John Eastman California State Bar Trial Summary Tues 09/12

On Tuesday, John Eastman continued his California State Bar trial regarding the traitorous electoral scheme he devised and still defends to overthrow the 2020 Presidential Election.

First on the agenda for Judge Roland was to confirm John Yoo on the day’s remote witness schedule. She also spoke about a ruling she had made on a motion about Yoo’s assertion that Pence could refuse electoral counts before a Joint Session of Congress. That is, Judge Roland ruled that Yoo could not testify to say “frivolous” when relating to expert witness Dr Seligman’s written work in opposition of his view on the subject. He had apparently done that in his critique on Seligman elsewhere, but I didn’t get the details on where.

Also, Judge Roland directed Miller to not take valued and limited court time on things already reviewed. Miller responded with a yeah but to clarify his questioning will probe into historical and legal statements made by Eastman. He assured that Yoo would not use “frivolous” or “nonfrivolous” in his testimony.

Calendar setting time was attempted but couldn’t be complete because Miller was not available on the judge’s proposed dates.

John Yoo was sworn in and testified as an expert 12^th Amendment witness in the Eastman dispute. He spoke about his educational background including a clerkship for Justice Clarence Thomas from 1992-93 <<insert surprise, surprise>>  while working on constitutional law issues. Yoo currently teaches at UC Berkeley, focusing his instruction on separation of powers and foreign policy. For anyone not aware, UC Berkeley is one of the most liberal colleges in the states. In part imv, Yoo’s teaching there blows a hole in the theory from conservatives that liberal campuses teach only to the liberal agenda.

On inquiry from Judge Roland, Yoo disclosed a seminar he gave on the US founding period. He described it as an introduction to originalism, a legal philosophy that holds the words in documents, especially the U.S. Constitution, should be interpreted as they were understood at the time they were written.

Yoo testified through what I thought to be a detailed outline of his life’s work. Papers he’s written about the Electoral College, history he’s read, Supreme and lower court decisions  he’s reviewed and 3 books he’s authored  about the workings of originalist philosophy. Two other points of interest to me were that he had worked for Jeb Bush and wrote on issues in the 2020 election because he saw it as similar to the Bush/Gore decision.

Yoo shared that Eastman had reached out to him to do research for his California State Bar case. Yoo testified that at the time of Eastman’s call, he was working on law articles relating to Eastman’s issues in this case and that the articles he had written and shared with Eastman was the only research he provided.

Miller began to ask about expert witness Dr Matthew Seligman, whose current  work on election law focuses on disputed presidential elections. He had testified earlier in the trial. Judge Roland called for a break to clear up the earlier in pre-trial lawyer stuff where Yoo’s testimony was to be restricted as an expert witness exclusively on the 12^th Amendment.

For context, in a Working Paper Seligman is authoring titled, The Vice President’s Non-Existent Unilateral Power to Reject Electoral Votes, he explains Eastman’s errors in his belief which claimed that Pence had unilateral authority to reject electoral votes when Congress convened on Jan 6^th. Seligman makes clear that he is not aligned with Eastman’s constitutional interpretation in any regard.

When back on the record, it was noted that the issue would be ruled on after Judge Roland read the applicable transcript.

Miller’s line of questioning moved on to highlight Yoo’s originalist approach in constitutional law in a hypothetical dispute of two sets of electors and also clarified when Yoo became familiar with Seligman’s work, which he said was when he had read a Wa Post article that mentioned a paper Seligman had written.

A series of scholarly research Yoo had read regarding the 12^th Amendment were pondered and entered into evidence. In his comments about the readings, Yoo referred to the Electoral College Act (ECA) as ambiguous to which Judge Roland clarified with him that no court had ruled the ECA unconstitutional. Apparently,  per Yoo, many people say the Electoral Count Act is ambiguous regarding the 12^th Amendment. It’s currently a nothing burger in the courts, though.

A stream of objections being sustained to Miller’s attempted work-around of the court ruling on issues not connected to the 12^th Amendment persisted, with Miller finally being admonished by Judge Roland’s reference, with her linking Yoo’s deposition to her ruling. Final answer, denied.

Additional exhibit deep diving continued and was linked to the Yoo’s view of Pence’s role in the 2020 Presidential Election. Yoo spoke about his research capturing the original framers of the ECA. He made clear in testimony the different views held by constitutional scholars.

To take his point home in defense of Eastman, Miller broached the possibility of reasonable minds differing on views regarding the VP authority in the opening and counting of electoral votes. Miller tried to inject Yoo’s opinion as to precedence and legal scholarship mirroring Eastman’s legal analysis, but Judge Roland quickly shot it down as too broad. Narrow the scope or move on, she instructed Miller. He tried, I’ll give him that.

The remainder of Yoo’s testimony was, to me, a much muddled expose’ of ECA and all it entails according to originalist theory. Included in the mix was an American Minds publication of Yoo’s op-ed article espousing that same philosophy.

Judge Roland insisted testimony not be received from a draft of a report instead of the final report. Testimony had shown a marked difference in script and footnotes between the two.  Miller had not secured the final copy, despite the fact noted by Judge Roland that he had had ample time to do so. Apparently, she recommends the expedited delivery, asap even. Yoo will come back as a witness on Friday at which time Miller stated he will have the final report available to access for use in testimony.

In closing for the day, Judge Roland reviewed Miller’s witness list and asked for a copy for the court. There are up to 18 character witnesses on the list, but most will offer a written declaration statement and three will testify live. Dates to wrap up the trial were requested by the judge. The State Bar is available on all dates proposed by Judge Roland, but Miller made known his schedule conflicts with most. This is a point already discussed previously and he had not attended to on his calendar, again. Judge Roland wanted him to call his staff right then and there to clear the needed time he’s asked to be added to the court calendar. Miller said his staff wasn’t in the office, as court had run late but he would rearrange and present dates the next day. Judge Roland’s irritation was apparent as she gave stern notice to Miller to present clear dates of availiblity in the morning, she called to go off the record. I imagine that will be Judge Roland’s first order of business when court resumes in the AM on Wednesday.

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