John Eastman should be a household name among conservatives, along with anyone else who believes authoritarianism can exist not just in the past or in faraway parts of the world, but in modern “liberal democracies” as well.
For those unaware of him, John Eastman is a leading constitutional scholar, a former presidential advisor and clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, and is perhaps the most persecuted man in the country apart from Donald Trump. Last month at Mar-a-Lago, the latter was actually treated to the premier of The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice, a documentary in which the since-fired law professor describes his three-year-long legal battle over the rather rudimentary act of providing counsel to one’s client. In this case, advising the White House on how to deal, constitutionally, with the highly contestable 2020 election results.
The legal question for which his opinion was sought was indeed a novel one; that is, whether a President has the ability to request that his Vice President return fraudulent or legally doubtful slates of electoral votes to their respective states for further inquiries. Given the huge irregularities of the ‘COVID election’ in states like Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, the Democratic slates of electoral votes sent off for official counting on January 6th were viewed by many Republicans to be tainted. Asked what to do about such a unique problem, Eastman set out a list of options, one of them which entailed sending the tainted votes back, so the claims of unlawful electoral practices could be further investigated. For this, Eastman has been thrice indicted as a ‘co-conspirator to obstructing electoral proceedings’ in Arizona, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., debanked by Bank of America, and disbarred in his home state of California; legal troubles that have already cost him nearly a million dollars in legal fees.
For those among us who simply refused to believe this country has been careening towards banana republic-status these last four years, there is no better introduction to the stark reality of the Left’s 2020-2024 deployment of state lawfare against conservatives than Eastman’s film -- a highly engaging, very accessible, hour-long production from the Madison Media Fund. Following their year-long investigation into Eastman’s potential “violation of California law and ethics rules governing attorneys…” the State Bar of California found he displayed “moral turpitude” for his claims of illegality in the 2020 election; a decision later upheld by a California judge and Kamala Harris-donor. But as Eastman states in the film, the intention is not to reprimand him for any true wrongdoing, but to more generally create a chilling effect among conservative lawyers from taking on GOP-supported legal challenges in future, so as to leave any political opposition to the Democratic party defenseless. To skeptics, yes, these are truly unprecedented times.
Keeping in mind that John Eastman is an eminently qualified legal scholar (and who happens to be, in my opinion, the leading expert on the unconstitutionality of Birthright Citizenship), the film sets up cringeworthy footage of news commentator hacks smugly muddying Eastman’s name for his supposed ‘crazy legal theories’ and lack of constitutional grounding. But the theatrical harangues from people like second-rate actress Rachel Maddow and others had more serious effects than simply making conservatives wince. As shown in the film, left-wing extremists harassed Eastman and his wife at their California home for over a year following the coverage. He received death threats, epithets spraypainted on his house, and even found metal spikes buried in his dirt driveway, apparently intended to blow out his tires (which they did).
Following Election Day in 2020, numerous Republican state legislators were alleging that, due to substantial claims that various states’ voting laws had not been followed (signature verifications on absentee ballots being ignored, etc.), the election had been illegally held, making any certification by Pence of their states’ votes improper. Being such a novel situation, how to approach it legally was an open question, one that required advice from expert counsel; someone like John Eastman.
The “Eastman Memo” that elite media talking-heads seemed to raise with more horrified tones than the John Yoo torture memo, is given fair hearing in the film, clearing the air of any false claims that Eastman supposedly advised Trump and Pence to ignore the Constitution and certify so-called “fake electors.” The memo painted several scenarios, the one which Eastman recommended being for Pence to simply delay the January 6 count until legislators in the impugned states could assess the impact of the illegality. If it was found that the impact was smaller than the Biden margin, then Pence should recertify Biden. But if greater, then Pence should certify the Trump electors. After all, as Eastman states in the film, either the phrase “Consent of the Governed” as found in the Declaration of Independence has meaning or it does not.
The claims of election irregularities from many Republican state legislators were, of course, varied, substantial and, in places, horrifying for a country with such a proud democratic history. There were reports, for instance, of dumped absentee ballots (Michigan), signature verification standards being ignored (Georgia, Pennsylvania), ballot-harvesting by private individuals in heavily blue areas (Wisconsin), stopping the practice of sending bipartisan teams to assist seniors voting in nursing homes (in Wisconsin, turnout rates in such homes jumped from 20-30 percent to 100 percent) and poll watchers being kept away from counting tables (Detroit). Most of these practices were in direct violation of state laws designed to ensure that elections are as free and honest as possible and most were approved by partisan county clerks, secretaries of state, and state courts in key battleground regions -- the margin of victory in Wisconsin was a mere 20,000 and in Georgia, just 12,000.
For raising these highly alarming claims, then mapping out a way we could maturely deal with them as a constitutional republic, John Eastman continues to be persecuted in a way that should give even the most partisan liberal serious pause -- the well-known liberal law professor Lawrence Lessig appears in the film and thoroughly condemns Eastman’s ongoing treatment. But that the elite media has induced among its followers such vitriol for the Trump administration, much of the Left is apparently perfectly fine with chilling future legal challenges against unlawful electoral practices, in effect creating a license for themselves to steal elections. Thankfully, Eastman shows himself to be a steeled fighter and patriot in the film and, along with support from fellow conservatives, will inspire others to show the same resolve, relegating the legal persecution of one’s political enemies to the past and unfree world once again.
Image: Madison Media Fund