Keystone Coup Lawyer John Eastman Consults Constitutional Scholar Tucker Carlson

What better authority, right?

 Coups 4 Dummies lawyer John Eastman has already announced his intention to plead the Fifth at his appearance before the House January 6 Select Committee. But with his fellow traveler Steve Bannon facing criminal contempt charges, Eastman may be getting a little nervous about his legal strategy. Perhaps that's why he booked himself a session with the world's preeminent constitutional lawyer for an on-air chat about congressional subpoena power.

Yep, that's right, he went on Tucker Carlson last night to shout some more about his intent to finally shut the hell up .

Tucker: So why comply? Eastman: We shouldn’t but Congress has the power to issue criminal contempt.. the DOJ is fully inline. They’ve already brought one criminal indictment against one of the people who refused to comply…pic.twitter.com/vh7XJAi8Vr

— Acyn (@Acyn) 1638840014 

"Why comply?" demanded an outraged Carlson. "I mean, at this point, if it's totally fake, this is just Soviet show trial — which it is — then why would the rest of us have any kind of obligation to play along with it, honestly?"

"Well, we shouldn't," Eastman agreed. "But Congress has the power to issue [referrals for] criminal contempt. Normally those don't go anywhere in such charades as this. But the Department of Justice is fully in line. And you know they've already brought one criminal indictment against one of the people that refused to comply."

Indeed, Steve Bannon seems to be delighted to find himself the center of attention again.

Eastman goes on to complain about his phone records being subpoenaed from AT&T, which may or may not be an accurate description of what is happening here. In August, the Select Committee sent preservation letters to multiple platforms instructing them not to destroy evidence which might be subpoenaed at some future date. And Eastman is very sloppy in his characterization of these letters, which are definitely not subpoenas, and which do not result in the companies "turning these records over to Nancy Pelosi and Bennie Thompson," as Carlson describes it.

"There's no linkage to criminal activity that has occurred for how many hundreds of people on these subpoena lists that were sent to Verizon and AT&T and probably every other phone company in the country," Eastman whined. "There's no evidence at all, but they want to track Americans' thinking."

There are no subpoena lists with "many hundreds of people."

But Eastman claims that his own phone records have really been subpoenaed: "The phone companies I think would prefer not to comply, but, you know, they're going to be held in criminal contempt if they don't. So they have now forced me and my lawyers to work with some of these other people to file a court action to try and block these unbelievably expansive and unconstitutional subpoenas of our private records and communications."

If Eastman and "some of these other people" have actually filed suit to block the phone companies complying with congressional subpoenas, it hasn't appeared on the DC docket as yet. But Trumpland lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who got booted out of her firm job after it was revealed she'd sat in on Trump's infamous call with Georgia's secretary of state, has also had her communications subpoenaed, according to Carlson. Again, just to be clear, we don't know if these are subpoenas or preservation letters. And neither does Tucker Carlson.

"I guess we shouldn't be surprised," Eastman howled. "This group that wants to advance a Soviet, communist-style agenda, we shouldn't be surprised that they're using Soviet, Stalinist tactics to do it."

LOL, remember when Republicans wanted to LOCK HER UP Hillary Clinton because she had the temerity to delete her own personal emails off her server?

CRY HARDER, Johnny.

Follow Liz Dye on Twitter!

Click the widget to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty. And if you're ordering from Amazon, use this link, because reasons .