Berkeley Law professor John Yoo recently called for Republican district attorneys to prosecute Democrat officials who have, in his opinion, wronged former President Donald Trump and his allies.
Trump, a convicted felon and presumptive GOP 2024 presidential nominee, is currently facing three criminal indictments, two of which involve election interference on the state and federal level and one involving classified documents that were allegedly mishandled. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The former president has also lost two civil defamation cases involving sexual abuse allegations made by writer E. Jean Carroll and a civil fraud case. He has maintained his innocence and tried to appeal all three civil cases against him.
The election interference cases against Trump stem from alleged efforts from him and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results after he lost to Joe Biden.
“People who have used this tool against people like John [Eastman] or President Trump have to be prosecuted by Republican or conservative DAs in exactly the same way, for exactly the same kinds of things, until they stop,” Yoo said among conservative legal scholars at the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday.
Yoo clarified to Newsweek on Wednesday night that the people that he believes need to be prosecuted are Democratic politicians.
Yoo is a regular contributor to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and National Review.
He has also appeared on Fox News on several occasions, including in late May, when Yoo criticized Trump’s New York hush money trial, saying that there were “serious legal errors” made.
Around this time, Yoo wrote in the National Review: “In order to prevent the [hush money] case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents…Only retaliation in kind can produce the deterrence necessary to enforce a political version of mutual assured destruction; without the threat of prosecution of their own leaders, Democrats will continue to charge future Republican presidents without restraint.”
John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who has been disbarred and has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona, said judges would be among those who would be penalized for their actions against Trump.
“We’ve got to start impeaching these judges for acting in such an unbelievably partisan way from the bench,” Eastman said at the National Conservatism conference.
Eastman and Yoo are both a part of Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank in Upland, California. Yoo is a senior fellow and Eastman is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and a senior fellow.
Newsweek reached out to Yoo via email for comment as well as Claremont Institute, via email for comment from Eastman. It also reached out to Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, via email for comment.
The National Conservatism Conference is a three-day event created by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a public affairs institute. The conference defines National Conservatism as “a movement of public figures, journalists, scholars, and students who understand that the past and future of conservatism are inextricably tied to the idea of the nation…”
Additionally, in late May, Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels alleges she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, which he denies. The former president has maintained his innocence and his legal team intends to appeal the verdict.
Following the verdict, in early June, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he would have “every right to go after” his political opponents if he is elected president in November. When confronted about his remarks during last month’s presidential debate, Trump said: “Well, I said my retribution is going to be a success. We’re going to make this country successful again, because right now it’s a failing nation.”
Trump and his allies have claimed that all the cases against him are part of a Democratic plot against him, despite there being no evidence of such a scheme.
Americans were split when asked if Trump’s conviction in the hush money case was politically motivated in an AP-NORC poll conducted between June 7 and 10. Overall, 51 percent of the 1,115 adults that were polled nationwide said his conviction was driven by politics while 48 percent said it was not. Meanwhile, 83 percent of Republicans said the conviction was politically motivated while 17 percent said it was not. The margin of error for the full poll samples was plus or minus 4 percentage points.
In the wake of Trump’s guilty verdict, Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and Trump ally, called for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the hush money case against Trump, to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs, about “the unprecedented political prosecution” of Trump. Bragg has not testified to the House committee.
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