“Former Trump lawyer John Eastman invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and cited attorney-client privilege Wednesday when he appeared before a Fulton County grand jury investigating attempts to influence the 2020 election in Georgia,” NBC News reported on Wednesday, August 31, 2022.
Wikipedia describes him as a “key participant in … efforts to overturn the election.” He represented Trump in a Texas lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court to overturn results in other states, participated in efforts to get states to decertify their results, pushed Pence to overrule the election, and was the architect of the fake electors scheme (details here).
On Jan. 6, 2021, he spoke at the rally preceding the Capitol riot (photo below), lying to the mob that voting machines “contained ‘secret folders’ that altered voting results.” During the riot, he emailed Pence’s chief of staff to blame the rioting on Pence’s refusal to reject electoral votes won by Biden.
This, of course, is free speech protected by the First Amendment, as was an op-ed he wrote in August 2020 claiming Kamala Harris isn’t a U.S. citizen even though she was born in the U.S., which legal scholars derided and Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe called “idiotic.”
But having a right to do something doesn’t make it right, and the First Amendment only applies to government. His antics got him fired from his law school teaching job, and the California bar association opened a disciplinary investigation.
Last spring a federal judge suggested efforts to obstruct Congress’ certification of the election were illegal (see story here), he’s being investigated by the Department of Justice, and FBI agents seized his phone and emails.
On Nov. 3, 2020, more Americans voted for Biden than Trump, and Biden won a majority of electoral votes. There’s no question — not the slightest — who the American people chose. Eastman was a leading player in efforts to overthrow the will of the American people. That was an attack on our most basic rights. Now Eastman is in hot water, and deserves to be.
The Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury is investigating whether Georgia election laws were violated, and specifically “whether there were any ‘coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections’ in Georgia” (according to NBC News), which there clearly were. Eastman was in the thick of it, and probably was summoned before the grand jury to answer questions about that.
Asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination isn’t an admission of guilt nor proof that an individual committed a crime. Eastman doesn’t have to answer questions. It’s not surprising he doesn’t want to. My guess is he’s going to be indicted by the feds, the Georgia grand jury, or both.
