Former Trump lawyer John Eastman pressured Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania to tamper with the 2020 election result to falsely project Donald Trump the winner, according to new emails reported by the Denver Post and Politico.
Eastman outlined his scheme to replace Joe Biden’s electors with Trump electors in Pennsylvania to state Rep. Russ Diamond on Dec. 4, 2020. The lawyer called on Diamond and other GOP lawmakers to question mail-in ballot votes, a tactic pursued by other Trump supporters seeking to overturn Biden’s victory.
“Having done that math, you’d be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the Legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors — perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote,” Eastman wrote. “That would help provide some cover.”
Mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania overwhelmingly favored Biden (76%) — a big enough margin to overcome Trump’s edge in in-person votes, according to FiveThirtyEight. In the end, Biden prevailed with 50% of the state’s total vote.
Diamond co-authored a resolution questioning the election result in the state.
“I did not watch the hearings that were held, but I suspect they contained ample evidence of sufficient anomalies and illegal votes to have turned the election from Trump to Biden,” Eastman wrote to Diamond in the same email.
Eastman, a former visiting professor at the University of Colorado, used his university email address to correspond with Diamond. The Colorado Ethics Institute obtained the emails through a public records request and then turned them over to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
The House panel already had access to 101 emails Eastman exchanged between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2021. Eastman protested that the communications were “attorney-client privilege” and should be kept private, but a judge sided with the Jan. 6 committee’s argument that an exception is warranted for current or future crimes.
“Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President [Donald] Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote in March.
Those emails are also said to contain discussions on strategy to overturn Trump’s election loss.
The Jan. 6 committee continues fighting Eastman in a California court to obtain emails sent through his Chapman University address, where he also taught, according to Politico.
Eastman appeared on stage with former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani at the “Stop The Steal” rally on Jan. 6 that preceded the Capitol riot.
“We know there was fraud,” Eastman said at the rally, according to Forbes. “We know that dead people voted.”