{"id":1544402,"date":"2022-07-08T11:34:13","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T15:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1544402"},"modified":"2022-07-08T11:34:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T15:34:19","slug":"key-figure-in-jan-6-events-backs-claims-that-cheney-january-6-committee-are-lying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/key-figure-in-jan-6-events-backs-claims-that-cheney-january-6-committee-are-lying\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Figure in Jan. 6 Events Backs Claims That Cheney, January 6 Committee Are Lying"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fkey-figure-in-jan-6-events-backs-claims-that-cheney-january-6-committee-are-lying%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1544402&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A key lawyer for President Donald <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-trump\">Trump<\/a> who helped draft memos that sought to investigate claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election told The Epoch Times that he backs the charges by a recent committee witness that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-january-6\">January 6<\/a> committee lied to the American people.<\/p>\n<p>Witness and\u00a0former Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Ken Klukowski, who testified before the committee last week,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/27\/exclusive-former-white-house-staffer-confirms-jan-6-committee-lied-about-doj-attorney\/\">said<\/a>\u00a0in a statement provided to The Federalist over the July 4 weekend, \u201cThe January 6 Committee falsely accused me on Thursday of being a go-between in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. That accusation is false both in its broad outlines and its details.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, former Trump lawyer John Eastman said he supports Klukowski\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n<p>Trump critic and\u00a0committee member Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-liz-cheney\">Liz Cheney<\/a> (R-Wy.)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2022\/06\/23\/jan-6-committee-connects-two-strands-trumps-effort-retain-power\/\">said<\/a> that the testimony only shows that\u00a0Klukowski was appointed to his DOJ position under the influence of Eastman\u2014a claim that both deny.<\/p>\n<h2>Cheney\u2019s Claims<\/h2>\n<p>Cheney claimed that together, they proposed to \u201coverturn the election\u201d\u2014failing to mention this was only possible if they could prove any significant allegations of elections fraud\u2014with the cooperation of Jeff Clark, a former assistant attorney general at the DOJ.<\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s true that Clark drafted a letter that his bosses felt was inappropriate for the DOJ to present to the states over the election, according to the testimony presented in The <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/27\/exclusive-former-white-house-staffer-confirms-jan-6-committee-lied-about-doj-attorney\/\">Federalist<\/a>, the connection between Clark, Eastman, and Klukowski to that letter is tenuous, according to Klukowski\u2019s statement in the Federalist and Eastman\u2019s account of his relationship with Klukowski.<\/p>\n<p>According to Eastman, while Klukowski had worked with him on a memo that asked the state of Pennsylvania to grant the Trump campaign time to investigate claims of election fraud, he was also in quarantine for three weeks after catching COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt some point, Ken stopped working on this stuff because he had a government job and got appointed [to the DOJ position],\u201d Eastman told The Epoch Times of their collaboration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe notion that I somehow placed him in the Department of Justice is just laughable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Klukowski explained in his statement to the\u00a0Federalist that he provided to the committee the September 2020 date he requested the transfer from the Office of Management and Budget to the DOJ.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI also suggested the committee review our email exchanges confirming my testimony, since they clearly had access to that information,\u201d Klukowski said.<\/p>\n<p>A former White House staffer who coordinated DOJ appointments previously confirmed to the Federalist that the Klukowski move to the DOJ had started months before any calls to independently investigate allegations of election fraud and had nothing to do with the election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKen\u2019s transfer had nothing to do with the election,\u201d said White House staffing coordinator Andrew Kloster.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Dishonest\u2019 Narrative<\/h2>\n<p>The statement is part of a \u201cdishonest \u2026 narrative that there was no basis for [these memos calling for independent investigations that we wrote] and that therefore, we knew what we were doing was illegal,\u201d Eastman told The Epoch Times. \u201cThat\u2019s just false.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eastman said that the committee is specifically lying in three different ways to advance the notion that what they did was illegal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery time they use the word \u2018baseless\u2019 as describing our allegations of illegality and or fraud, that\u2019s a lie,\u201d Eastman said.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, even before the election was held, some media outlets were claiming that any allegations of voter fraud were \u201cbaseless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An NPR news story published nearly a month before Election Day <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2020\/10\/10\/922673818\/judge-blocks-trump-campaign-attempt-to-limit-use-of-drop-boxes-in-pennsylvania\">claimed<\/a>, \u201cIn reality, voter fraud is extremely rare, though President Trump has repeated baseless claims about it being widespread.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Eastman said that his legal argument to allow states to send alternate electors if voter fraud is proven isn\u2019t novel, nor is his argument that there is ambiguity on the question of whether the vice president may delay the appointment of electors.<\/p>\n<p>The idea that the vice president had the authority to nullify state electors had been out there \u201cfor decades, including by a lot of leftist professors, after the Bush versus Gore campaign,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Eastman pointed to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2020\/09\/trump-biden-electoral-count-act-1887\/615994\/\">article<\/a> in The Atlantic in September 2020 where legal scholars, including a group convened by UC Irvine, made the point that there is still a lot of legal ambiguity surrounding the vice president\u2019s authority over accepting electors.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, The Atlantic seemed to be worried that Vice President Pence could use his authority to slow down the counting of the electoral vote.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, what the Trump campaign was trying to do was gain time for there to be a legitimate investigation of the vote totals in places like Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, Eastman said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were seeking to have an investigation to see if the illegality affected the outcome of the election,\u201d Eastman told The Epoch Times, stressing that there was no intention to illegally keep Trump in office.<\/p>\n<p>Eastman also rejected the notion he said has been put forth by the January 6 committee that he ever asked Vice President Michael Pence to reject the electors outright and just declare Trump president.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d he told The Epoch Times. \u201cThere are numerous examples of me saying exactly the opposite. There were others that urged that that be the outcome, but it wasn\u2019t me.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Presidential Pardon<\/h2>\n<p>The media has used Eastman\u2019s request for a presidential pardon as an admission of guilt, saying that he knew his legal representation of Trump was advancing a crime. He said that such logic is a fallacy.<\/p>\n<p>Eastman said he only sought to be on a potential presidential pardon list after Jan. 6, 2021, because of commentary that his speech had been an incitement for the crowd to riot.<\/p>\n<p>On that day, Eastman appeared at the Trump rally and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?c4933578\/user-clip-rudy-giuliani-professor-john-eastman\">told<\/a> the crowd that they should demand Vice President Pence delay the acceptance of electors and investigate claims of election fraud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1 o\u2019clock, he let the legislatures of the state look into this [allegations of fraud] so that we get to the bottom of it, and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government,\u201d he said in his speech.<\/p>\n<p>When jokingly approached initially by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani about appearing on a pardon list, Eastman at first refused.<\/p>\n<p>But then, after \u201cfive days of lies that my short, 3-minute speech had incited the violence,\u201d and that Jan. 6 was an \u201cinsurrection,\u201d he understood that whatever played out in the investigation wouldn\u2019t be controlled by legalities, but politics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was explicitly tied to the lies about my speech, and had absolutely nothing to do with my legal representation of President Trump or the efforts regarding state legislative authority,\u201d he said of the potential presidential pardon.<\/p>\n<p>The Epoch Times has reached out to Trump, Giuliani, Cheney, the January 6 committee,\u00a0Clark, and Klukowski for comment.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-john-ransom\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/05\/04\/WEB_JohnRansom.jpg\" alt=\"John Ransom\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>John Ransom is a freelance reporter covering U.S. news for The Epoch Times with offices in Washington, D.C., and Asia.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A key lawyer for President Donald Trump who helped draft memos that sought to investigate claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election told The Epoch Times that he<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1544402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1544402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1544402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1544402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1544402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}