On the day before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021, Orange County law professor John Eastman was trying to convince Mike Pence’s attorney that the vice president possessed a power that none of his predecessors had ever exercised in American history.
Eastman was in Washington, D.C., in his capacity as a legal advisor to then-President Trump. He argued that Pence, as president of the Senate, could unilaterally reject electoral votes from seven contested states in which fraud was alleged, according to Gregory Jacob, who was Pence’s chief counsel at the time.
Jacob said the vice president had flatly dismissed the idea as unconstitutional. “From our very first discussion he indicated that it didn’t make sense to him that he would have that authority,” Jacob said, testifying remotely last week before the California Bar Court in Los Angeles at a trial to determine whether Eastman should keep his law license.
Even Eastman conceded that the Supreme Court would likely reject the theory unanimously, Jacob said. However, Eastman continued to argue that Pence had the power to delay the vote certification, which Jacob believed helped fuel the violence on Jan. 6. He said rioters were driven by the false notion that “a momentous decision” to determine the presidency lay in Pence’s hands that day.
“I’ve seen the video footage of them shouting ‘Hang Mike Pence,’ ” Jacob said. “The vice president was my boss.” He said the rioters “believed the vice president had authority to decide...
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