The Jan. 6 select committee says its evidence has shown that Trump and his campaign tried to illegally obstruct Congress’ counting of electoral votes and “engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
In a court filing late Wednesday that was tied to a case with lawyer John Eastman, the committee said it has laid out evidence that Trump himself violated multiple laws by attempting to prevent Congress from certifying his defeat.
Eastman has been fighting a subpoena to keep records hidden from the committee, and was a key figure in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In a deposition of Eastman it was shown that the lawyer invoked his Fifth Amendment privileges over 150 times.
The bulk of the committee’s legal filing focused on Eastman’s efforts to justify ordering Pence to overturn the election single-handedly on January 6, and show that Eastman’s attempts were relentless even following the Capitol attack. Eastman continued to press Pence to overturn the election.
“Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege,” Pence’s attorney e-mailed Eastman, with a lengthy defense of Pence’s inability to decertify the electoral votes.
“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman replied.
The committee has submitted the filing in order to convince U.S. District Court Judge David Carter that Eastman should provide more of his e-mails. Eastman is citing attorney-client privilege in order to block additional e-mails.
The committee refutes Eastman’s claims of attorney-client privilege, citing an unsigned letter from Eastman that purported the claims that his client was the Trump campaign.
California-based Judge Carter has repeatedly sided with the committee, and in January ordered Eastman to hurry up the process of reviewing 90,000 e-mails and attachments he claims should be withheld.