After a bold email sent by an attorney who advised then-President Donald Trump on his attempt to overturn the 2020 election was revealed by a House select committee on Jan. 6, Twitter erupted with memes.
In the days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress, John Eastman wrote to Rudy Giuliani, then Trump’s personal attorney, saying, “I’ve concluded that I should be on the pardon list if that is still in the works.”
The document was presented to the House select committee on Thursday, along with other evidence indicating that Eastman publicly championed the theory that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to certify fictitious elector slates in order to keep Trump in the office while privately admitting it wouldn’t hold up in court.
That revelation might be used to suggest that Eastman acted in bad faith by pressuring Pence to obstruct the electoral vote tally, which the vice president presided over on the day of the Capitol disturbance.
Just before the assault on the Capitol, Eastman spoke at Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally. He pushed the previous president’s claim that the election was rigged in his speech, and asked that Pence return the official Electoral College results to the states.
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Hundreds of people stormed the US Capitol, yelling “hang Mike Pence” and taking matters into their own hands in an attempt to retain Trump in power.
Eastman allegedly determined five days later that he “should be on the pardon list.”
He was never given one. However, during Trump’s final days in office, dozens of others were pardoned.
