Washington- Conservative attorney John Eastman seeks to protect more than 3,200 documents totaling 36,106 pages from the House select committee investigating the January 6 assault on the US Capitol, he revealed in a new court filing Monday, asserting the privilege attorney-client about records regarding his work for former President Donald Trump and his presidential campaign.
Eastman told US District Judge David Carter in the status report filed as part of his ongoing legal dispute with the House panel that investigators disputed “all claims” of attorney-client privilege and product protection. of the work he claimed in the pages. Carter will now review the disputed documents and decide whether they should be turned over to the select committee.
Politico first reported the records that Eastman seeks to hide from House investigators.
Eastman, a former law professor at Chapman University, was the driving force behind the legal strategy to justify Trump’s attempts to stay in office after losing the 2020 presidential election to President Biden. The effort centered on a plan for Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, to reject electoral votes from key battleground states won by Biden. Pence ultimately rejected the plan, arguing that he did not have the authority to carry it out.
Eastman used his Chapman email account to communicate about efforts to overturn election results, and the House select committee issued a subpoena to the school in January for records related to the presidential contest or the 6th assault. from January.
But Eastman tried to hide the emails from the committee, arguing that they included information that would be protected under the attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product privilege. He asked a federal district court to stop the panel from enforcing his subpoena and prevent Chapman from complying, a request that ultimately launched a broad review of the records requested by the House committee.
Carter ruled in march that Eastman had to turn over 101 emails exchanged between Jan. 4 and 7, 2021, a narrower stretch of records involving a key period for House investigators. The judge also found it “more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct” congressional proceedings on January 6.
“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to nullify a democratic election, an action unprecedented in the history of the United States,” he wrote in his 44-page decision. “His campaign was not confined to the ivory tower: it was a coup in search of a legal theory.”
Eastman’s latest filing revealing the more than 36,000 pages of emails he seeks to retain is part of Chapman’s broader review of his emails. More than 94,000 pages complied with the select committee’s terms under his subpoena, though nearly 30,000 were removed because they were mass mailings, according to the filing.
Eastman produced 25,319 pages of records and another 231 pages in response to the committee’s objections.
According to court documents, Eastman asserted “various privileges” on 40,656 pages involving clients or potential clients, and the panel did not contest his claims on 3,006 pages. Among the remaining 37,650 pages at issue, Carter reviewed 336 pages and required Eastman in his March decision to hand over all 101 documents totaling 315 pages.
The House select committee has objected to Eastman’s claims of privilege over the remaining 3,247 documents totaling 36,106 pages.