Trump attorney John Eastman, still considered to be the “alternate elector” mastermind, is still trying to keep documents out of the House Select Committee’s hands. If it seems like we’ve been down this road before, it is because we have. We all remember July and a federal judge’s ruling that one email claimed to be attorney-client privileged could be considered a crime. From The Hill on July 22nd:
A federal judge ordered former President Trump’s legal adviser, John Eastman, to turn over another batch of 159 documents subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 select committee, including a single email he found to likely be part of a criminal effort to overturn the 2020 election.
So why does Eastman believe he can still withhold documents, a shockingly high number of documents, from the January 6th Committee? He asserts that the documents are protected attorney work product. From Law and Crime:
Former President Donald Trump’s post-election lawyer John Eastman is asking a federal judge in California to shield from the Jan. 6 Committee an additional 558 documents from his Chapman University email account.
Eastman’s lawyers said they’ll produce 18 of the 576 documents requested by the committee, but they believe the remaining 558 are protected through previous orders or because they are attorney work product.
House General Counsel Douglas Letter now has until next Monday to respond to Eastman’s argument that Carter shouldn’t allow the committee to see the 558 documents.
Well, normally, attorney work product is protected, though at a lower level (slightly) than the attorney-client privilege. Eastman’s claim for attorney-client privilege has already been shot out of the water, one of which was, in the opinion of the judge, evidence of a crime. That prior finding that an attorney-client document evidenced a crime will likely again be the reason Eastman won’t succeed in this matter.
But one senses some desperation in Eastman’s motion. There is an old legal adage; “If you have the law, pound the law. If you have the facts, pound the facts. If you don’t have the law or the facts, pound the table.” This motion is likely of the “pound the table” type, hoping to slow down the process enough such that Republicans can win a majority and attempt to shut down the J6 investigation.
Eastman will still be subject to DOJ subpoenas and would have to wiggle his way out of that problem. In other words, there isn’t likely much daylight coming through the walls closing in on John Eastman, mastermind of the alternate electors’ scheme. This is as it should be in a giant conspiracy.
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