John Eastman’s name appears 553 times in the January 6th Committee’s final report.

“Fifth” — as in, “I’m invoking the Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to be a witness against myself” — appears more than 200 times in the transcript of Eastman’s testimony to the committee, though that does include a stirring speech by his lawyer on the virtues of the Fifth Amendment (“a safeguard against heedless, unfounded, or tyrannical prosecution to protect the innocent, as well as the guilty,”) and the assertion that invoking the Fifth has been forced upon Eastman by the angry mobs mobilized against him.

By now, even the busiest holiday elves know that the J6 Committee concluded that “Donald J. Trump, John Eastman, and others corruptly attempted to violate the Electoral Count Act of 1887 in an effort to overturn the 2020 Presidential Election,” and recommended that both face criminal charges for obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

No matter what the U.S. Department of Justice does with those recommendations, the former Chapman University Law School dean is now guaranteed a place in American history books. The portrait it paints, though, is not a pretty one.

“EASTMAN’S THEORY WAS — IN THE WORDS OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S SENIOR WHITE HOUSE AND CAMPAIGN OFFICIALS — ‘INSANE,’ ‘CRAZY,’ ‘NUTTY’ AND IT WOULD NEVER PRACTICALLY WORK,” says a header on page 433.

Law license intact

As the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 riots approach — riots fueled by Eastman’s treatment of the U.S. Constitution as an abstract academic playground, to deadly effect, the J6 Committee maintains — Eastman remains under investigation by the State Bar of California. His law license is fully intact and his practice, the Constitutional Counsel Group, is registered on Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim. He’s still listed as a senior fellow at The Claremont Institute.

“Pursuant to statute, details of the investigation must remain confidential,” said Rick Coca, spokesman for the State Bar, by email.

What’s taking so long? “While by law we cannot provide any additional information regarding the investigation of Mr. Eastman,” Coca wrote, “as a general matter common factors that contribute to lengthier investigations include the need to obtain and review large volumes of documentary evidence. In addition, by rule, we are required to provide respondents with a ‘fair, adequate and reasonable opportunity to deny or explain the matters which’ will be the subject of any charges, and, prior to the filing of disciplinary charges, respondents have the ‘right to request an Early Neutral Evaluation Conference’ before a State Bar Court hearing judge.”

Think that large volume of documentary evidence includes thousands of pages of documents released by the J6 Committee?

We reached out to Eastman’s attorneys for comment on all this, but didn’t hear back by deadline. After the J6 referrals were announced on Dec, 19, Eastman said they carried no more legal weight than a referral from any American citizen, and should, in fact, carry a great deal less weight “due to the absurdly partisan nature of the process that produced it.”

His defenders have said that it was his job, as Trump’s attorney, to vigorously explore every avenue for his client. The J6 Committee dismisses that out of hand: It is, indeed, an attorney’s job to zealously advocate for a client — but that advocacy must be within the bounds of the law, and must not seek to subvert the law, the report asserts.

“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” the report says, quoting another Orange County legal mind, Federal Judge David O. Carter, who had to figure out whether Eastman’s emails were protected by attorney-client privilege or could be turned over to the J6 Committee.

“Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower – it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process.”

The J6 Committee heartily agrees.

‘Trump Wins’

To refresh your memory, this all started with Eastman’s untested theory that the vice president had the power to accept, reject or send back for further investigation electoral votes from the states, which were already certified by state legislators.

Vice President Mike Pence could kick back, or simply refuse to count, “contested” electoral votes for Joe Biden, and even declare Trump the winner, the infamous Eastman memos argue.

The vice president’s attorneys, White House counsel and many others scoffed. The framers, with their obsession on check and balances, would never give so much power to one person, they argued. And imagine if the vice president truly had that authority! There would never be a transfer of power at all. Eternal one-party rule.

The report includes Eastman emails where, early on, he argues that the VP does not have that power. And, later, emails where he vigorously insists the VP does have that power. It includes exchanges where Eastman acknowledges that his theory would never survive the Supreme Court’s scrutiny, and specific strategies to avoid such a judicial review.

The main thing, Eastman wrote, is that Pence should exercise this authority without seeking permission. “The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind.”

Eastman was instrumental in orchestrating the slates of “alternate” electors from states where the count was close, and he used all this to give hope to Trump, even when they both knew that there was no vote fraud on a scale that could change the course of the election, the report says.

And along with Trump, he spouted falsehoods to an angry mob on Jan. 6, it said. That mob then overran the Capitol, halted the electoral vote count and threatened democracy itself.

Even then, Eastman didn’t let up. An email exchange between Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, and Eastman, as the madness exploded on Jan. 6, went like this:

“John, very respectfully, I just don’t in the end believe that there is a single Justice on the United States Supreme Court, or a single judge on any of our Courts of Appeals, who is as ‘broad minded’ as you when it comes to the irrelevance of statutes enacted by the United States Congress, and followed without exception for more than 130 years,” Jacob wrote.

“But I have run down every legal trail placed before me to its conclusion, and I respectfully conclude that as a legal framework, it is a results oriented position that you would never support if attempted by the opposition, and essentially entirely made up.

“And thanks to your bulls…, we are now under siege.”

Seige

Eastman responded: “My ‘bulls…’ — seriously?… The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so the American people can see for themselves what happened.”

An infuriated Jacob apologized for his language, “reflective of a man whose wife and three young children are currently glued to news reports as I am moved about to locations where we will be safe from people…who believed with all their hearts the theory they were sold about the powers that could legitimately be exercised at the Capitol on this day. Please forgive me for that.

“But the advice provided has, whether intended to or not, functioned as a serpent in the ear of the President of the United States, the most powerful office in the entire world.”

After the crowd was finally cleared and Congress resumed its work, Eastman sent one more email.

The Senate and House both violated the Electoral Count Act by debating for more than two hours, Eastman noted, and there were other procedural glitches precipitated by the attack. “So now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed,” he wrote, “I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations.”

Jacob “was somewhere between aghast and livid,” he testified to the J6 committee. “After all of the events of that day … after seeing the effects that these arguments had already had … it was kind of crazy.”

In an op-ed, Jacob lamented that “The egregious misrepresentations and outright lies of the President’s outside counsel deceived nearly half the country, nudging an unsettled Nation closer to the brink until an angry mob tore down the barricades and busted through the windows of our hallowed Capitol.”

The work of Eastman and Trump’s other hired guns was “so far below professional standards” that they should be held accountable, he said.

The J6 Committee thinks so, too. During Eastman’s testimony, Rep. Jamie Raskin asked, “Attorney General Bill Barr famously called Donald Trump’s claims of electoral fraud and corruption ‘bulls…’ Do you disagree with that conclusion?”

“Fifth,” Eastman said.

Rep. Liz Cheney had a question as well. “Dr. Eastman, do you believe that the violence on January 6th was justified?”

“Fifth,” Eastman said.