Former CU visiting professor John Eastman, CU Regent/GOP gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl.
A new disclosure in the ongoing scandal surrounding the University of Colorado’s former visiting conservative scholar John Eastman, who is under investigation by the House Select Committee looking into the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, as reported today by the Denver Post’s Elizabeth Hernandez:
John Eastman, a lawyer who represented Donald Trump following the president’s 2020 election loss, used his University of Colorado email account while serving as a visiting professor in Boulder to advise a Pennsylvania lawmaker on how to challenge that state’s electors, according to records submitted to Congress…
Eastman, CU Boulder’s visiting professor of conservative thought and policy during the 2020-2021 academic year, has come under increasing scrutiny for his role in advising Trump on how to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. A federal judge in California ruled in March that Trump and Eastman likely committed crimes in their efforts to overturn the election.
In addition to demonstrating how Eastman advised Pennsylvania state Rep. Russ Diamond on challenging that state’s results, the emails show CU Boulder reimbursed Eastman for around $500 for a trip he took to Philadelphia shortly after the November 2020 election to participate in an academic conference put on by his department, the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization.
Where crucially,
It was during that visit to Philadelphia that Eastman’s role in advising Trump on how to remain in office began, The New York Times reported last year.
That Eastman was on the University of Colorado’s payroll while he advised ex-President Donald Trump on strategies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election is not new information, but the use of CU email and reimbursement for the trip to Philadelphia during which Eastman became a central figure in the 2020 coup plot is news to us. The disclosure of these communications directly related to the plot through CU’s email system, apparently unknown to the Select Committee investigating January 6th, certainly does warrant additional investigation by the CU Board of Regents.
And once again, the CU Regent who volunteered to field all the questions about Eastman’s relationship with the university, Hiedi Heidi Ganahl, needs to start answering some. How did Ganahl volunteer to own John Eastman, you ask? It started with her effusive praise for Eastman, which came even after he was condemned nationwide for an op-ed suggesting Kamala Harris didn’t have the citizenship qualifications to serve as vice president. Ganahl then closed the deal on ownership of Eastman by running for governor.
With every new John Eastman headline, Heidi Ganahl’s silence gets louder.
The Bruce D. Benson Center for the S
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This is a good time to remind everyone to send a little love to Whiskey Lima Juliet. I’d pay a lot to see her go toe-to-toe with Eastman.
Oh my goodness! Oh please, yes, please! I would also love this. I have questions.
Whiskey lady is great but Eastman is no longer at CU.
But there's still some clean-up to complete on aisle 7 – another way of saying we need to ensure that an embarrassment like Eastman never again happens at CU.
I disagree. Part of being a great university is fostering a wide diversity of thought. Sometimes that results in a Ward Churchill or an Eastman. So what? Would you prefer Heidi Ganahl and Krysten Sinema marked the boundaries of acceptable thought?
John Eastman used the resources of a publicly funded university to promote and in an attempted coup of the United States of America. C.U. either did not know about this or tried to bury it. Neither is acceptable.
It's not really news that Eastman was abusing various universities' email systems, either. That is, after all, at the center of the lawsuit filed by the Jan. 6th Committee; Eastman also misused his Chapman University email to run his Big Lie scheme.
We didn't know for sure that Eastman was working for Trump on CU's dime until now, though.
It lends credibility to the effort to get rid of the bogus and embarrassing "Conservative Scholar" program through Cu's Benson Center. Eastman's replacement at CU has an opus out: "Why Steve Bannon is not a Fascist". MMkay.
Bannon is not a fascist because he’s too far right to be a fascist.
Must be a libertarian, then.
I had Heinrich Himmler more in mind as Steve Bannon’s beau ideal, Parkie.
Point is: CU's current "Conservative Scholar" thinks Bannon is awesome.
Court opinion on Eastman's use of Chapman University email is that there was no abuse — hence no automatic turnover of the entire email trove, as Chapman indicated they would be willing to do.
It was one of the many rules drafted badly enough and then used / enforced in a manner that allows for a "what we REALLY mean is" different.
Had the court ruled differently … one consequence would have been that ALL of the law school's legal clinic correspondence would have become unprotected.