Kevin Daley of the Washington Free Beacon highlights one of the consequences of this month’s Capitol riots.
Former Clinton aide Brian Fallon and his judicial advocacy group Demand Justice are pressing corporate contributors to end their support of the Federalist Society, citing a prominent member’s involvement with the White House rally that preceded the Capitol riot.
John Eastman, a law professor tied to the society, spoke at President Donald Trump’s “Save America” rally on Jan. 6 alongside Rudy Giuliani, where he claimed that the election was replete with fraud. Fallon is now calling on marquee corporate supporters like Facebook, Google, Verizon, T-Mobile, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to stop contributing to the Federalist Society, citing Eastman’s speech.
The pressure campaign is the latest move in a long-running quest to marginalize the Federalist Society, a legal behemoth that has no counterpart on the left. Even if Demand Justice succeeds, they are unlikely to affect the society’s financial stability. Notwithstanding Eastman’s actions, well-placed society members counseled Trump against seeding doubts about the election and helped Mike Pence rebuff Trump’s request that the vice president refuse to certify the Electoral College count. But Demand Justice is still using Eastman as a wedge against the group.
“It is alarming that a senior official in the Federalist Society was goading Vice President Pence to mount an illegal coup, and corporations should stop supporting this organization the same way they’ve stopped donations to members of Congress,” Fallon told CNBC, which was first to report on Demand Justice’s pressure campaign.
Eastman chairs the society’s federalism and separation of powers practice group. He is also a frequent guest speaker, having participated in seven Federalist Society events in 2020, according to his speaker’s page on the group’s website. Of late, he represented the president in an ill-fated lawsuit urging the Supreme Court to undo the certification of election results in four states.
