‘Certifiably Crazy’: White House Lawyer Tells of Pence’s Reaction to Eastman Trying to Overturn Election AFTER the Capitol Riot
Greg Jacob, the top White House lawyer for Vice President Mike Pence, explained on Tuesday that John Eastman implored the vice president to delay certification of the 2020 election even after the Capitol riot ended.
The evidence was presented at a hearing of the Jan. 6 committee on Thursday, where Jacob testified.
Eastman, a layer for then-President Donald Trump, argued that as the officer presiding over the certification on Jan. 6, 2021, Pence could refuse to certify the results of certain states that Trump lost. Trump ran with the theory, telling rally-goers that morning that Pence wasn’t obligated to certify the election results.
During the Capitol riot, Jacob emailed Eastman and blamed him for the “siege.” Eastman replied by saying the riot was actually Pence’s fault.
After the riot had been quelled and certification resumed, Eastman emailed Jacob again to “implore” Pence not to carry out his constitutional duty and certify the election.
“So, now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations,” Eastman wrote in an email presented at Thursday’s hearing.
Jacob stated that “a day or two” after certification, he shared Eastman’s proposal with Pence.
Jan 6. committee attorney John Wood inquired about Pence’s reaction:
WOOD: And what was Vice President Pence’s reaction when you showed him the email, where Dr. Eastman – after the attack on the Capitol – still asked that the vice president delay certification and send it back to the states?
JACOB: He said, “That’s rubber room stuff.”
WOOD: I’m sorry. He said it’s “rubber room stuff”?
JACOB: Yes, congressman [sic].
WOOD: What did you interpret that to mean?
JACOB: I understood it to mean that after having seen play out what happens when you convince people that there is a decision to be made in the Capitol – legitimately – about who is to be the president and the consequences of that, that he was still pushing us to do what he had been asking us to do for the previous two days, that that was certifiably crazy.
“Rubber room” is synonymous with terms such as “padded cell” and “loony bin.”
Watch above via CNN.
