Although there are reports claiming special counsel Jack Smith is calling former President Donald Trump officials before a grand jury, former Trump election challenge lawyer John Eastman is not one of them.
Eastman's attorney, Charles Burnham, said his client is not a target for Smith's grand jury investigation of the 2020 presidential election challenge, and he added a shot at anti-Trump forces attempting to illegally sanction efforts to challenge the presidential Electoral College results.
"Our client has received no target letter, and we don't expect one," Burnham told Politico in a statement, "since raising concerns about illegality in the conduct of an election is not now and has never been sanctionable."
Eastman has been called the architect of a legal strategy to help Trump contest the 2020 presidential election. Among the legal theories posed by Eastman was a reported call for Vice President Mike Pence to kick the contested Electoral College votes back to the state legislatures to reconsider.
Pence was presiding over the Senate session in Congress to certify the Electoral College count, and he was adamant he could not follow through on sending the contested votes back to the state legislatures.
Anti-Trump forces, Democrats, and Biden backers feared Pence kicking the Electoral College votes back to the battleground state legislatures would keep Trump as president longer and delay Biden's rise to the White House.
They vehemently objected to it and wanted the election challenge to end before that could happen on Jan. 6, 2021.
But, then, a riot erupted outside the Capitol, which led to people storming the halls of Congress and the Senate chamber, delaying the proceeding that was just about to debate the Electoral College challenge, which was signed and brought forth by battleground state Republicans.
After the dust settled and lawmakers returned from the safety of their bunkers, the session reconvened and quickly ended the challenge under the fear of what Democrats and anti-Trump forces called a "violent insurrection."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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