Legal Expert Says John Eastman’s Fox News Appearance Harmful to His Case
Legal experts and other commentators say John Eastman didn’t do himself any favors going on Fox News.
The former Donald Trump attorney, a co-defendant in the ex-president’s sprawling Georgia racketeering indictment, spoke with Laura Ingraham in a two-part interview that aired Tuesday and Wednesday.
He persistently repeated the lie that the 2020 election was rife with fraud, prompting even Ingraham, a staunch Trump defender, to call him out.
Eastman is accused of designing a scheme to establish a slate of fake electors to falsely certify that Trump won the 2020 election and pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence during a Jan. 4, 2021, meeting to “either reject electoral votes from certain states or delay the joint session of Congress on January 6” in order to allow certain state legislatures to illegally appoint electors favoring Trump.
Eastman acknowledged both options violated the law, according to the indictment.
In Wednesday’s installment of the interview, Eastman said he had asked Pence during that meeting to delay the certification of votes, but insisted he didn’t tell Pence to reject the votes.
“What I recommended, and I’ve said this repeatedly, is that he accede to request from more than 100 state legislators in their swing states to give them a week to try and sort out the impact of what everybody acknowledged was illegality in the conduct of the election,” he said.
“I don’t think everyone acknowledged it,” Ingraham noted.
For the record, Pence has said Trump and his “crackpot lawyers” asked him to “literally reject votes.”
Legal Experts Criticize Eastman’s TV Appearance
Legal commentators said Eastman’s TV appearance was not a wise choice.
“He actually seems to believe all of this crap, and I don’t think that he actually understands the fact that he keeps digging a bigger and bigger hole for himself,” Tristan Snell, a former New York state prosecutor, said on MSNBC.
“He wanted to plead the Fifth when he had that deposition but every time he speaks in public he’s basically inculpating himself,” he continued.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Bradley P. Moss, a national security attorney, said Eastman “literally just confessed to the crime” on Fox News.
Conservative attorney George Conway shared a “pro legal tip” for Eastman: “If you’ve been indicted for doing something, don’t talk about that something on TV.”
Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, noted that Eastman had lost even Ingraham, who went along with Trump’s lie after the 2020 election.
(Fox News has restrained its coverage of the issue after two voting systems companies sued for billions in damages over the right-wing network’s promotion of falsehoods about the election. It settled one of them, with Dominion Voting Systems, for $787.5 million in April.)
Critics and Pundits React to Eastman’s Interview
Law experts aside, critics and other pundits also had a lot to say about the interview. Here’s some of the chatter:
John Eastman, on trial for trying to impede the certification of presidential electors, admits on Fox that he explicitly wanted to impede the certification of presidential electors. https://t.co/NYS7FYVuUX
It’s just incredible that they all think they can Fox News their way out of this when Fox News couldn’t Fox News their way out of the Dominion settlement. https://t.co/Le6c9F43Ua
Who’s advising and providing legal counsel to these people? You have open criminal cases and these folks are on national television as if they’re running for homecoming court. https://t.co/m3TlkwqD2N
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will now show you the following evidence of his crimes, directly from Mr Eastman himself. https://t.co/A4ylYr0YFr
Fmr Trump lawyer John Eastman says on Fox News that what he wanted on Jan. 6 was for VP Pence to delay certification from happening for a week. Not news but in his own words it sounds like he wanted to impede the certification https://t.co/A0sKOdNOX8
This Article John Eastman’s Controversial Fox News Interview: Legal Experts Weigh In was first Published on World Weekly News
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