Posts about John Eastman

CU Boulder’s New Right-Wing Professor Praises Chancellor

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  by: Erik Maulbetsch September 15, 2023 at 12:13 PM MDT

(“Conservative affirmative action” tries to live down John Eastman — Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Prof. Todd Zywicki teaches Conservative Thought & Policy at CU Boulder’s Benson Center, a position previously held by John Eastman.

Last month law professor Todd Zywicki spoke at the Steamboat Institute’s Freedom Conference, an annual gathering of conservative pundits and professionals that has veered further right in recent years. David O. Williams previewed the event for the Colorado Times Recorder.

Before launching into his speech criticizing America’s higher education system as overly woke, Zywicki listed two universities for which his critiques did not apply, both of which pay him. The first is George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School where he typically teaches. The other, CU Boulder, is where he is currently employed by the Benson Center as its Visiting Professor of Conservative Thought & Policy, a position best known for previously being held by indicted Trump attorney John Eastman, aka “co-conspirator #2.”

“I only can talk about for 20 minutes and in that time I’m going to diagnose and solve all the problems of higher education,” said Zywicki. “So I’m going to oversimplify and paint with a broad brush to point out the general trajectories. I want to specifically make two exceptions: first my home institution: the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason. I’ve dedicated my career to them because they don’t fit a lot of the trends that I’m going to talk about here. “I also want to talk about the reception up at CU, how gracious that has been, in particular the support that the chancellor of the university has shown for the Benson Center, and his enthusiasm for when I met with him.”

 

 On July 11, just a month after taking the Benson Center job, Zywicki defended Eastman’s “alternate elector” plan for Georgia as “reasonable, proper and lawful” in an “expert declaration” that lawyers presented to prosecutor Fani Willis on behalf of one such Georgia “elector” and co-conspirator, David Shafer.

The day after the Jan. 6 insurrection, which began in part with Eastman’s speech to the crowd, CU Chancellor Phil DiStefano decried Eastman’s involvement and values, but declined to fire him.

“[Eastman’s] continued advocacy of conspiracy theories is repugnant, and he will bear the shame of his role in undermining confidence in the rule of law,” DiStefano wrote. “He has embarrassed our institution. CU Boulder is committed to the free exchange of ideas and the pursuit of knowledge, and Professor Eastman has contributed nothing of value to support the ideals of either the Benson Center or CU Boulder.”

(more…)

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Election Deniers Are Top Donors to Jenna Ellis After She Says Trump Isn’t Paying Her Legal Bills

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  by: Erik Maulbetsch August 23, 2023 at 10:17 AM MDT

(Throwing crazy money after bad — Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Ex-Trump attorney turned far-right radio host Jenna Ellis has raised over $100,000 for her legal defense. Her top donors include fellow election-denying talk show hosts as well as other MAGA Republicans.

Charged with two counts of criminal conspiracy related to attempting to overturn the 2020 election, Ellis is facing a hefty legal bill. She’s publicly lamenting the fact that former President Trump won’t cover her defense costs. From Mar-A-Lago’s perspective, however, Ellis committed two other transgressions that justify cutting her off: she formally admitted to lying about election fraud, and she endorsed Ron DeSantis.

Without access to Trump’s cash, Ellis, who still serves as an advisory fellow at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute despite moving to Florida earlier this year, has turned to GiveSendGo, a far-right Christian crowdfunding site favored by white nationalists and violent extremists. She needs the money to pay her own attorney, Michael Melito, a former organized crime prosecutor who touts his experience with “racketeering and the criminal law,” which should come in handy. Dinesh D’Souza tops Ellis’ list with a $10,000 gift to his fellow election denier earlier today. Best known for producing the debunked election fraud conspiracy film 2000 Mules, D’Souza served eight months in a halfway house and spent five years on probation following his felony conviction for campaign finance fraud. He was later pardoned by Trump. D’Souza also produced conservative history cartoons on the founding fathers for Prager U, which were funded in part by another Colorado figure, former state senate candidate Tim Walsh.

Another Prager U figure donated today as well, Jeremy Boreing who also co-founded the Daily Wire with Ben Shapiro, gave $1,000 while praising Ellis on Twitter. Boreing prefers to parse his election skepticism, while nevertheless casting doubt on the legitimacy of the American electoral process. He doesn’t say it was stolen, but rather “rigged by the legacy media for Democrats,” via “absentee ballots, vote-by-mail criteria, third-party vote harvesting, vote technology” and other potentially underhanded but perhaps legal means. Following the 2020 election, fact-checkers debunked Daily Wire election fraud stories that similarly cast doubt on the results.

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Trump Coup Plotter Boris Epshteyn Advising Ganahl Campaign

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  by: Erik Maulbetsch July 6, 2022 at 9:59 AM MDT

(Ganahl’s true colors are red, white, and coup — Promoted by Colorado Pols)

The day after her primary win, Colorado Republican gubernatorial nominee Heidi Ganahl gave an interview to Steve Bannon in which she credited her closer-than-expected victory to her “great team, including Boris and Brad,” referring to Boris Epshteyn and Brad Parscale. All three men at one time advised former President Trump. Bannon and Parscale ran his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, respectively. Epshteyn worked in the White House and on the campaigns, including as a legal advisor to the group, which also included Bannon, that worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“We got through! We just worked our tails off for the last three weeks since we knew what they were doing,” said Ganahl. “I’ve got a great team –lots of folks helping us out, including Boris and Brad. It’s been quite an experience. It’s sharpened our toolset. We are ready to go to take on Jared Polis and beat him in just four months.”

Epshteyn, Parscale, and Bannon have all been subpoenaed by the January 6 Select Committee. The Committee accuses both Epshteyn and Bannon of planning the insurrection on behalf of former President Trump. Bannon is facing criminal contempt charges for his refusal to comply with the subpoena. His trial is set to begin later this month, following yet another ruling against him by the Trump-appointed judge. Epshteyn has publicly admitted to helping the Trump campaign attempt to create slates of “alternate electors,” to override the voters in several swing states. The committee summarized Epshteyn’s role upon announcing his subpoena:

“Boris Epshteyn reportedly attended meetings at the Willard Hotel in the days leading up to January 6th and had a call with former President Trump on the morning of January 6th to discuss options to delay the certification of election results in the event of Vice President Pence’s unwillingness to deny or delay the certification.” House Select Committee press release, Jan 18, 2022

Ganahl campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn

In its letter to Epshteyn the committee cites “credible evidence that you publicly promoted claims that the 2020 election was stolen and participated in attempts to disrupt or delay the certification of the election results based on your allegations.”

As reported by Politico- “In the filing, authored by House counsel Doug Letter, the select committee pointed to emails between Eastman and prominent figures in Trump’s orbit — Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, Boris Epshteyn and others — as they strategized to keep Trump in office.”

Those emails include this correspondence between Epshteyn and coup memo author John Eastman, who was then still working for the University of Colorado’s Benson Center.

(more…)

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