Alleged coconspirators in that indictment. Charles burnham, defense attorney for coconspirator number 2 from the recent indictment. This is a person who has been confirmed and identified as john eastman, the lawyer, who advised donald trump, who spoke at the January 6th Rally there next to rudy giuliani, and was a key architect of much of what the president and his aides were trying to push heading into the january 6th certification. Charles, first of all, thank you very much for making the time and joining me tonight. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. We put aside some time for this. I want to start with a couple of quick things and then get into the case. But first and foremost, donald trump lost the 2020 election. You accept that fact . Well, look. There is a large portion of the country that has issues with the 2020 election. There are still discussion about things that went on. A large portion of the country believes in goats or horoscopes. Im asking do you accept the results of the election that donald trump lost . Im here as an attorney representing a client. I dont see it moving. Its a very easy question. If you can answer it. Ive got over questions. Well, my personal opinions are neither here nor there. Theyre no better than anybody elses. But i would like the opportunity to address the latest news and anything your viewers would be interested in. Well definitely get to that. I want to get to a couple of these straight forward premise questions. That was december 14th, 2020. Do you accept that as the valid final step that the Electoral College took . Im here as an attorney representing the client. My opinions are no better than yours or anybody elses. I think really the point id like to make if there is one takeaway here on behalf of my client, dr. Eastman, his main focus throughout his activities in 2020 was focusing specifically on illegalities in the election. Right. Which is a related concept to fraud. His view of the underlying issues. We will get to that. But i want to lay down the basics. Some of these people can or cant answer. Was it wrong for the trump fans and now convicted seditionists to storm the capitol and attack police On January 6th . Oh, my gosh, certainly. Criminal activity at the United States capitol or anywhere else is wrong that should be an obvious fact. We can get by that quickly. Sure. Okay. And turning to your dealing with the Special Counsel, and then well get into the case, what was your last contact on behalf of your client with smiths office . What if anything can you tell us than . Very little. Weve had some contact with the special Counsel Office over the months and going before that, even before the Special Counsel was appointed with the prosecutors that are working, but we have not engaged in any sort of major substantive way with Special Counsel. Weve had cordial relationship. I can call them. They can call me. I know some of those gentlemen before they were at the Special Counsel. Ive gotten to know others now. Its been very respectful. Okay. And thats interesting in and of itself. Have you received in any way either a Target Letter or any other communications from the office that would make you think that they are going to go forward and potentially indict your client, who is coconspirator 2 . No charge letter, nothing like that. And we very much hold out hope and maybe even an expectation that he will not be indicted. Our position has always been that he committed no crimes and that a full and fulsome examination of the facts will lead any reasonable observatory that conclusion, including Special Counsel, we hope. Understood. Youre saying today he commit nod crimes. Sure. And if he were charged, he would be legally presumed innocent. And yet someone at times who has had a different view of what youve said is john eastman. He took the position after jan 6, and im going to go in reverse, starting with what was circulating after the actual insurrection and go deeper into it, and youll get time. Interestingly, we have a secret email this sort of leaked where he says to giuliani ive decided i should be on the pardon list, if thats still in the works. So my question for you, which crimes do you hi he was worried about being indicted for . Oh, sure, who can even start . You remember the atmosphere in that time period after january 6th. The media speculation, the accusations going back and forth about all sorts of things. Any reasonable person under those circumstances, whether they were innocent or guilty. And particularly someone innocent, as john eastman was, would only prudently take that step if it was available to them. Nothing surprise 00 that at all. You see that as kind of standard . Everybody wants a pardon. Not everyone, as you know, indeed the vast majority didnt seek pardons. It would seem, especially since he is a lawyer that he thought he had criminal exposure. Oh, noted a all, not at all. This sort of reminds me back when, you know, you had commentary when he availed himself of his Fifth Amendment protections say anybody that does that is guilty that was 100 wrong. And the implication respectfully that anyone would seek a pardon is just as wrong. Ill let you respond. But the Supreme Court ruled, as you well know, that the acceptance of a pardon, if you seek one, then you presumably want to seek it is itself tantamount to being guilty, that you are accepting the process and the conviction, but youre accepting that reprieve from the executive. So someone seeking a pardon, which again for my viewers to know is unusual. Most people leave government without doing so suggest some exposure. I take your point that he has a Fifth Amendment right. He exercised it. Again, to reasonably exercise it is to think that there will be a potential Criminal Proceeding or something that you dont want to start of selfreport. Well, i think its important to look at that onesentence quote that you displayed and the context that dr. Eastmans behavior and public posture ever since january 6th, hes appeared on multiple public forum. He has debated liberal Law Professors on podcasts, absolutely nothing that isnt known about his legal theories. Some people agree with them. Some people very much doan dont. But he has done his best to educate the role and weve helped him as much as his attorneys about everything that happened from his perspective. And all of it, all of it is completely, completely inconsistent with any consciousness of guilt, let alone criminal activity. And i think the pardoned email you show is very much not inconsistent with any of that. Okay. Dive in then to the night of the 6th. I kind of want to know from when things went down. Sure. Reasonable people might debate or differ about what they thought might happen on the 6th or what their intentions are. Then the night of the 6th, you have donald trump himself asking people quite late, but eventually to go home. You had that terrible carnage, something you earlier in the broadcast referred to that it would be easy to condemn. And yet secretly late into that night, the 11th hour will show eastman was still pushing a pence lawyer advocating that he seek a further delay of the certification saying consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for ten days, this was concerning the plot to stop the certification that day, after the violence and now convicted sedition is what stopped it that day. How do you explain that . And if you end up in a courtroom, how do you explain that as anything other than mr. Eastman as dismissed charges allege being part of the group of people who exploited the violence . I dont think its exploiting the violence at all. You have to look at in the context of everything dr. Eastman did leading up to that point. He was always starting to right up to the election, the great champion of state legislative authority in the president ial election process. I think that was the really valuable contribution he brought to the debate. Thats a neglected area of the law. They dont teach it that much in law school. He did a very good job of explaining that to the public and other interested parties. Let me pin you on this. It was violence that stopped the certification that day. You dont dispute that . Well, violence that dr. Eastman had no part of. Okay. And any suggestion to the contrary is without any evidentiary basis. The indictment doesnt charge, they no one is suggesting that im just saying in terms of order of operations, the violence is what stopped it. And then they reconvened. Mitch mcconnell, Republican Leaders on the floor saying this was an insurrection. It was stopped by the violence, and now theyre trying to finish it up. And his response that night was to say lets continue to stop and delay. In other words, to be on the side of further stopping it, having that then caused by the violence. Do you see how that could be a problem for him in this case . No, no, not at all. Not at all. As i said, his goal throughout this process was to have a full and fair hearing through the Certification Constituent with the constitution of the relevant issues involved in the election. It was regrettable to make an understatement that it was interrupted as it was. And if dr. Eastman was here today, hed say the same thing. That very much interrupted everything he wanted to see happening, just as it did the other side. And again, i want folks to understand that and everyone is entitled to their defense, and he is not charged yet. But youre making the argument that whatever he advocated for, however some of those objectives overlapped with the seditionists, he was not advocating violence, and he was not using violence. The case says something different. The government alleges that both donald trump and the coconspirators exploited the violence. Whether whether or not it was caused, they exploited it. He is one of the very few people on record after the violence responding that way. Not saying oh, that was terrible, not lets take a breath, not enough. Rather continuing on as others did that day to try to stop it. You mentioned remarks i want to play for viewers, the first time were hearing this on the beat one of the ways he has recently tried to defend this is saying he was actually trying to stop a coup because joe biden stole the election. Thats his claim. Take a look. The narrative is eastman and trump tried to initiate a coup, trying to stop an illegal election is not a coup, but trying to thwart a coup. Thats his description. So my question for you, he almost seems to be raising the bar on himself. Do you have to prove that this election that joe biden won at the Supreme Court affirmed that they never took any of the channels is itself a coup . Is that your defense if he is charged . I wouldnt have to prove anything if he was charged, and now he is not charged. But i think our position would be at this the election in certain important states was conducted contrary to the manner so forth by the legislature and its statutes. Thats important, and that requirement was recently reaffirmed even after the election by the Supreme Court of the United States, in moore against harper. And i think thats what dr. Eastman is referring to there. Well, he is definitely referring to more than that if he is claiming that this lawful election is a coup. Are you saying that you kind of wish he didnt say that . No, no, no. I think if he had another 30 seconds to explain, and maybe he even did in the rest of that interview. What he is referring to there is states like georgia and pennsylvania and others where there were good faith rationally based arguments that individuals such as Vice President pence himself and his Chief Counsel agreed with. They didnt dispute this part, where the elections were conducted, again, contrary to where the constitution places the authority for setting up the manner which is the state legislature. Its a technical point. Good faith is also an issue. Separate from whatever happened with jack smith, mr. Eastman is also facing a proceedings to potentially disbar him, that the new filing today was asking for more time. Good faith is also in debate under the evidence. Look, for example, at a pretty big mistake or lie that your client told. In october, he writes down the constitution does not, not say the Vice President makes this determination on his own. Then by december, as a lot of other things werent working out among these plots, he writes the constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. How it is good faith if he reverses himself and gives this advice up in way that, of course, said part of the plot to overthrow the election . Well, there is two reasons there. We know exactly where that is coming from. We werent surprised to see that in the indictment. First is, first point is as a lawyer, dr. Eastmans responsibility is to make the best argument he can on behalf of his client, which may or may not be consistent with his personal view of what the best view of the law. Youre a lawyer. You understand that as well. If there is a nonfrivolous argument he can make that for his client, in this case donald trump. He is dutybound to make it. Second ill let you found. He is also duty bound not to commit malpractice or mislead the court as an officer of the court. Sure. And he absolutely did none of those things. I do want to give a second point. Its only natural, and any Practicing Lawyer would understand this, when youre representing a client, particularly in an uncharted area of the law as this very much is, you brainstorm, you do research, you talk to other people, and eventually perhaps your mind changes on a question where at the beginning you had a different opinion. This is utterly mundane involved in the day to day law. Im giving you plenty of time and these are important issues and its important for everyone to hear the other sides of this. But its not mundane. You cannot claim that when you take a position that is completely without precedent and extreme that advocates overthrowing a democracy, in his case other positions he also took where he said he knew the sprott would 90 reject him, and that includes three Trump Appointees among others, its not mundane to say the correct version of the law in october and reverse yourself with the coup version. I dont think, again, for viewers my time is to give you time, but thats not mundane. Its quite extreme and what it suggests is the opposite of your defense. It suggests bad faith. It suggests that your client was knowingly lying, abusing his role and power as a lawyer and officer of the court, and that seems to create this tension, ill let you respond with mr. Lauro. I want to play a little bit of john lauro. This is trumps Defense Lawyer who is now saying all they did is follow your guy. Your guy is coconspirator 2. And all he did is reverse himself, which is at least according to the Justice Department looks like bad faith. Ill let you respond toe all of that. Take a listen to mr. Lauro. What he is being indicted for ultimately is following legal advice from an esteemed scholar, john eastman. Charles . Yeah, you brought up a number of points there. Ill try to get to as many as i can. The first id like to start is im glad you brought up precedent. Because the one thing youve never heard in any of the discussions about john eastman in the past two years is what he did is wrong because it violates the Supreme Court decision in smith versus jones. There is no smith versus jones. There is no smith, there is no jones. These are issues of first impression, right . No court has ever considered this. So what dr. Eastman did is exactly what he is retained to do. He is a constitutional law professor. He looked at precedent. He looked at history. He looked at the historical examples, presented the various options and presented at the end what he thought was the best option consistent with his clients interest in the law. Thats not quite true, sir. He may have done that at times. I cant speak to everything he ever did. But the problem for you is in this indictment, which has all this evidence, and weve seen other portions from the congressional probe, he didnt just do that. When you say matter of first impression, its not as if this is some new novel thing like an artificial intelligence, you know, quandary for the Supreme Court. These are matters that quite to the contrary what youre claiming tonight have been so thoroughly litigated that there is no daylight. There is no question that politicians cant just declare themselves automatically reelected. Thats not even in the bounds of what the Supreme Court bothers to rule on. So tonight you sound like youre trying to say this is a virtue. Its actually a great problem for your case and for what he did, why he might be disbarred, because he knew that at the time. Thats what some of the emails show. And second, the Supreme Court, im going to show two things. One, the Supreme Court rejected all of the 2020 litigation. Again, i mention the composition of the court. 20 plus cases, they didnt take that. Then when you look at what your client knew at the time, eastman advocated, quote, the Vice President unilaterally reject the electors, but privately acknowledged he hoped to prevent judicial review of the proposal he knew, he understood it would be unanimously rejected by the Supreme Court. So that is different than the way youre putting it tonight, because it suggests bad faith, as i showed, a change from the actual precedent or understood law to the opposite because donald trump wanted it and lost all the other avenues, and then him saying in writing i know ill get overruled. So we dont want to go to court because i know id lose 90. There is two points there. I can do this quickly. You have to absolute