Poli Alert Political & Civics
Related Articles
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said they have enough evidence to conclude that former President Donald Trump and some of his allies were engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The claims were made in the select committee’s brief in Eastman v. Thompson, a case involving former Trump lawyer John Eastman’s refusal to turn over thousands of personal emails to the select committee.
The select committee requested Eastman’s emails as part of an inquiry into his alleged attempt to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to reject electors from states won by President Biden in the 2020 election.
In the court document, the committee said that Trump interfered with the 2020 election certification process, disseminated false information about election fraud and “pressured state officials to alter state election results and federal officials to assist in that effort.”
The panel also said Trump may have violated the law when his former attorney, John Eastman, tried to block investigators from obtaining emails related to the investigation. Eastman claimed attorney-client privilege in his decision not to turn over materials to the committee.
“The select committee’s brief refutes on numerous grounds the privilege claims Dr. Eastman has made to try to keep hidden records critical to our investigation,” committee Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice-Chair Liz Cheney said in a joint statement.
“Dr. Eastman’s privilege claims raise the question of whether the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege applies in this situation. We believe the evidence in our possession justifies the review of these documents.”
“The select committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the president and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the panel said of its 221-page filing, which was filed in federal court in California.
Thompson and Cheney said that the evidence “strongly suggests” that Eastman’s emails show that he helped Trump advance an effort to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and engaged in a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power to Biden’s administration.
“We look forward to the court’s review of our filing as the select committee’s investigation moves forward,” Thompson and Cheney added.
