On Monday’s edition of CNN’s “OutFront,” former Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe broke down how the plan concocted by far-right lawyer John Eastman on behalf of former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election constituted a “seditious conspiracy.”
“I know you call this an attempted coup, not just in the general use of the word that so many have adopted, but in a very specific way. You say Eastman delivered the blueprint,” said anchor Erin Burnett. “Tell me why you now feel so confident that that is exactly the word which describes exactly what it was he was trying to do, and that that was Trump’s intention.”
“Well, there’s no doubt from the information we now have about the meeting that Trump was holding with people like Giuliani and Eastman shortly before the insurrection that we all saw on live television, that they were planning, step by step, to twist arms and pressure people, including building a gallows if necessary with Pence’s name on it, in order to get the vice president to perform a role that the Constitution doesn’t assign the vice president,” said Tribe.
Tribe then went on to cite the specific law that he believes Trump and his allies broke with their actions before and during the Capitol riots.
“It was seditious conspiracy,” he said. “That’s the term that the U.S. Criminal Code uses, 18 U.S. Code section 2384, and then it led to inciting an insurrection. It was all part of a long plan, much more public than most coups that we see.”
Tribe went on to detail how the former president might try to replicate his illegitimate attempt to take power in 2024.
“The back-up plan is to get states to disregard the votes of the people even after the suppression of votes and the counting by people who are partisans if it doesn’t go their way,” he said.
Tribe concluded by warning Americans against complacency, as “we can’t just let that go on while we go over the cliff and destroy our democracy.”
Watch below: