John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, said in an interview that it was troubling that at such a critical juncture, Mr. Trump had pushed aside the Justice Department and White House counsel.
The terrifying reality is that there are also several mechanisms that are legal and constitutional that could enable Trump to stay in office without actually winning the vote. Opinions to start the day, in your inbox. Sign up. The system of electing the president is complicated because it was not designed to be directly democratic.
A person close to Mr. Pence, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the Oval Office conversation, said that Mr. Eastman acknowledged that the vice president most likely did not have that power, at which point Mr. Pence turned to Mr. Trump and said, “Did you hear that, Mr. President?”
Soon, Mr. Eastman was meeting face to face at Mr. Trump’s urging with the attorney general, William P. Barr, and telling him how Mr. Trump could unilaterally impose limits on birthright citizenship.
Attorney John Eastman (left) speaks next to Then-President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani in Washington, D.C., January 6, 2021. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)
A law professor whose work was cited as part of an effort to overturn the 2020 election says former President Donald Trump's legal team butchered his argument as part of their "ploy" to ...
The House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection is reportedly seeking testimony from a law professor who wrote a memo outlining strategies to keep Donald Trump in power.
A conservative lawyer working with then-President Donald Trump's legal team tried to convince then-Vice President Mike Pence that he could overturn the election results on January 6 when Congress ...
John Eastman, a conservative lawyer working with then-President Donald Trump's legal team, outlined in a two-page memo a scheme to try to persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence to subvert the ...
We now know that Donald Trump’s scheme to steal the 2020 election was put into writing, and we can all read it. Call it the Trump coup memo: John Eastman, a lawyer representing Trump, wrote a ...
Here’s the worry. Of the nine swing states, eight have Republican legislatures. If one or more decide that balloting is chaotic and marred by irregularities, they could send what they regard as the legitimate slate of electors, which would be Republican.
Opinion | Trump could stay in power even if he doesn’t win the election. The Constitution allows it. - The Washington Post
Trump clearly understands this chain of events. He has been casting doubt on mail-in ballots for months, insisting that the results must be the ones that reflect the tally on election night. He said this week that without mail-in ballots, there would be no worries about a transfer of power because there would simply be a continuation of his rule. He has also acknowledged that “ at a certain point, it goes to Congress .”
Democrats may object and file lawsuits. In some of those states, Democratic governors or secretaries of state could send their own slates of electors to Washington. That would add to the confusion, but that might well be part of the Republican plan. When Congress convenes on Jan. 6 to tally the electors’ votes, there would be challenges to the legitimacy of some electors. Congressional Republicans would agree that disputed states should not be counted. That would ensure that neither candidate would get to 270 electoral votes.
The scheme put forward by controversial lawyer John Eastman was outlined in a two-page memo obtained by the authors for "Peril," and which was subsequently obtained by CNN. The memo, which has not previously been made public, provides new detail showing how Trump and his team tried to persuade Pence to subvert the Constitution and throw out the election results on January 6.
Giuliani then sent Graham several memos and affidavits claiming fraud. But when Graham's chief Judiciary Committee counsel Lee Holmes went over the claims, he found they were sloppy, overbearing and "added up to nothing," Woodward and Costa write. "Holmes reported to Graham that the data in the memos were a concoction, with a bullying tone and eighth grade writing."
At the same time, Giuliani sent multiple memos to Graham trying to convince him that the claims of election fraud coming from Trump's team were legitimate.
In the memo, Eastman went so far as to suggest Pence should take action without warning.
But while Lee and Graham heard out the cases from Trump's lawyers, they soundly rejected their claims, Woodward and Costa write.
"Lee's head was spinning," the authors write. "No such procedure existed in the Constitution , any law or past practice. Eastman had apparently drawn it out of thin air."
Lee also dismissed the Trump team's arguments that it had a case to overturn the election results in Georgia, saying they had to be made in court.
Mr. Eastman had put himself on the radar of Mr. Trump’s political aides during the election when Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign, had shared on Twitter an article Mr. Eastman had written. The article, in an echo of racist questions stoked by Mr. Trump about where President Barack Obama had been born, questioned whether Kamala Harris, Mr. Biden’s running mate, could legally become president because her parents had not been born in the United States.
John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, said in an interview that it was troubling that at such a critical juncture, Mr. Trump had pushed aside the Justice Department and White House counsel.
What is Trump’s claim? Former President Trump has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the disclosure of White House files related to his actions and communications surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. He argues that these matters must remain a secret as a matter of executive privilege.
What is executive privilege? It is a power claimed by presidents under the Constitution to prevent the other two branches of government from gaining access to certain internal executive branch information , especially confidential communications involving the president or among his top aides.
On Jan. 6, Mr. Eastman spoke to a crowd of Trump supporters near the White House about election fraud and called on Vice President Mike Pence to delay the election certification.
Then, after the November election, Mr. Eastman wrote the memo for which he is now best known, laying out steps that Vice President Mike Pence could take to keep Mr. Trump in power — measures Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans have likened to a blueprint for a coup.
Mr. Eastman said he told Mr. Pence that he might have the power, but that it would be foolish for him to exercise it until state legislatures certified a new set of electors for Mr. Trump — something that had not happened.