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UPDATE, JAN 31:

Donald Trump has effectively acknowledged his plot for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the November 2020 election.

Trump lied on Sunday night that Pence had the authority to block the Congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden on January 6, 2021 — a process interrupted by Trumpist supporters after Pence, with only a ceremonial role, refused to throw out Biden electors.

Trump wrote, “Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”

Trump’s declaration comes amid further evidence of a scheme involving his aides, his lawyers, and some GOP legislators to block Biden’s Electoral College victory, taking the decision to the House where Trump might prevail.

See also House Committee on Capitol Attack Subpoenas “Fake Trump Electors”
Trump to Pence: “Overturn the Election” — Pence to Trump: “No”


UPDATE, OCT 30:

As Vice President Mike Pence hid from Trumpist attackers in the US Capitol on January 6, Trump’s lawyer John Eastman e-mailed a senior Pence aide to say the Vice President was responsible for the assault.

Eastman, who had pressed Pence to overturn the outcome of the November election, told Greg Jacob that Pence provoked the violence by refusing to block the Congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

The “siege” is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened.

The lawyer wrote as Pence, Jacob, and other advisors were hiding under guard in a secure area of the Capitol. Attackers in the building were calling for the execution of Pence and Democratic legislators.

Eastman confirmed sending the e-mails but denied he was blaming Pence for the violence. He insisted that he and Trump’s team were exhausting “every legal means” to challenge the election.

The lawyer also stood by his two-page memorandum to Pence on January 4, setting out a six-step plan to disqualify Biden’s electors from seven states and thus prevent the Congressional certification.

Jacob wrote in a draft opinion article for The Washington Post that lawyers such as Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, who were operating out of a “command center” at the Willard Hotel, should be held accountable.

Now that the moment of immediate crisis has passed, the legal profession should dispassionately examine whether the attorneys involved should be disciplined for using their credentials to sell a stream of snake oil to the most powerful office in the world, wrapped in the guise of a lawyer’s advice.

A bipartisan group of former Government officials and legal figures has asked the California Bar Association to investigate Eastman’s conduct.


ORIGINAL ENTRY, SEPT 21: Donald Trump’s lawyer John Eastman pushed Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 Presidential election with a six-step plan, two days before the attack on the US Capitol.

Eastman’s two-page memorandum sought the disqualification of electors from seven states which had voted for President-elect Joe Biden, when Congress met on January 6 to confirm Biden’s 306-232 victory in the Electoral College.

Eastman presented the plan during a Trump-Pence meeting in the White House on January 4. Trump told Pence, “You really need to listen to John. He’s a respected constitutional scholar. Hear him out,” according to authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

The lawyer wrote:

The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission — either from a vote of the joint session or from the [Supreme] Court. 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.

Under Eastman’s plan, Pence’s dismissal of the seven states’ electors would give Trump a 232-222 lead. The Vice President would declare that neither candidates had reached the victory threshold of 270 electors, taking the process to the House of Representatives. With Republicans controlling 26 state delegations in the House, Trump could retain the White House.

But the proposal opened with a huge error undermining its attempted logic.

Eastman wrote, “7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate.”

In fact, none of the seven states had presented an alternative slate.

From Plan to Insurrection

Pence consulted former Vice President Dan Quayle and the Senate Parliamentarian, who firmly said that he had no authority in the Congressional session beyond chairing and counting the votes.

GOP Sens. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah, despite being diehard supporters of Trump, quashed the Eastman memo.

Lee told Trump’s lawyers, trying to overturn the outcome in Georgia, “You might as well make your case to Queen Elizabeth II. Congress can’t do this. You’re wasting your time,” according to Woodward and Costa.

But Trump persisted. Outside the White House on January 6, he instructed his audience to “Stop the Steal” and march on the Capitol to stop the certification of President-elect Biden. He invoked the plan of Eastman, who preceded him on the podium:

John is one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country, and he 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 the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it.

Less than two hours later, hundreds of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol, beating police officers and threatening to kill Pence and legislators.

See also Trump on the Capitol Attack: “These Were Great People”