PHOENIX, Arizona—Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional scholar, John Eastman, spoke to the civic organization Davos in the Desert Wednesday about the lawfare he experienced, which resulted in disbarment and prosecution. The event was part of a larger conference the organization will broadcast all day on May 21, featuring legal experts discussing the lawfare against Trump.
Eastman, who was disbarred for advising Trump and representing him in challenging election illegalities in the 2020 election, began his talk by discussing how judges dismissed many of the 2020 election lawsuits for lack of standing. A judge in Pennsylvania dismissed one of their lawsuits, claiming that only the state legislature can challenge the election illegalities. However, other judges handling the 2020 election lawsuits ruled that political parties and candidates have standing.
He said the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that it was acceptable for election observers to be forced to stand so far away from operations that they could not see anything since the law only said they must be allowed to be “in the room.” Eastman said the law was written when elections were tabulated at the precinct level, in small rooms, not the new massive vote centers. Additionally, he said there were 120,000 more ballots than voters in Pennsylvania, which has never been solved.
He pointed out that Trump or the Republican plaintiff prevailed in 24 out of the 32 election cases from 2020 that were decided on the merits.
Eastman said a lot of the problem comes down to ignoring Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which gives plenary power to the state legislatures. This means if the rules are “blatantly violated” in an election, then the state legislatures must fix the situation.
In Fulton County, he said the data has never been turned over to the public to examine and determine whether there was fraud. In Wisconsin, he said the law is clear that voting by mail is a privilege, not a right, and the laws must be strictly complied with, or the votes will not be counted. However, county clerks in the biggest counties there told election workers to fill in missing affidavits themselves.
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, a friend of Eastman’s who testified during his disbarment trial, uncovered the “nursing home scandal,” he said. Claiming COVID-19 as an excuse, officials refused to allow bipartisan teams access to the nursing homes — although they allowed fish tank cleaners access. As a result, Gableman found an “illegal ballot harvesting scheme.” The number of nursing home residents participating in the election skyrocketed, including in the memory care sections, and many of the ballots were “filled out with the same handwriting.”
Eastman said his disbarment trial has been called the “longest, most expensive disbarment in history.” Defending himself has cost him over $750,000 so far. He is also defending himself in Willis’ RICO prosecution.
On a positive note, Eastman said while none of the election lawsuits that were brought ever analyzed any of the evidence, plenty of evidence came out in his disbarment trial. Despite the prosecution and judge pushing back, “We still put on the most comprehensive set of evidence that has ever been put on,” he said.
He reviewed some of the California Bar attorneys’ tactics against him. In their charges, they accused him of lying when he said during his speech at January 6 that “dead people voted.” This was false, he said, because election officials in Michigan admitted that 1,500 votes were cast in the names of dead people — the officials disagreed that the number was higher. After Eastman pointed that out, he said the bar attorneys changed their accusation to state that 1,500 wasn’t enough to change the election results.
Regarding the January 6 prosecutions, Eastman said if it were a real insurrection, people would have shown up with guns.
Another dishonest tactic he said they used was changing a quotation that said “these statutes are unconstitutional” to “the Electoral Count Act is unconstitutional.” He said the bar attorneys lied to the court, which is what they accused him of doing. California Bar Disciplinary Judge Judge Yvette Roland, who has a history of contributing to Democrats while serving on the bench, repeated the false quote in her opinion. Roland also said Eastman was guilty of “moral turpitude” for stating on Steve Bannon’s War Room show that there was “fraud and illegality” in the 2020 election.
The California Bar attorneys asked Eastman about a lawsuit he was involved with that contained hundreds of pages of affidavits from experts. The other side filed counter-expert reports in response. The California Bar attorneys asked Eastman why he didn’t withdraw the complaint after he saw the counter-expert reports. Eastman responded in court, “Well, I’m not aware of any case that hasn’t had competing experts on both sides. The court is to adjudicate which expert is correct or not. Oftentimes, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. But when the other side files a counter affidavit, you don’t just simply say ‘Oh my, I give up.’”
The case was ultimately dismissed after January 6 as moot.
He talked about the harassment he’s received, including protesters outside his house every day for a year (except during bad weather). His driveway is unpaved, and someone hid spikes in the dirt, destroying his tires. Bank of America and USAA canceled his bank accounts.
Eastman denounced the prosecution of Trump for allegedly paying off Daniels. He said it wasn’t election-related, “Trump was settling a legal claim against Stormy,” he said.
He said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s $450 million contribution to the election was an abuse of campaign finance laws. The contributions went to almost exclusively Democratic counties—only a few token $500 contributions to Republican counties—so they were really contributions to campaigns or independent expenditures, which have limits, he said.
Eastman concluded denouncing the lawfare, “If we can’t talk about this, then we’re no longer a self-governing society. … If we’re not allowed to challenge this, then they will have a free license to steal all elections. The government is not legitimate, it’s not based on our consent.”
He went on, “The only confirmed violations of the Constitution were election officials modifying the law.
“It’s not whether flags still wave, but what kind of land it still waves over?” he asked. “Is it still the land of the free and the home of the brave? Or is it the land of the coward and the home of the slave?” He pointed out that indicting Trump led to an increase in his poll numbers. “I’m not going to hand off slavery to my kids and grandkids.”
Eastman has raised $741,976 of the $950,000 needed for his defense at GiveSendGo and intends to appeal. MAAP Real Talk provided the video of the event, which features Wanetick’s talk here and Eastman’s talks here and here.
Also, Davos in the Desert CEO David Wanetick spoke to the audience, consisting of many attorneys. He briefly went over each of the lawfare actions conducted against Trump. He said the first impeachment of Trump was over the “Russia collusion hoax.” The second impeachment was due to Trump’s January 6 speech, which was “Democratic leadership acting with FBI complicity,” citing the 20 FBI agents who were the “most vocal supporters” of entering the U.S. Capitol building.
Regarding Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis’ RICO prosecution of Trump — Eastman is also a defendant — Wanetick said, “The judge listening to prosecutor Fanni Willis has ethical lapses, knew she was committing perjury, but allowed her to continue prosecuting the case.” Wanetick criticized New York Attorney General Leticia James for her prosecution of Trump. “Leticia James’ campaign for New York Attorney General was almost solely focused on prosecuting Donald Trump,” he said.
Wanetick said New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting Trump for allegedly paying porn star Stormy Daniels to be quiet about an affair, used federal election laws to prosecute Trump since he couldn’t make any state laws fit. He slammed special prosecutor Jack Smith’s election interference prosecution of Trump, pointing out that it’s the same prosecution as the Georgia RICO case, violating the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy clause.
Smith is also prosecuting Trump for allegedly taking classified documents from the White House to his home at Mar-a-Lago. Wanetick pointed out that President Joe Biden stored classified documents in his house for years. Finally, he said in the sexual assault case filed by Jean Carroll against Trump, a special law was passed to get around an expired statute of limitations. Wanetick ended his talk by stating that the January 6 defendants are being so mistreated in prison that 34 of them sent a letter asking to be transferred to Guantanamo Bay instead.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
