They called it the “command center,” a set of rooms and suites in the posh Willard hotel a block from the White House where some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal lieutenants were working day and night with one goal in mind: overturning the results of the 2020 election.
The Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse and the ensuing attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob would draw the world’s attention to the quest to physically block Congress from affirming Joe Biden’s victory. But the activities at the Willard that week add to an emerging picture of a less visible effort, mapped out in memos by a conservative pro-Trump legal scholar and pursued by a team of presidential advisers and lawyers seeking to pull off what they claim was a legal strategy to reinstate Trump for a second term.
They were led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon was an occasional presence as the effort’s senior political adviser. Former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik was there as an investigator. Also present was John Eastman, the scholar, who outlined scenarios for denying Biden the presidency in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 4 with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
They sought to make the case to Pence and ramp up pressure on him to take actions on Jan. 6 that Eastman suggested were within his powers, three people familiar with the operation said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Their activities included finding and publicizing alleged evidence of fraud, urging members of state legislatures to challenge Biden’s victory and calling on the Trump-supporting public to press Republican officials in key states.
The effort underscores the extent to which Trump and a handful of true believers were working until the last possible moment to subvert the will of the voters, seeking to pressure Pence to delay or even block certification of the election, leveraging any possible constitutional loophole to test the boundaries of American democracy.
“I firmly believed then, as I believe now, that the vice president — as president of the Senate — had the constitutional power to send the issue back to the states for 10 days to investigate the widespread fraud and report back well in advance of Inauguration Day, January 20th,” one of those present, senior campaign aide and former White House special assistant Boris Epshteyn, told The Washington Post. “Our efforts were focused on conveying that message.”
In seeking to compel testimony from Bannon, the congressional panel investigating Jan. 6 this week cited his reported presence at the “ ‘war room’ organized at the Willard.” The House voted Thursday to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with the committee’s subpoena.
The committee has also requested documents and communications related to Eastman’s legal advice and analysis.
Eastman told The Post on Wednesday that he has not yet been contacted by the House select committee investigating the insurrection. Asked about his involvement in the Trump team’s operation at the Willard, Eastman said: “To the extent I was there, those were attorney discussions. You don’t get any comment from me on those.”
In May, Eastman indicated that he was at the hotel with Giuliani on the morning of Jan. 6. “We had a war room at the at the Willard . . . kind of coordinating all of the communications,” he told talk show host Peter Boyles, comments first reported in the newsletter Proof.
I’m pretty sure that he gave up any claims to attorney-client privilege when he gave a ridiculous interview to National Review this week:
Why is John Eastman still talking? Is Trump’s favorite coup-curious counsel under the impression that there is something he could say that would help? Because even if there was, this ain’t it.
“Call me the white-knight hero here, talking [Trump] down from the more aggressive position,” Eastman told the National Review’s John McCormack in a spectacular train wreck of an interview that ran this morning under the headline “John Eastman vs. the Eastman Memo.”
Suffice it to say, no one will be calling John Eastman a “hero” after watching him try to claim that he meant something other than exactly what he said in those two infamous memos where he argued that the Vice President has the sole authority to reject duly certified electoral college votes. And not just in the memos — the man stood next to Rudy Giuliani onstage at the January 6 rally and blessed their braying for Mike Pence to prevent Biden’s certification.
“All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at one o’clock he let the legislatures of the states look into this so that we get to the bottom of it and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not!” he shouted, before the crowd moved toward the Capitol to make sure that his demand was carried out.
And yet, in his discussions with McCormack, Eastman insists that these were just “internal discussion memos for the legal team,” prepared at the request of “somebody in the legal team” whose name Eastman can’t now recall, because he’s such a busy guy, yaknow.
“I was asked to kind of outline how each of those scenarios would work and then orally present my views on whether I thought they were valid or not, so that’s what those memos did,” he said.
In fact, that is not “what those memos did.” Those memos mapped out multiple strategies whereby “VP Pence opens the ballots, determines on his own which is valid, asserting that the authority to make that determination under the 12th Amendment, and the Adams and Jefferson precedents, is his alone (anything in the Electoral Count Act to the contrary is therefore unconstitutional).” Eastman had three ways to make the math work to get Biden under the magical 270 electoral vote threshold and throw the vote to the House, where Republicans could ratf*ck it.
Pence was supposed to brazen it out — “The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court.” — and hope that Republican legislators would play along with him.
“IF the Republicans in the State Delegations stand firm, the vote there is 26 states for Trump, 23 for Biden, and 1 split vote,” he wrote in the longer memo. But in the interview with McCormack, Eastman downplayed the idea as mere speculation, because Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney would never have gone along with it.
“So anybody who thinks that that’s a viable strategy is crazy,” he scoffed, ignoring the fact that he himself is the one who proposed it and apparently Trump’s people took it seriously enough to pass him along to Sen. Mike Lee.
Hilariously, Eastman first claimed that he “never had any dealings” with the Utah Republican. But when McCormack pointed out that Robert Costa and Bob Woodward had reported extensively in their book Peril on Lee’s rejection of Eastman’s scribblings — “You might as well make your case to Queen Elizabeth II. Congress can’t do this. You’re wasting your time.” — the attorney made a miraculous recovery from his amnesiac episode.
“I want to be very precise here: I said at the time I did not recall having any conversations with Mike Lee, and I certainly don’t have any record of having given him the memo,” he told McCormack. “But now that I’ve seen that quote from — I do recall that Mike Lee called me at one point. I don’t remember the subject of the conversation.”
Once the White House finally grokked that Pence wasn’t going to unilaterally toss out electoral votes on Eastman’s theory that “we’re no longer playing by Queensbury Rules,” they switched to a strategy of getting him to adjourn congress and toss the issue back to swing state legislatures for “a comprehensive audit/investigation of the election returns in their states.”
As with the plot to allow House Republicans to overturn the election, Eastman defends himself by pointing it his own incompetence, noting that “even if you had that authority, it would be foolish to exercise it in the absence of state legislatures having certified the alternate slate of electors.” It’s not a coup plot if it’s patently unworkable, right?
Except, ROLL TAPE:
Because of these illegal actions by state and local election officials (and, in some cases, judicial officials, the Trump electors in the above 6 states (plus in New Mexico) met on December 14, cast their electoral votes, and transmitted those votes to the President of the Senate (Vice President Pence). There are thus dual slates of electors from 7 states.
Eastman closed out this shitshow debacle by assuring McCormack that he’d never dream of suggesting that the Vice President has such godlike powers and that he’d give the same to Vice President Kamala Harris if she came knocking. Which is mighty … nice coming from a guy who wrote an article suggesting that Harris wasn’t even eligible to run for president because her parents were both immigrants and thus she’s not a “real” American.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was some extremely weak shit. It was ridiculous when the Claremont Institute tried to ride to Eastman’s rescue last week, and it’s even more pathetic now with Eastman puckered up and staring into the mirror trying to put lipstick on this pig himself.
In case you’ve forgotten, he made the case for his coup plot at the rally on January 6th:
And…
thread on Willard from “Peril”
After Pence leaves Oval on Jan. 5, Trump is furious. Pence isn’t breaking. He opens the door near the Resolute Desk. “A rush of cold air blasted the room.” He can hear the mob in the streets outside the Willard. He’s elated to hear them. (p. 230)
“As staffers filed in, some began to shiver. Still, Trump did not close the door… The noise outside grewe louder, almost like a party.
‘Isn’t that great?’ Trump exclaimed. ‘Tomorrow is going to be a big day.'” (p. 231)
“Trump went around the room, asking for advice about congressional Republicans. ‘How do we get them to do the right thing?’ he asked. No one offered an answer that satisfied him.”
Trump then calls Senator Cruz. You need to object to all the states that could be raised by the House, Trump said. Cruz says his group will object to Arizona and focus on calling for his proposed commission to probe the election. Trump is unhappy, wants more to be done. (p. 232)
With his back to the wall and Pence not budging, and Senate Rs holding to doing their own thing, Trump decides to turn to the Willard group for backup, for more aggression. He knows the mob is outside. He knows Bannon, Giuliani, Boris, Eastman, etc. are over there. (p. 232-233)
“People in the streets were yelling, delighted and almost euphoric about Trump possibly taking back the election on Wednesday. They waited to see Giuliani and other Trump stars emerge from the Willard. They nodded warmly at others in red hats, a movement in total solidarity.”
Trump decides to act, with help from Willard war room. Push Pence to brink.
“Late Tuesday evening… Trump directed his campaign to issue a statement claiming that he and Pence were in ‘total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act.’ [Marc] Short was stunned.”
“This breaks protocol,” Short said tersely.
[Jason] Miller refused to retract a word.
“The vice president has the ability to do this, he needs to be loyal,” Miller said.
Trump soon called Giuliani, and then called Steve Bannon, who was also at the Willard. (p. 234)
With Bannon, Trump brought up his meeting with Pence. There had been a power shift. “He was very arrogant,” Trump said. “Very arrogant,” Trump repeated. To Bannon and others, Trump’s four words were sobering. Pence was not going to break.
But Trump, Willard crew kept pushing…
Giuliani wonders if he should go see Pence at the Naval Observatory. A 1-on-1. Make it happen. Old school, Trump lawyer to VP. For Pence advisers, the suggestion “felt straight out of a bad mafia movie.” (p. 233)
Based on our reporting, the Willard scene on Jan. 5, 2021 and into early hours of Jan. 6, 2021 is the culmination of a pressure campaign to prevent Biden from taking office. They first tried (and failed) in the courts. Then they pushed Eastman memo/argument to VP. Relentless.
By the time Trump takes the stage on Jan. 6, he has pulled every possible lever of power to try to stay in power. Courts via Rudy. VP via Eastman. Lawmakers. DOJ. Now, all that is left to stoke, the last lever, is the sprawling crowd before him.
Originally tweeted by Robert Costa (@costareports) on October 23, 2021.