Attorney representing Trump in Texas dispute pushed racist conspiracy about Kamala Harris
WASHINGTON, DC — An attorney representing President Donald Trump, John Eastman, is known for recently pushing a racist conspiracy theory — that Trump himself later amplified — claiming Vice President-elect Kamala Harris might not be eligible for the role because her parents were immigrants.
Eastman wrote the Newsweek column that was widely discredited earlier this year and that Trump cited from the briefing room.
“I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” Trump said of Harris in August. “I have no idea if that’s right. I would have thought, I would have assumed, that the Democrats would have checked that out before she gets chosen to run for vice president.”
At the time, Trump also praised Eastman as a talented and qualified lawyer.
In a statement issued by the campaign with Wednesday’s intervention in the lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which seeks to invalidate millions of votes in four states, Eastman — who was identified as the counsel of record for Trump — said: “I’m honored that the President asked me to represent him in this matter. I think his intervention in this case strengthens an already very strong original action by the state of Texas.”
The campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about when Eastman was added to the legal team.
Trump’s other attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was hospitalized this week with Covid-19 and did not have his name attached to the statement.
Newsweek later attached an extensive statement to the op-ed denouncing birtherism and claimed the essay “was intended to explore a minority legal argument about the definition of who is a ‘natural-born citizen’ in the United States. But to many readers, the essay inevitably conveyed the ugly message that Senator Kamala Harris, a woman of color and the child of immigrants, was somehow not truly American.”
