Thread by @TomDreisbach

The State Bar trial of John Eastman is just getting started today.

Follow along here:


The last two days of proceedings were canceled, because Eastman's attorney was sick.

We're expecting the State Bar to continue its case against Eastman today.calbar.zoom.us/j/97985435232

Eastman's attorney Randy Miller says he's feeling better, and thanks the State Bar's attorneys for the "civility and graciousness" they showed while he recuperated.

First up: scheduling.

The State Bar is going to call John Eastman for further testimony this morning.

This afternoon, they'll call Justin Grimmer. He's an expert on elections and a political science professor at Stanford.

politicalscience.stanford.edu/people/justin-…

We're now going over the State Bar's attempt to block testimony from multiple people on Eastman's witness list, including prominent election deniers.

Yesterday, Eastman's attorneys filed a 473 page (!) motion opposing the State Bar's efforts. documentcloud.org/documents/2386…

Judge Yvette Roland is not resolving the dispute now.

But she suggests Eastman's attorneys may be attempting a "trial by ambush" by, she says, identifying new witnesses they intend to call at the beginning of the trial, when they should have been ID'd earlier.

John Eastman is now taking the stand.

State Bar attorney Duncan Carling asks if Eastman represented to the Supreme Court that the 2020 election was "stolen."

Eastman testifies that he doesn't recall, but it's possible.

Carling shows Eastman a legal filing Eastman filed with the Supreme Court.

In the filing, Eastman cited polling that showed a large percentage of Americans thought the election was "stolen" and that "something is deeply amiss."

Carling asks if Eastman had evidence that "outcome-determinative fraud" had occurred in key states when he filed this brief.

Eastman said he believes that election officials committed election fraud by ignoring the law, though not necessarily voter fraud.

Eastman: "Proving actual fraud by individual voters is extremely difficult."

Eastman is equivocal about whether there was outcome-determinative voter fraud in 2020. "I could not prove it, but I couldn't disprove it either."

Carling asks Eastman about a claim in the brief that Biden had a less than "one-in-quadrillion" chance of winning the election, based on statistical assumptions.

Eastman said it was introductory information that was immaterial.

Judge Roland asks Eastman: why was it in the brief to the Supreme Court if it was immaterial?

Eastman indicates that sometimes introductory information sets the table for the real dispute at issue.

Moving on now to Eastman's involvement in the Trump v. Kemp lawsuit, regarding the Georgia election in 2020.

The lawsuit sought, among other things, a temporary restraining order that would direct Georgia to decertify the 2020 election.

For the legal nerds, here's the docket for Trump v. Kemp:

courtlistener.com/docket/2891728…

One of the expert witnesses the Trump v. Kemp lawsuit relied on was Matt Braynard, a conservative activist and president of a political consulting firm, who worked for the Trump campaign.

Meanwhile, Carling points to an expert witness for the State of Georgia, Charles Stewart - an MIT-affiliated expert in election data.

Carling asks Eastman whether Matt Braynard and Charles Stewart were equally reliable as expert witnesses.

Eastman: "I believe they were both qualified to offer expert opinions."

Eastman says Stewart has better academic credentials, but Braynard has data analytics experience.

Carling points to points from Charles Stewart's affidavit about Matt Braynard's analysis for the Trump legal filing:

Eastman acknowledges the limitations and caveats for the analysis he relied on in the legal filings.

But, he says, "They had made credible claims that needed to be further developed."

Eastman testifies that be believes Charles Stewart's criticism of Matt Braynard's analysis was not well-founded.

One of the points from Braynard's analysis was that 1,043 people improperly registered to vote using a P.O. Box as their residence.

Eastman contends that Braynard caveated this analysis by saying it was "as many as 1,043 people."

I looked at the analysis. There's no caveat.

See page 404 in this filing:
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Here's Charles Stewart of MIT on this claim of people voting using a P.O. Box.

https://t.co/O8ZXr55JCLstorage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

As State Bar attorney Duncan Carling points out, MIT's Charles Stewart also sharply criticized another expert cited by Eastman, Mark Alan Davis.

Here's Stewart:

Carling: You did not have concerns about submitting the Davis report in Trump v. Kemp?

Eastman: "I did not."

Asked about the criticism of the Trump team's expert analyses, Eastman says "My role in this case was largely the constitutional issues."

He says he largely relied on his co-counsel, Kurt Hilbert, when it came to the allegations of irregularities or fraud.

Carling brings up another expert criticism of Braynard's analysis, which was filed in a separate lawsuit.

"There is no scientific basis for drawing any inferences or conclusions from the data [Braynard] presented."

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Carling is citing yet another critical expert report on the Braynard analysis.

I think this may be the fourth debunking of the Braynard analysis we've seen now.

Carling asks about when Eastman was made aware that some of the claims in the Trump v. Raffensperger lawsuit may be inaccurate.

Eastman says White House lawyer Eric Herschmann raised the concern about inaccuracies around 12/29/2020

Eastman testifies that he disagreed with Herschmann, and he believed the allegations in the Trump v. Raffensperger case were accurate.

We're now seeing an email from Eastman sent on 12/31/2020, where Eastman wrote that Trump had been made aware that "some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate."

Eastman testifies that he was conveying the concerns raised by Eric Herschmann, but that he himself believed they were accurate.

Eastman also says the claims were caveated, by saying, for example, "as many as."

(As noted earlier, the Braynard analysis did not say "as many as")

Carling: Was Herschmann the only one who believed the evidence may be inaccurate?

Eastman: He was the only one who raised that concern.

Eastman contends that if someone improperly registered to vote in Georgia when they were 16, then any vote they cast later *as an adult* would nonetheless would be "illegal," unless they re-registered.

Carling asks Eastman about an allegation that "suitcases full of ballots" were pulled out from under a table and improperly counted at the State Farm Arena in Georgia.

(Authorities investigated and found "no evidence of any type of fraud as alleged.")

sos.ga.gov/news/state-ele…

Some additional background on this claim:
factcheck.org/2020/12/video-…

We're now seeing an extended portion of a 2020 press conference from Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling, where he debunked multiple claims of fraud and irregularities.

Pardon my error, this press conference was actually from Jan. 4, 2021.

c-span.org/video/?507710-…

In this press conference, Sterling accused Trump and his legal team of intentionally misleading people about what took place during the ballot count.

Eastman's attorney objects to the use of this tape in court. Judge Roland overrules him.

Eastman testifies that he has not seen this press conference before.

Carling: "Do you have any evidence that the ballots in that container were fraudulent?"

Eastman: "I do not."

Eastman says that his defense will call Garland Favorito, who will show more irregularities in the Georgia vote count.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution refers to Favorito as an "election conspiracy theorist."

ajc.com/politics/polit…

Alright, we're now at a lunch break.

When court resumes around 2:20p PT/5:20p ET, we'll be hearing testimony from Justin Grimmer, an expert for the State Bar on elections.

Judge Roland is back on the bench, and we're about to begin the afternoon session of the State Bar trial of John Eastman.

Justin Grimmer, a professor of political science at Stanford, is now testifying for the State Bar.

Grimmer is a co-author of the peer-reviewed academic article, "No evidence for systematic voter fraud: A guide to statistical claims about the 2020 election."

This article specifically takes aim at a statistical analysis that Eastman relied on.

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Eastman relied on an analysis by a man named Charles Cicchetti, who claimed there was a "one-in-a-quadrillion” chance that Biden really won the election.

Here's what Grimmer and his co-authors write:

Grimmer also co-authored a paper (not peer-reviewed) about an analysis of the Georgia vote in 2020 by Matt Braynard, which Eastman also relied on to allege fraud and irregularities in the election.

Here's that paper:
hoover.org/research/evalu…

And Grimmer authored an article about election claims made by Douglas Frank.

Frank is a prominent election denier and is on Eastman's witness list for the State Bar trial.

dropbox.com/s/jibv67zh9lwd…

Grimmer testifies that "there's no evidence" in Eastman's exhibits or his response to the State Bar that there was sufficient fraud or irregularities to change the election outcome in 2020.

Grimmer is now going through an exhibit filed by Eastman - a report by S. Stanley Young that found alleged "voting anomalies" in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.

Grimmer says the paper has "such an obvious flaw in its methodology" with "no basis" to allege fraud.

Grimmer is now going over another Eastman claim of alleged voter irregularities: "parallel snakes."

Eastman contends that these graphs provide evidence of manipulation of vote tallies and "reeks of a computer algorithm."

Grimmer says this is, essentially, nonsense.

Grimmer says the “parallel snakes” claim about alleged anomalies in Michigan is not statistical, but essentially “impressionistic,” based on how the graphs look.

Grimmer says the Cicchetti statistical analysis is fundamentally flawed - it assumes that Biden in 2020 would have the same number of supporters as Clinton in 2016.

Grimmer found that virtually every presidential election since 1964 would be anomalous with this methodology.

OK, that's it for today.

Court is set to reconvene tomorrow at 10am PT, then there will be a *long* break until the case is set to resume on Aug. 22.