Tag: John Eastman

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What the 12th Amendment Presumes

Greg Weiner

I want to amplify one point in George Thomas’ excellent essay about John Eastman’s attempt to subvert the constitutional will of the public in 2020. Eastman’s reading of the Twelfth Amendment as giving the Vice President wholesale authority over the counting of votes is constitutionally implausible. The only official duty of the Vice President is to open the ballots. The Twelfth Amendment says, in what one can only assume was a deliberately separate sentence, that the ballots “shall then be counted.” To believe the Vice President wields total authority over the counting, one must assume that the separate sentence is, … Continue reading What the 12th Amendment Presumes

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Claremont Plays the Victim Card

Greg Weiner

The Claremont Institute released a statement this morning defending John Eastman against charges that he tried to subvert the 2020 election by giving Vice President Pence a road map for impeding the Electoral College. It lodges two complaints. The first amounts to a claim that the media has misrepresented the precise manner in which Eastman advised Pence to subvert the voters’ constitutional will. This is like a player of the game Clue saying that Colonel Mustard was a good dinner guest because he actually committed the murder in the conservatory with the lead pipe rather than in the conservatory with … Continue reading Claremont Plays the Victim Card

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When Scholars Subvert Truth to Politics

Greg Weiner

A while back, I wrote about an accusation that my criticism of Trumpism was poor strategy, since it did not serve the conservative cause. Herewith, what happens when scholars subvert truth to politics: CNN has published John Eastman’s chilling memo outlining how then-Vice President Mike Pence could declare Donald Trump to be the choice of the Electoral College in 2020. Eastman was a law professor when he wrote it, though he resigned shortly afterward. There is a long tradition in Western thought of the scholar-statesman, from Cicero to, more recently, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It is an admirable tradition. Moreover, no … Continue reading When Scholars Subvert Truth to Politics