Former Trump attorney Eastman on Georgia indictment: ‘We did nothing wrong’

John Eastman, a onetime attorney to former President Trump, said he and his co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case “did nothing wrong” in an interview with Fox News that aired Tuesday evening. 

“We did nothing wrong. We were challenging the election for what even Vice President [Mike] Pence described as serious allegations of fraud and numerous instances of officials violating state law,” Eastman told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. “And if we can’t speak out about that, then our freedom of speech, our right to petition the government for redress of grievances are gone.”

Eastman and 18 others, including Trump, face a combined 41 charges in a sweeping racketeering case brought by Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis, alleging they sought to overturn the state’s election results to keep Trump in power. 

Trump’s former lawyer designed and helped push a legal strategy attempting to overturn the 2020 election, which used slates of fake electors in battleground states to swing the election’s outcome in Trump’s favor. Pence was also expected to toss out the real electors as part of the plan, which he ultimately declined to do. 

In the Fox News interview Tuesday, Eastman doubled down on his election fraud claims – claims which Ingraham pushed back against numerous times.

“I had lots of evidence of fraud,” Eastman said.

“I haven’t seen that evidence, and I’m always wanting to see everything…I’d love to see that evidence,” Ingraham said.

There is no evidence of far-reaching election fraud in the 2020 election. 

Eastman also questioned the basis for the state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act charges he and the other 18 defendants face, which Ingraham posited requires the defendants to have believed their election fraud claims were “phony” and still decided to go forward with overturning the election results.

“They’ve got all the evidence. They’ve got all my emails. My phone was seized over a year ago, so they’ve got all that stuff as well,” Eastman said. “And I challenge them to find a single email or communication that supports that implausible theory.”

The Trump lawyer claimed the indictment amounts to an effort to “stifle” people from receiving legal representation when raising challenges to election results. 

“They’ve made that very clear that that’s what they’re up to, and we can’t allow it to happen,” Eastman said. 

Eastman surrendered at the Fulton County jail last week over the nine counts he faces, ranging from conspiring to commit false statements and writings, and forgery, to the RICO charges. He was released on a $100,000 bond the same day. 

He is set to be arraigned next week, where he will formally hear the charges against him and enter a plea.