November 08, 2021 01:52 PM UTC

Eastman Among Trump Advisers Subpoenaed Monday

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• by: Colorado Pols

As The Washington Post reports:

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection issued subpoenas Monday to six top advisers to former president Donald Trump, including two who were active in the Willard hotel “command center” where Trump’s loyal backers oversaw efforts in January to overturn the 2020 election.

Those subpoenaed to provide testimony and documents include scholar John Eastman, who outlined a legal strategy in early January to delay or deny Joe Biden the presidency, and former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who led efforts to investigate voting fraud in key states. Both were present at the Willard during the first week in January…

…Eastman has become a witness of keen interest to the committee because of the role he played laying out legal scenarios to deny Biden the presidency, including during an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and former vice president Mike Pence.

At the command center, Eastman huddled with Trump advisers including Giuliani, former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, and Kerik to develop plans to pressure Pence to take actions on Jan. 6 that Eastman suggested were within the vice president’s powers. Those actions included blocking or delaying the counting of electoral votes from battleground states where results were in dispute. [Pols emphasis]

Those states became the focus of the effort inside the Willard hotel command center to find evidence of fraud that might compel state legislators to challenge Biden’s victory.

In those first days in January, Trump allies in the command center called members of Republican-dominated legislatures in swing states that Eastman had spotlighted in his memos, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, encouraging them to convene special sessions to investigate fraud and to reassign electoral college votes from Biden to Trump.

Eastman is a former “visiting conservative scholar” at the University of Colorado who apparently played a significant role in efforts by Donald Trump supporters to get around that pesky democracy thing in order to keep The Big Orange guy in the White House. Eastman was also among the speakers at a rally outside the White House that preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Eastman also has important ties to Republican gubernatorial candidate Hiedi Heidi Ganahl from her time as a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents.