John Eastman.Photo: Susan Walsh/AP/Shutterstock
The FBI has seized the phone of attorney John Eastman — a close ally of former PresidentDonald Trumpand a central figure in the investigation into the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Eastman, a former professor at Chapman University, has described himself as Trump’s attorney who was assisting the then-president in his efforts to prove that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
Eastman has also made legal attempts to keep records, including his emails, hidden from the House of Representatives committee, citing attorney-client privilege.
The committee has referred to an exception to attorney-client privilege: when a “client consults an attorney for advice that will serve him in the commission of a fraud or crime.”
In a statement issued in March, Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said he believes “Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power.”
A federal judge wrote in a March court filing that “it is more likely than not” that Trump and Eastman enacted a plan to overturn the election, and justified that plan with allegations of election fraud.
Trump and Eastman,Judge David Carter wrote, “launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower — it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process.”
Pence did not, insteadreleasing a statementhours before Congress met to certify the election for Joe Biden, informing both the president and the public that he didn’t have the constitutional power — or any intention — to intervene with the country’s vote.
source: people.com
