Trump lawyer John Eastman surrenders in Fulton County

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump’s former attorney John Eastman, a key architect of the scheme to change the results of the 2020 election, surrendered on criminal charges in Georgia on Tuesday. The ex-Trump campaign legal mind was the second co-defendant of 19 known to have surrendered this week following the unsealing of a sprawling indictment last week charging Mr Trump, Mr Eastman and others with numerous felonies related to the election-tampering effort, including a violation of the state’s RICO law. Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis has described Mr Trump and his team’s efforts as a broad-based multi-state criminal conspiracy to overturn the election; key evidence for her prosecution includes a phone call during which Mr Trump pushed state election officials to conjure more than 11,000 votes to add to his total and push him past the number received by Joe Biden, according to a recording. Mr Eastman himself was behind many of the legal theories developed by the Trump team to support their efforts and in particular was central to the effort to convince Vice President Mike Pence to interfere with the election certification on January 6, which Mr Pence refused to do citing its illegality.