The wild, often ’outrageous’ trial against Oath Keeper Rep. David Eastman comes to a close

"Vintage Brandenburg."

It’s Wednesday, Alaska!

In this edition: The long and often ridiculous trial against Rep. David Eastman came to a close today. For a trial based on the Alaska Constitution’s Red Scare-era disloyalty clause, it was appropriately loaded full with testimony about how secret communists have infiltrated every level of the U.S. Government—including the White House—and are running Antifa. We also heard theories about how Jan. 6 was a bit of information warfare intended on making Republicans look bad and One Weird Trick-style legal theories for how to escape consequences for an insurrection, but at the end of the day none of it will really matter because the whole case hinges on two questions: Is Eastman an Oath Keeper? And are the Oath Keepers anti-government? Here, I’ll recap the closing arguments, the expected timing and other bits. Also, the reading list.

Current mood: 😴

No person who advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of the State shall be qualified to hold any public office of trust or profit under this constitution.

Alaska Constitution, Article XII, Sec. 4

The wild, often ’outrageous’ trial against Oath Keeper Rep. David Eastman comes to a close

(Clockwise from top left): Anchorage Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna; plaintiff’s attorney Goriune Dudukgian; plaintiff Randall Kowalke; and Alaska Division of Elections attorney Lael Harrison listen to Rep. David Eastman’s attorney Joe Miller deliver his closing remarks on Dec. 21, 2022.

The long, wild week that was the trial against Wasilla Republican Rep. David Eastman came to an end this morning following days of testimony from a who’s who of people involved in the events of January 6, including John “Referred for Charges by the Jan. 6 Committee” Eastman.

(Also, it turns out that in addition to being an expert legal witness for Rep. Eastman, the former Trump attorney is part of their legal team.)

The last few days of testimony have produced plenty of head-turning moments—like the assertion by another expert witness that Mitch McConnell is a secret agent of the Chinese Communist Party or the off-hand remark by Eastman attorney Joe Miller that an Oath Keeper’s attempt to hunt down Nancy Pelosi on Jan. 6 by were bad but didn’t rise to the level of the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government.

But, as Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna has frequently reminded amid courtroom arguments over whether Hunter Biden’s laptop is conspiracy theory or “conspiracy fact,” the trial all revolves around straightforward question: Does Rep. David Eastman’s membership in the Oath Keepers militia group disqualify him from holding elected office under the Alaska Constitution’s Red Scare-era disloyalty clause?

As most trials seem to go, the whole case boils down to a couple simple questions and everything else that comes up is just window dressing... often outrageous window dressing. In this case, Judge McKenna says his decision rests on two points:

• Is Rep. David Eastman an Oath Keeper? (The answer to this is a definite yes.)

• Is the Oath Keepers an organization that has advocated concrete, imminent action to overthrow the United States by force or have they actually engaged in such conduct?

With the caveat there might be a few wrinkles around the edges of First Amendment case law, that’s pretty much all there really is to it. All the QAnon-y rabbit trails about Trump’s expected release of Deep State-busting documents and the “ChiCom puppets” embedded in every level of government as well as in every progressive movement and media outlet… likely won’t matter quite as much as Miller was hoping.

During a back and forth over whether the political contributions of the plaintiff’s witnesses—researchers in violent domestic terrorism (a term that, surprise, Eastman’s expert witness took great offense to)—mattered as much as John Eastman and Joe Miller claimed it did, Judge McKenna had to pull things back on the rails.

“I don’t find that the basis for the impeachment has anything to do with the opinions themselves. A person’s political party or whoever they donate to. It’s not a political case, there’s no partisan nature to this as far as the actual case,” he said. “I don’t find it relevant impeachment, we need to move on.”

Closing arguments

Today, we heard the closing arguments of each party involved in the case.

Attorney Goriune Dudukgian, who is representing Wasilla voter and plaintiff Randall Kowalke, spent much of his time pointing out how wild the trial really has been. He launched into the quality of the testimony of Eastman’s witnesses, calling it some of the most “outrageous” stuff he’s ever heard in a courtroom and brought up “expert” John Guandolo’s accusation that McConnell is a “ChiCom puppet.” He also picked apart Rep. Eastman’s account of going to D.C. on Jan. 6 to hear Trump’s—which he had a near-impossible time remembering at the trial—before heading over to the Grant Memorial to watch what may or may not have been a violent insurrection.