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John Eastman Burned Down His Life For Trump, Gets Bounced Out Of MAGAville For His Troubles

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John Eastman is having a bad week. Another bad week in string of really, really terrible weeks.

He’s been getting his ass kicked in court by the January 6 Select Committee for months, with US District Judge David Carter forcing him to disclose hundreds of emails and even finding that the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege applied to his plot to overturn the election by ratf*cking the electoral vote certification. On Thursday, Eastman and his plot were the subject of a three-hour congressional hearing, and he featured prominently in this afternoon’s hearing as well. And now he’s getting disowned by the guy he threw away his comfortable, anonymous life for.

Rolling Stone reporters Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley report that, “in recent weeks, Trump has confided to those close to him that he sees no reason to publicly defend Eastman” and that he is “deeply annoyed with Eastman and all the negative ‘attention’ and media coverage that the lawyer’s work has brought Trump and his inner sanctum.”

In short, the president’s coup lawyer is getting demoted to coffee boy. What an unlikely and unpredictable outcome, said no one ever.

“It has been repeatedly communicated to the [former] president that he should not even bring up Johnny Eastman’s name because he is maybe the most radioactive person [involved in this] when it comes to…any so-called criminal exposure,” a source with direct knowledge of the matter says. “Johnny does not have many friends in [the upper crust of] Trumpworld left, and most people loyal to the [former] president are fine with him being left out on his own, to deal with whatever consequences he may or may not face.”

Safe bet that “pardon list” is no longer “in the works,” no matter what happens in 2024.

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John Eastman is hardly a sympathetic character. The conservative law professor has taken a lot of disgusting, indefensible positions, such as supporting Uganda’s anti-LGBTQ law which would put some homosexuals to death, and writing that filthy opinion piece in Newsweek saying Vice President Harris was ineligible by pretending away decades of precedent on birthright citizenship.

But he’s given up a lot for Donald Trump.

In 2020, Eastman was a law professor at Chapman University in California, and the “visiting professor of conservative thought and policy” at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado, Boulder, a gig for which he was compensated $185,000 in donor funds.

When his role in the coup plot came to light, the Chancellor in Colorado removed him from his public facing duties, penning an open letter saying Eastman had “embarrassed our institution” and “contributed nothing of value to support the ideals of either the Benson Center or CU Boulder.” Shortly thereafter, he was allowed to “retire” from Chapman, immediately and without fanfare.

He’s the subject of multiple bar complaints in California. He’s had to pay lawyers to represent him in federal lawsuits against the January 6 Select Committee in both DC and his home state. His emails with Ginni Thomas just became public. We’ve all seen the video of him pleading the Fifth eleventy-seven times in testimony before the committee. And not for nothing, but he’s become a household name and probably can’t jet around the country in anonymity anymore getting paid to tell conservatives that actually the law really does entitle them to hold onto power forever, despite the will of those pesky voters.

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So it has to sting a little bit that Trump has paid not one dime for Eastman’s defense, much less made a single public comment supporting his former lawyer, since the conclusion in Trumpland is reportedly that Eastman “might be going down. So be it, as long as he doesn’t take anyone else down with him.”

Well, you know what they say — lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. Plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills, a radioactive public persona, no cushy law prof gigs, and potentially disbarred.

Exclusive: Trump’s Team Setting Up Eastman to Take Blame for Jan. 6 [Rolling Stone]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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