Jan. 6 Hearing Reveals Stunning Email Eastman Sent Giuliani Asking for a Presidential Pardon

Sarah RumpfJun 16th, 2022, 4:18 pm
 

The third day of January 6 hearings included a stunning revelation that lawyer John Eastman emailed Rudy Giuliani to request a pardon from then-President Donald Trump.

Eastman was the infamous author of a memo detailing a strategy that he advised Trump to pursue in order to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which would entail having Vice President Mike Pence refuse to accept the Electoral College votes from the states.

As the hearings have established so far, multiple aides to both Trump and Pence informed the president that this would be unconstitutional. One of Pence’s legal advisers, Greg Jacobs, testified Thursday that Eastman admitted privately that he knew his plan had profound legal flaws and would likely “lose 9-0” if it was brought before the Supreme Court.

The House Select Committee played a clip of the testimony from White House attorney Eric Herschmann describing a call with Eastman, in which Herschmann sternly warned him to abandon this strategy to block the Electoral College certification.

“I said to him, are you out of your effing mind,” Hershmann said he told Eastman:

I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on. Orderly transition. I don’t want to hear any other effing words coming out of your mouth no matter what. Orderly transition. Repeat those words to me. Eventually he said orderly transition. Said, good, John, now I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’ll ever get. Get a great offing criminal defense lawyer. You’re going to need it. And I hung up on him.

Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), the committee member then leading the hearing, brought up an email from Eastman to Giuliani, in which Eastman “requested he be included on a list of recipients of a presidential pardon. His e-mail states, quote, ‘I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list if that is still in the works.'”

Eastman did not receive a pardon from Trump, Aguilar noted, and asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege 100 times when he was deposed by the committee.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

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Sarah Rumpf - Contributing Editor

Sarah Rumpf joined Mediaite in 2020 and is a Contributing Editor focusing on politics, law, and the media. A native Floridian, Sarah attended the University of Florida, graduating with a double major in Political Science and German, and earned her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the UF College of Law. Sarah's writing has been featured at National Review, The Daily Beast, Reason, Law&Crime, Independent Journal Review, Texas Monthly, The Capitolist, Breitbart Texas, Townhall, RedState, The Orlando Sentinel, and the Austin-American Statesman, and her political commentary has led to appearances on television, radio, and podcast programs across the globe. Follow Sarah on Threads, Twitter, and Bluesky.