is failing to discourage Trump's attacks on democracy and the rule of law, it's up to the lower federal courts to fight back.

Noting recent anti-Trump pleas from U.S. Circuit Court Judge Susan Graber and others, Luttig told host Ali Velshi, "These pleas would never have to occur if the Supreme Court of the United States had reassured America that it sits in order to prevent this kind of tyranny in the United States of America. But as you know, the Supreme Court has done anything but reassure America. That's why, for the first time to my knowledge — in all of American history — the federal judges and also the state judges now have no choice but to speak directly to the American people through their opinions, I must add, rather than speak only to the Supreme Court of the United States."

Luttig continued, "There has never been a time in our history like this, Ali, for the federal judiciary. Never before has the federal judiciary and even individual judges — individual judges of the federal courts — been savagely attacked by the president of the United States of America. His aim is clear: It's to delegitimize the federal courts in the eyes of the American people and to intimidate the federal courts into ruling in his favor."

IFrame Content

The conservative jurist was also highly critical of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Luttig told Velshi, "But as I said…. the lower federal courts of the United States — by which I mean the federal district courts and the U.S. courts of appeals — will not be intimidated by this president and his attorney general. They will, to the person and to the court, honor their oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

When Velshi asked Luttig if he had a message for Chief Justice John Roberts and others on the High Court, he responded, "The Supreme Court and the chief justice of the United States have no higher obligation to the country or to the Constitution than to condemn the vicious attacks on the federal courts and even on individual judges of those courts."

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AN 8 25

One longtime conservative federal judge is not mincing words about President Donald Trump and his MAGA base, and is arguing that they present a severe threat to both the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law itself.

During a Tuesday interview on WBUR's "On Point," retired Judge J. Michael Luttig — who was appointed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals by President George H.W. Bush — elaborated on points he made in an op-ed for the Atlantic earlier this year about how Trump and his movement are fundamentally at odds with the United States' foundational principles. Host Meghna Chakrabarti began the interview by asking Luttig about his use of the Frederick Douglass quote: "The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

"Frederick Douglas was saying in that quote that tyrants will prevail so long as they are tolerated by the people," the retired judge said. "... In the case that Frederick Douglas was talking about and in the case that I was talking about — namely President Donald Trump today in America — that's the question. How long will the American people tolerate the conduct of this particular president?"

Despite his intense criticism of a Republican president and today's Republican base, the Republican judicial appointee maintained that conservatism as it has been understood hasn't changed, but rather that the label has been hijacked by the far-right MAGA movement. He defined traditional conservatism as "faithful obedience to the constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States as enacted by the congress and signed into law by the president," and said Trump has "waged war" on that concept ever since the first day of his second term.

IFrame Content

"The MAGA movement is a radical movement and I would not even apply the label conservative to it," he said. "It is anti-constitutional. It is anti-law of the United States and anti-rule of law in the United States for the reasons I explained in the Atlantic article, which I titled the end of the rule of law in America."

Judge Luttig further warned that the United States was in a "constitutional crisis," and said that was the proper term to use "whenever the President of the United States himself and his government ... is at war with the federal courts and the rule of law." He underscored the stakes of the current moment by insisting no previous president had done in 250 years what Trump has done in just a handful of months in office.

"We Americans have become numb to this to this president, and as long as they remain no to all of this, then America will continue in dramatic decline," he said. " ... The overarching point that I'm making is that, 8 months into this presidency, his war on the federal courts and the rule of law has now blossomed into an open civil war."

Click here to listen to the full interview.

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an 5 25

former GOP judge explains how Trump intends to 'flood the zone' to 'overwhelm' the courts

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an 10 24

'He betrayed America: Conservative judge urges Republicans to reject Trump

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September 16, 2024, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports

GREG KELLY (HOST): So you may have noticed something. You know, you could say, technically, these folks are not threatening the president of the United States, President Trump. They're complaining about what a threat he would pose. But that's where — they're too cute by half. They think they're getting away with it. They're not getting it by me. They are trying to justify — they're trying to authorize, I do believe, the assassination of President Trump. It's — can I show you something? This is Judge Luttig, very strange guy. He was a conservative. The Bushes loved him for a long time. Then he felt snubbed. He didn't get to the Supreme Court. Now he's just bitter and mean and wrong and all kinds of things. But listen to what he said during the January 6th hearings about President Trump and you and me. Listen carefully, please.

...

KELLY: Wow. So Donald Trump and his allies and supporters, that's us, we are a clear and present danger to American democracy. What does that mean, clear and present danger? It sounds, like, really serious, but if you look it up, it actually means that they can break the law and they can suspend portions of the Constitution to deal with the threat. This gets very, very creepy. I do believe that the government has, essentially, authorized itself to do what should be the unthinkable against President Trump.

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mma 1 24 mg

After decisions in two states ruled that Donald Trump was disqualified from the presidential ballot because he “engaged in insurrection” on January 6, 2021, right-wing influencers called for Republican officials to retaliate in kind by dropping President Joe Biden from the ballot. It took only days for them to find someone willing to play the part: Jay Ashcroft, Missouri’s secretary of state and a candidate for governor.

Ashcroft said last week that he would enforce “the new legal standard” against Biden in his state if the Supreme Court sustains Trump’s removal in Colorado. He probably won’t be the last to make such a pitch given the incentives GOP officeholders have to follow the lead of the party’s media propagandists.

Colorado’s Supreme Court generated a legal firestorm when it ruled in December that Trump is ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment’s ban on officials who “engaged in insurrection,” for his “overt, voluntary, and direct participation” in the storming of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows subsequently removed Trump from the primary ballot on similar grounds. Trump has appealed both decisions, and the Supreme Court said Friday it would review the Colorado ruling.

Prominent conservative legal scholars have argued in favor of Trump’s removal on 14th Amendment grounds. As conservative former federal Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote with liberal Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe, “any disinterested observer who witnessed that bloody assault on the temple of our democracy, and anyone who learns about the many failed schemes to bloodlessly overturn the election before that” would agree that January 6 was “an insurrection for which Trump bore responsibility.”

But Trumpist propagandists have spent the last three years crafting a bogus alternate narrative of January 6 in which the rioters were victims of a government conspiracy and the then-president who incited them based on lies did nothing wrong. And so they’ve responded to the rulings in Colorado and Maine by urging Republican officials to bump Biden from the ballot in retaliation.

“Due process is not taken into account any more in America in 2023 and certainly going into 2024, so Republicans should say Joe Biden is off the ballot in all the Republican-controlled-AG states because of his links, clearly, to bribery schemes,” Donald Trump Jr. offered on his Triggered podcast on December 28, 2023. “There's far more evidence of that than an actual insurrection.”

“I want to see a secretary of state in the next couple of days just put out the press release,” Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk said Wednesday. “Joe Biden's not going to be on the primary ballot. He's not going to be on the general election ballot.”

Like Trump Jr., Kirk made clear that any explanation for why a secretary of state would do such a thing would be a pretext, saying, “Shot across the bow. Power dynamics. Fight power with power.”

“We need a red state secretary of state to kick Biden off the ballot now,” Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles added Friday morning. “And they can come up with some explanation. It will probably be a more credible explanation than the one that the Democrats have come up with for kicking Donald Trump off the ballot.”

Knowles went on to say that a GOP secretary of state could cite a 2020 tweet by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign asking supporters to donate to a Minnesota bail fund to “help post bail for those protesting on the ground” there following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer.

“Certainly we can say Kamala Harris led an insurrection. She personally fundraised for rioters and criminals who were insurrecting against cities around the country during the George Floyd riots,” he explained. “So OK. Make it Kamala Harris, and then Kamala can't appear on the ticket, and you don't even need to go after Joe Biden.”

The incentive structure on the right is such that once major players like Kirk and Knowles start creating a demand for action, Republican officials will supply it. Ashcroft, who is seeking a promotion to governor but faces a competitive GOP primary against candidates including the state’s lieutenant governor, answered the call later on Friday.

“What has happened in Colorado & Maine is disgraceful & undermines our republic,” the Missouri secretary of state wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “While I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, if not, Secretaries of State will step in & ensure the new legal standard for @realDonaldTrump applies equally to @JoeBiden!”

He subsequently used the story to direct people to his campaign website, saying on X, “Its time to stand and be counted. The future depends on it.”

It can be difficult to tell whether GOP officials are acting in response to right-wing media figures or if they’re converging on the same idea independently because they’re all swimming in the same milieu of Republican base voters. But notably, when Ashcroft discussed the potential rationale he would use to remove Biden from the ballot in an interview with NBC News, it sounded an awful lot like Knowles’ idea from earlier in the day:

Asked how he would disqualify Biden from the ballot for insurrection, Ashcroft said that he's “let an invasion unstopped into our country from the border.” Vice President Kamala Harris, he added, “supported people that were rebelling against the U.S. government during the riots in 2020,” referring to racial justice protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

“If this is the standard, does that suddenly mean she's not allowed to run? None of us can say, because there is no standard,” he said.

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an 11 23

despite facing four criminal indictments and a variety of civil lawsuits, Donald Trump is showing no signs of losing his frontrunner status in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Trump leads the second-place candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by 58 percent in a Harvard University/HarrisX poll released on November 20 and by 40 percent in a NBC News poll conducted November 10-14.

Moreover, some polls are showing Trump with narrow leads in a hypothetical Trump/President Joe Biden matchup.

The fact that Trump could return to the White House in January 2025 not only worries Democrats — some conservatives are sounding the alarm as well, including three legal experts: attorney George Conway, retired Judge J. Michael Luttig and former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Virginia).

The three of them, The Guardian's Martin Pengelly reports, have proposed a new conservative legal group that would be called the Society for the Rule of Law Institute — which would challenge, from the right, Trump and his allies' "anti-constitutional" and "anti-democratic" actions.

In an op-ed published by the New York Times on November 21, Conway, Luttig and Comstock lament that the Federalist Society — a major right-wing legal group — "has failed to respond in this period of crisis," arguing that a non-MAGA "conservative legal movement" is badly needed.

"We need an organization of conservative lawyers committed to the foundational constitutional principles we once all agreed upon: the primacy of American democracy, the sanctity of the Constitution and the rule of law, the independence of the courts, the inviolability of elections and mutual support among those tasked with the solemn responsibility of enforcing the laws of the United States," the legal experts argue. "This new organization must step up, speak out and defend these ideals."

*Read George Conway, J. Michael Luttig and Barbara Comstock's full New York Times op-ed at this link (subscription required) and The Guardian's full report here.

no lnx

three prominent US legal thinkers have announced a new organisation to champion conservative legal theory within the rule of law, to fight the threat of a second Donald Trump term.

“Our country comes first,” the three wrote in the New York Times, “and our country is in a constitutional emergency, if not a constitutional crisis. We all must act accordingly, especially us lawyers.”

The authors were George Conway, an attorney formerly married to Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s White House counselor; J Michael Luttig, a retired judge and adviser to Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, who became a prominent January 6 witness; and Barbara Comstock, a former Republican congresswoman from Virginia.

The authors also rebuked prominent rightwing groups including the Federalist Society for not resisting the former president and his authoritarian ambitions.

Their new group, the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, would “work to inspire young legal talent … focus on building a large body of scholarship to counteract the new orthodoxy of anti-constitutional and anti-democratic law … [and] marshal principled voices to speak out against the endless stream of falsehoods and authoritarian legal theories … propagated almost daily,” they said.

The Federalist Society and its chair, Leonard Leo, played a key role in Trump’s judicial appointments, installing three hardliners on the supreme court who helped hand down rightwing wins including removing abortion rights and loosening laws on gun control, affirmative action, voting rights and other progressive priorities.

Conway, Luttig and Comstock emerged among prominent conservative opponents of Trump, warning of his authoritarian threat before and after January 6, when rioters attacked Congress in an attempt to block Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.

Ninety-one criminal charges and assorted civil threats notwithstanding, Trump is now the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination while polling strongly against Biden in battleground states.

“American democracy, the constitution and the rule of law are the righteous causes of our times, and the nation’s legal profession is obligated to support them,” Conway, Luttig and Comstock wrote.

“But with the acquiescence of the larger conservative legal movement, these pillars of our system of governance are increasingly in peril. The dangers will only grow should Donald Trump be returned to the White House next November.”

Trump, they said, would stock a second administration “with partisan loyalists committed to fast-tracking his agenda and sidestepping – if not circumventing altogether – existing laws and long-established legal norms.

“This would include appointing … political appointees to rubber-stamp his plans to investigate and exact retribution against his political opponents; make federal public servants removable at will by the president himself; and invoke special powers to take unilateral action on first amendment-protected activities, criminal justice, elections, immigration and more.”

Saying Trump tried such attacks when in power but was blocked by lawyers and judges, the authors said the former president would if re-elected “arrive with a coterie of lawyers and advisers who, like him, are determined not to be thwarted again”.

“That is why we need an organisation of conservative lawyers committed to the foundational constitutional principles we once all agreed upon: the primacy of American democracy, the sanctity of the constitution and the rule of law, the independence of the courts, the inviolability of elections and mutual support among those tasked with the solemn responsibility of enforcing the laws of the United States.

“This new organisation must step up, speak out and defend these ideals.”

..nyt

By George Conway, J. Michael Luttig and Barbara Comstock

The writers are lawyers. Mr. Conway was in private practice. Mr. Luttig was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006. Ms. Comstock represented Virginia’s 10th District in Congress from 2015 to 2019. They serve on the board of the newly formed Society for the Rule of Law Institute.

American democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law are the righteous causes of our times, and the nation’s legal profession is obligated to support them. But with the acquiescence of the larger conservative legal movement, these pillars of our system of governance are increasingly in peril. The dangers will only grow should Donald Trump be returned to the White House next November.

Recent reporting about plans for a second Trump presidency are frightening. He would stock his administration with partisan loyalists committed to fast-tracking his agenda and sidestepping — if not circumventing altogether — existing laws and long-established legal norms. This would include appointing to high public office political appointees to rubber-stamp his plans to investigate and exact retribution against his political opponents; make federal public servants removable at will by the president himself; and invoke special powers to take unilateral action on First Amendment-protected activities, criminal justice, elections, immigration and more.

We have seen him try this before, though fortunately he was thwarted — he would say “betrayed”— by executive branch lawyers and by judges who refused to go along with his more draconian and often unlawful policies and his effort to remain in office after being cast out by voters. But should Mr. Trump return to the White House, he will arrive with a coterie of lawyers and advisers who, like him, are determined not to be thwarted again.

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Retired conservative judge: Trump 'dared, taunted, provoked, and goaded DOJ' into indicting him - Alternet.org

june

retired Judge Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit weighed in on Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith's thirty-seven-count criminal indictment against ex-President Donald Trump in a Tuesday Twitter thread.

Luttig has emerged as a vocal Trump critic amid the scandal involving Trump's alleged mishandling of sensitive government materials after he left the White House in 2021 and Trump's role in the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

"There is not an Attorney General of either party who would not have brought today's charges against the former president," Luttig tweeted of Merrick Garland, who appointed Smith last November after the Federal Bureau of Investigation recovered classified documents while executing a search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida on August 8th, 2022.

Trump "has dared, taunted, provoked, and goaded DOJ to prosecute him from the moment it was learned that he had taken these national security documents. On any given day for the past 18 months — doubtless up to and including the day before the indictment was returned — the former president could have avoided and prevented this prosecution. He would never have been indicted for taking these documents," Luttig wrote.

"But for whatever reason, he decided that he would rather be indicted and prosecuted," Luttig continued. "After a year and a half, he finally succeeded in forcing Jack Smith's appropriately reluctant hand, having left the Department no choice but to bring these charges lest the former president make a mockery of the Constitution and the Rule of Law."

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an 8 23

...According to CNN reporters Jamie Rangel and Jack Forrest, "the Republican credentials of [the amicus brief] authors fly in the face of the former president’s repeated argument that his trial’s timeline is a partisan exercise against him.”

In the brief, the 11 Republicans — including former U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales, co-founder of Federalist Society Steven Calabresi and former 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals judge J. Michael Luttig— insist Smith’s proposed date “respects and serves the former president’s own interest in a speedy trial.”

...

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/john-eastman-in-the-spotlight/ stoer edit bd

1/6 at the last possible moment did the right thing (berated belittled pssy from oval with fam; wife pulled curtains to hide; he knew for a month what trump/eastman were plotting and said nothing, after toady 4 yrs [fedsoc speech when?) vs Luttig tweets 2? jan 6.

6 22

The first thing to know about today’s hearing by the J6 committee is John Eastman, the coup-memo mastermind, is in deep deep doo doo.

The former professor of law at Chapman University and fellow at the Claremont Institute apparently thought it was a good idea to explain in writing that the J6 insurrection might not have happened if not for a mulish vice president refusing to go along with a bloodless coup.

Eastman moreover had no qualms about saying in front of witnesses that it’s OK for a Republican vice president to pick and choose who’s going to be president but nuh-uh for VPs from the other side. He also said – to the president – that his attempted coup would perhaps maybe I dunno yeah definitely violate the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

Former White House counsel Eric Herschmann said he told Eastman this: “I'm going to give you the best free legal advice you're ever getting in your life: Get a great f-ing criminal defense lawyer. You're going to need it.” (Evidently counsel advised mum’s the word. In deposition, Eastman invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 100 times.)

Eastman’s hare-brained scheme came down to this: Mike Pence, in his ceremonial role as president of the Senate, in the counting of the electoral votes, could do one of two things on his own, Eastman said.

He could reject the votes, thus declaring Donald Trump the winner.

Or he could send the votes back to the five to seven states that had determined the 2020 election’s outcome. (From there, it’s hard to tell what would have happened. Either the states would resend alternate slates of electors loyal to Trump, a dubious option. Or the election would have been thrown to the House, where state legislatures controlled by one party would get one vote to settle matters.)

Either way, Pence said no.

He said no from the start, according to Greg Jacob, former counsel for the office of the vice president. Jacob was today’s star witness. Thanks to his testimony, we know that those who did not believe that Mike Pence could decide the election on his own, included, in addition to the entire White House counsel’s office, the following people:

Mark Meadows.

Rudy Giuliani.

Donald Trump.

And John Eastman himself.

Indeed, Eastman conceded numerous time and in various ways that his conspiracy would not survive legal scrutiny or the Supreme Court, Jacob said. Eastman vacillated between requesting that Pence reject the votes outright, which he deemed too aggressive an option, or suspend the vote count, which he deemed more politically palatable.

Having gotten nowhere with White House attorneys, state elections officials and his own vice president, Trump mounted a pressure campaign on Pence knowing that neither statutory law nor the Constitution gave him the authority to do what Trump demanded.

Trump did it anyway.

The J6 committee made must-see good TV by illustrating how, starting in December, the former president began pressing Pence via television remarks, Twitter and in private meetings. On the morning of January 6, 2021, Trump called to ask Pence one last time. According to witnesses, Trump called him a coward, a wimp and the p-word.

Then Trump took the stage at the Ellipse. According to lead presenter California Congressman Pete Aguilar, the first draft of his speech made no mention of Pence. Trump revised it, however. Then on stage, he ad libbed. Video footage shows that with each mention, the crowd got more jacked up before being sent down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Most dramatic, I think, was the demonstration of cause and effect regarding Trump’s tweet at 2:24 p.m. By that time, Pence had begun counting the votes. White-power terrorist group the Proud Boys had already breached security and were pouring into the building. White House staffers told J6 investigators there was general agreement that Trump ought to send out a tweet in order to calm things down.

He was told an insurgency was brewing. He wrote:

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or incorrect ones which they were previously asked to certify. USA demands the truth!”

That, according to a witness, “was like pouring gasoline on the fire.”

Congressman Aguilar said an informant told the FBI that the Proud Boys were prepared to capture and kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if they found her. Same for Mike Pence. A makeshift gallows was raised on the Capitol grounds while the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence!”

Like said, deep deep doo doo.

And John Eastman isn’t alone.

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