Journal apparently has joined smear Eastman campaign

A GROUP calling itself The 65 Project has targeted nearly 100 lawyers, including me, state attorneys general and even a U.S. senator for daring to challenge illegality and fraud in the 2020 election. The group brags that its mission is “to deter right-wing talent from signing on to any future GOP efforts” to challenge elections, not only by bringing bar complaints but to “shame them and make them toxic in their communities and their firms.”

The Albuquerque Journal now seems to have joined in that smear campaign. The hit job on me and my wife in (the Feb. 19) article is both meanspirited and undignified, well beneath the standards of decency that ought to prevail at any reputable newspaper. What editor approved the inclusion of such vulgarity as describing me as a “prick,” for example, for simply joining my wife six years ago at her high school reunion and attempting pleasant conversation with people I had never met before? What editor allowed into print an unsubstantiated “he’s dangerous” quotation that might well be taken as an open invitation to violence against us?

There is also a factual error, easily discoverable but which was instead used to intimate a false, hunkered-down-inSanta-Fe narrative because we had erected a fence around our home. False (because) the fence existed when we bought the house, and because the reporter apparently interviewed the prior owner that could easily have been verified. We had also offered to answer any questions, but that, or requests for supporting comments from other reunion attendees or friendly neighbors, were never asked, apparently because that would have undercut the story’s premise.

The story does confirm one point we made, however; the New Mexico in which my wife grew up was not nearly so intolerant of opposing viewpoints as it has become.