Pence lawyer says Eastman's push to reject electors left him 'offended for my profession'

On the day before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021, Orange County law professor John Eastman was trying to convince Mike Pence's attorney that the vice president possessed a power that none of his predecessors had ever exercised in American history.

Eastman was in Washington, D.C., in his capacity as a legal advisor to then-President Trump. He argued that Pence, as president of the Senate, could unilaterally reject electoral votes from seven contested states in which fraud was alleged, according to Gregory Jacob, who was Pence's chief counsel at the time.

Jacob said the vice president had flatly dismissed the idea as unconstitutional. "From our very first.