Jan. 6 committee recommends 2 criminal charges against attorney with North Texas roots
The House Jan. 6 committee recommended Monday that the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against an attorney from North Texas who devised a plan to keep Donald Trump in power.
In addition to the charges it urged against Trump, the committee’s seven Democrats and two Republicans recommended lawyer John Eastman for prosecution on conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstructing an official proceeding. The committee recommended those same charges against Trump plus conspiracy to make a false statement and aiding an insurrection.
The committee says Eastman was the architect of the plan to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the electoral votes on Jan. 6.
The Justice Department will decide whether to prosecute those involved in the insurrection.
Eastman graduated from Lewisville High School in 1978 and received an undergraduate degree from the University of Dallas in 1982.
Eastman earned a law degree from the University of Chicago before clerking for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Judge J. Michael Luttig and for Justice Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court. For much of the past 25 years, however, he has worked as as constitutional law professor and dean at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif. He founded the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank.
This report contains information from The Associated Press and Star-Telegram archives.
