You may have heard that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is pursuing a “Special Action” appellate procedure in the hopes of shielding her lawfare prosecution of me from public scrutiny.
It’s because my legal team won a crucial battle before the trial judge who ruled that we had presented prima facia evidence that Mayes’s prosecution of me violated the state’s anti-SLAPP law because it is in retaliation for exercising my rights under the First Amendment to assist President Trump challenge the results of the 2020 election.
That victory forces Mayes and her team to prove under oath in open court that she didn’t retaliate against me, but we’ve got the goods on her, including a detailed “prosecution memo” written by a radical lawfare group detailing how she should go after me.
Here’s where things get interesting. Now that Mayes has opened Pandora’s box with her Special Action filing, the appellate court will also be presented with additional Special Action filings that further undercut the validity of the prosecution.
In particular, those being prosecuted want the appellate court to find that no crime has been committed.
My legal defense fund is nearly exhausted and I urgently need financial support to prevail in all these Special Action battles. I ask you to step forward today with an emergency donation.
For her part, Mayes sees her Special Action procedure in the state Appellate Court as an opportunity to further bleed me dry of defense costs and cause a lengthy delay in having to answer in court for her partisan and improper motivations in bringing this prosecution.
We’re going to win that fight if we have the necessary financial resources for my team to be fully engaged.
But now that the case is before the appellate court via the Special Action process, we will have an excellent opportunity to get the case dismissed on the basis that no crime has been committed.
👉SUPPORT THE JOHN EASTMAN LEGAL DEFENSE FUND👈
The crux of Kris Mayes’s allegations against me and other defendants is that we “colluded” to present “fake electors” to Congress and urged Vice President Pence to count the votes of the “fake electors” and not those of the “real” electors.
But that framing of the case is total bunk.
There were no fake electors. There were “alternate electors” selected according to law and legal precedent because litigation was pending challenging the Arizona results. That litigation was still pending when Congress met in joint session to observe the Vice President opening and counting the electoral votes. As the law requires, the alternative electors cast their votes on the designated day in December so they could be considered if any of the legal challenges had ruled for Trump. Their votes had to be presented or the state would forfeit its right to have its votes properly counted if the litigation was successful.
Beyond the false framing of the case, there is the fundamental underlying fact that it is not a crime for electors, voters or citizens – or their lawyers – to challenge elections or to present their challenges to the courts, government officials, the Congress and the sitting Vice President who presides over the Electoral College.
No crime was committed by anyone in Arizona, and certainly not by me.
I did not even represent President Trump in Arizona and yet Mayes had me indicted as part of her wild and ridiculous “conspiracy” theory. She wants to put me in prison for years because she hates President Trump.
There will be several Special Action filings that will give us a chance to seek appellate court dismissal of the charges against me. We also must contest what Mayes is trying to do in evading having to defend her actions before the trial judge.
All of this is expensive. I’ve already had to raise and expend well over $1.5 MILLION so far defending against the lawfare attacks I’ve faced, and these Special Action proceedings will add considerably to my mounting costs.
That’s why I’m turning to you today to ask for an EMERGENCY DONATION of $25, $50, $100, $250 or $500 or more.
I will have two tremendous opportunities to bring an end to the Arizona prosecution – first, by getting the Appellate Court to agree that it was not a crime to challenge potential illegalities and irregularities in the 2020 presidential election in Arizona. Beyond that, we can also win by putting Mayes and her operatives under oath and on the stand where they will FINALLY be forced to reveal the truth of her partisan prosecution – under penalty of PERJURY.
Thank you for whatever you can do to help ensure we have the financial resources to meet these new challenges.
Sincerely,
John Eastman
Constitutional Scholar
Former Attorney for President Donald Trump