A member of Donald Trump‘s legal team has claimed that the former president was not part of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results, but was following what he believed was a constitutional tactic pushed by another of his lawyers.
In an interview with Newsweek, Trump attorney John Lauro rejected claims from legal experts that his recent round of media interviews in which he discussed how the former president and his lawyer, John Eastman, tried to convince former Vice President Mike Pence to reject or delay the certification of the electoral votes amounted to an admission of a crime.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to four charges in relation to Special Counsel Jack Smith‘s federal investigation into the events that led up to the January 6 attack. A key part of the prosecution’s case against the former president rests on whether Trump was well aware he had lost the 2020 election, but carried on with a criminal and fraudulent plot to overturn the results regardless.
On Thursday, after Trump pleaded not guilty in a Washington D.C. courthouse, Lauro spoke to Fox News and Newsmax to describe how Trump went along with a plan by Eastman, identified as “Co-Conspirator 2” in the federal indictment, to try and persuade Pence to “pause the voting” and allow the state legislatures the chance to determine if there was any voter fraud that affected the election results.
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Lauro also described how hours after the Capitol riot, Eastman again tried to get Pence to reject the certified election results and to “pause the voting for 10 days” to see if the states could determine to audit, or re-audit, or recertify the results.
Both these incidents were cited in the indictment against Trump, including a section on how Eastman allegedly urged Pence to “consider one more relatively minor violation” of the Electoral Count Act and “adjourn for 10 days” so an investigation into the unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud could be completed.
Speaking to Newsweek, Lauro said that his remarks to Fox News and Newsmax were “consistent with the facts” that were already in the public record “and by no means constitute any admission.”
“In fact, the essence of President Trump’s expected defense is that he acted in accordance with the advice of lawyers, including Eastman,” Lauro said.
“Nobody is disputing that John Eastman wrote a legal memorandum that included a legal suggestion that the voting pause for 10 days,” Lauro added in reference to a memo from Eastman detailing the plan to stop Pence from certifying the election results, which was made public in September 2021.
“It was a part of what President Trump believed was a constitutional pathway to resolving this issue.”
Lauro also denied that Eastman telling Pence to commit a “minor” violation of the Electoral Count Act by rejecting the electoral votes during Pence’s purely ceremonial role as presiding officer of the Senate was proof Eastman knew the plan may be potentially illegal.
“What Eastman said is the Electoral Count Act is not necessarily constitutional. And the United States Constitution under our laws, has precedence over a statute. And it’s the constitution that prevails,” he said.
The Department of Justice accuses Trump and at least six co-conspirators including Eastman, of trying to “enlist” Pence to “fraudulently alter the election results” due to voter fraud claims which they knew were false.
The 45-page federal indictment details how Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to convince Pence to instead accept fake electors who were in place in seven key states, reject the legitimate electoral votes which declared Joe Biden the winner, or send legitimate electoral votes to state legislatures for review rather than counting them.
“When that failed, on the morning of January 6, the Defendant and co-conspirators repeated knowingly false claims of election fraud to gathered supporters, falsely told them that the Vice President had the authority to and might alter the election results, and directed them to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure on the Vice President to take the fraudulent actions he had previously refused,” the indictment states.
Tristan Snell, a lawyer and former assistant attorney general for New York state, was one of those who suggested that Lauro’s media interviews on Thursday were an admission that Trump “pushed” Pence to delay the certification of the election results.
“John Lauro’s statement is likely admissible in court—and he can now potentially be disqualified from representing Trump,” Snell posted on X, formerly Twitter.
In response, Lauro dismissed the claims that his public comments amounted to an admittance of guilt on Trump’s behalf.
“Unfortunately, some of the legal commentary is not focused on the actual facts of the case,” Lauro told Newsweek.
“But instead they are based on an erroneous understanding of what happened. Sadly, that leads to a lot of public misinformation, which is to be expected in this highly charged political environment.”