Jan 6 panel obtains Eastman emails he tried to keep secret

By Katelyn Polantz and Paul LeBlanc | CNN

The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has obtained a cache of emails that right-wing lawyer John Eastman had sought to keep secret.

The 101 emails — exchanged between January 4 and January 7, 2021 — were released to the committee after Judge David Carter ruled that Eastman had not made a sufficient claim to attorney-client privilege.

One email, a draft memo for Rudy Giuliani, was obtained by the committee because the judge decided it was potentially being used to plan a crime. The memo recommended that then-Vice President Mike Pence reject some states’ electors during the January 6 congressional meeting.

“This may have been the first time members of President Trump’s team transformed a legal interpretation of the Electoral Count Act into a day-by-day plan of action,” Carter wrote.

In the other 100 documents the committee is receiving, the judge described extensive discussions among Eastman and others about using court cases as a political argument to block Congress from certifying the vote.

“In another email thread, Dr. Eastman’s colleagues discuss whether to publish a piece supporting his plan, and they touch on state lawsuits only to criticize how they are being handled by the Trump campaign,” the judge’s ruling last month said. “In a different email thread, Dr. Eastman and a colleague consider how to use a state court ruling to justify Vice President Pence enacting the plan. In another email, a colleague focuses on the ‘plan of action’ after the January 6 attacks.”