Notorious 'coup memo' author John Eastman tried to get Wisconsin to 'decertify' Biden's win — last month
On Monday, ABC News reported that infamous right-wing lawyer John Eastman tried to persuade Republicans in the Wisconsin General Assembly to "decertify" that state's 2020 election results showing President Joe Biden as the winner — last month.
"Eastman, a right-wing lawyer who drafted a plan for former President Donald Trump to cling to power by falsely claiming then-Vice President Mike Pence could reject legitimate electors during the 2020 presidential election, was part of a small group of Trump allies who secured a private meeting last month to try and convince the Republican leader of the Wisconsin state Assembly to decertify President Joe Biden’s win, multiple sources familiar with the meeting told ABC," reported Will Steakin, Katherine Faulders, and Laura Romero.
"Eastman in the meeting urged [Assembly Speaker Robin] Vos to decertify the election, sources familiar with the meeting said," the report continued. "According to Jefferson Davis, a Wisconsin activist pushing to reverse Biden’s victory who was also in the meeting, Trump’s former lawyer pushed Vos to start 'reclaiming the electors' and move forward with 'either a do over or having a new slate of electors seated that would declare someone else the winner.'"
Vos has pushed to investigate the results of the Wisconsin election, hiring a former state Supreme Court justice to try to drum up evidence for Trump's conspiracy theories about the race being stolen. There is no evidence the election was stolen, and no legal mechanism by which Wisconsin could decertify their results.
Eastman's infamous "coup memo" outlined an untested legal theory that if Republican state legislatures in states Biden won sent "alternate" lists of Trump electors, Pence could rule neither set of electors are counted and erase Biden's electoral majority, throwing control of the White House to the House of Representatives, where Republicans controlled enough state delegations to throw the election to Trump. Most experts believed this plan to be illegal, including Pence himself, who did not go through with it.
Eastman is currently under an ethics investigation by the California State Bar, under which he is licensed to practice law.
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