Trump attorney tried to justify potential violence over plot to overturn election, Jan 6 committee hears

‘’There’s been violence in the history of our country to protect the democracy or protect the republic’, Trump lawyer John Eastman allegedly said.

Former president Donald Trump’s lawyer attempted to justify violence that would ensue if the former president tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the select committee investigating the January 6 riot at the Capitol hear in testimony on Thursday.

The committee played video testimony from former Trump administration lawyer Eric Herschman describing his conversation with John C Eastman, who was trying to concoct a plan for then-vice president Mike Pence to overturn the election results during the certification of the Electoral College.

“You’re saying that you believe the vice president, acting as president of the Senate of the Senate can be the sole decision-maker as to, under your theory, who becomes the next president of the United States”, Mr Herschmann recalled saying, to which Mr Eastman said “yes.”

“I said, you’re completely crazy”, he said, asking if he was going to invalidate the votes of more than 78m people. “I said, ‘they’re not going to tolerate that.’ I said, ‘you’re going to cause riots in the streets.’”

In response, according to Mr Herschmann’s recollection, Mr Eastman sought to justify the violence.

“And he said words to the effect of, ‘There’s been violence in the history of our country to protect the democracy or protect the republic.”

The video testimony came on the third full day of hearings for the select committee, which focused primarily on attempts to pressure the former vice president to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The hearing is the last one of the week after the hearing on Wednesday was postponed.