BREAKING Donald Trump attorney John Eastman is second co-conspirator to surrender in Georgia

John Eastman, the conservative attorney who helped develop a plan to keep Donald Trump in power, on Tuesday morning became the second of the former president’s co-defendants to turn himself in to authorities in Georgia.

Eastman was booked at the Fulton County jail before being released by authorities.

He said his arrest was an attack on his First Amendment rights and that he had been targeted for simply being vigorous in pursuit of a case.

‘It represents a crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances,’ he said in statement issued by his legal team.

‘As troubling, it targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients, something attorneys are ethically bound to provide and which was attempted here by “formally challeng[ing] the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means.”‘

Trump and 18 co-defendants are accused in a sprawling racketeering case of trying to upend the result of the 2020 election.

Trump himself said a day earlier that he will present himself to the jailhouse on Thursday, a day before the Friday noon deadline.

Eastman, a former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, was a close adviser to Trump in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters intent on halting the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

Conservative attorney John Eastman poses for a photograph with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House. He was an adviser to Trump before the Jan. 6 attack

The sheriff’s department says most people arrested in Fulton County are taken to the main jail on Rice Street, to the northwest of the city center, where conditions are being investigated

He wrote a memo laying out steps Vice President Mike Pence could take to interfere in the counting of electoral votes while presiding over Congress’ joint session on Jan. 6 in order to keep Trump in office.

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He was named in a 98-page Georgia indictment published last week.

The defendants were charged with 41 criminal counts in connection with efforts to reverse Trump’s defeat in the state’s 2020 election. 

On Monday, court filings revealed the bond agreements reached by defendants and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. They dropped one by one on the court’s website.

A day later the defendants began handing themselves in.

The first was Scott Hall, a bail bondsman in Atlanta. He is charged in connection with an alleged voting systems breach in Coffee County, Georgia.

Then came Eastman.

The indictment accuses him and others of pushing a scheme involving ‘alternate’ electors that would certify that Trump won.

Eastman released a statement saying he would ‘vigorously’ contest the indictment

Scott Hall with Donald Trump – Hall became the first of Trump’s co-conspirators to surrender to authorities in Atlanta

He will not give a formal plea until he appears in court. In the meantime, his legal team said the indictment ‘sets out activity that is political, but not criminal.’

‘Lawyers everywhere should be sleepless over this latest stunt to criminalize their advocacy. This is a legal cluster-bomb that leaves unexploded ordinance for lawyers to navigate in perpetuity,’ his attorneys said.

The case is the fourth time Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has been indicted in a criminal case since April.

He maintains has done nothing wrong and repeatedly characterized the case as an effort to end his presidential campaign.