Alaska state legislator David Eastman is a West Point graduate. He’s also an Oath Keeper, and dozens of his fellow West Pointers aren’t happy.
In a letter to an Alaska paper (read it here), they blasted his conduct and demanded he resign, alleging he “discredited” himself and “betrayed the values of West Point,” the Associated Press reported on Tuesday, November 23, 2021 (story here).
The Oath Keepers is a rightwing paramilitary group involved in the Bundy Ranch standoff, the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and other criminal activities (details here). West Point is the U.S. Army’s military academy that trains future officers, many of whom become generals.
“Eastman said he went to Washington that day to object to the Electoral College votes of several states confirming President Joe Biden’s election but didn’t participate in the demonstrations,” the Associated Press said. The West Point graduates’ letter accused him of spreading “dangerous lies” about the 2020 election which erode public faith in the republic,” and described Oath Keepers as “an insurrection organization … calling for violence against our Constitutional system of government.”
Eastman isn’t new to controversy. A California native who settled in Alaska after serving in the military police there, he was originally appointed to the legislature in 2017 to fill a vacancy, and was initially considered a rising GOP star. But he quickly wore out his welcome, as a result of misconduct and extremist views.
In 2018, he was removed from a legislative ethics committee for leaking to a newspaper a confidential complaint against a fellow Republican legislator (see story here) who was being investigated by the FBI for voting fraud (see story here), possibly in retaliation for that legislator voting with Democrats on some budget issues. In 2020, he was suspended from the GOP caucus, according to Wikipedia (here).
And in 2021, Wikipedia says, he traveled to Arizona on public funds to observe the Arizona GOP Senate leader’s sham “audit” of 2020 election ballots that turned into a fiasco (and confirmed that Biden won the state).
In addition to Oath Keepers, David Eastman has been a Tea Party activist, and has ties to the Claremont Institute in California, the current home base of notorious Trump lawyer John C. Eastman (see article here); whether they’re related is unclear. Wikipedia says David Eastman “voted against a bill honoring black soldiers who worked on the Alaska Highway” and “opposed the recognition of Black History Month,” and also made remarks about Alaska native women suggesting he’s a racist.
Eastman was already in hot water with West Point alums. The Associated Press story says he “was disinvited from events sponsored by the West Point Society of Alaska after he drew a comparison between Biden and Adolf Hitler in September, and posted a link on social media leading to a Holocaust denial site,” which suggests he might also be anti-Semitic.
The author of the letter says, “The fact that he’s a lawmaker, even in a state capacity, is deserving of rebuke.” He could have added that Eastman is un-American. ‘
That someone so repulsive got elected to public office illustrates the sorry state of mind of too many Republican voters these days. American needs a better Republican Party than he exemplifies. As a private citizen, Eastman can say what he likes as a matter of free speech, but his record of conduct should preclude him from having a political career.