A federal judge ordered a new batch of John Eastman’s emails released that includes evidence of another potential crime.
U.S. District Court Judge David Carter ordered the conservative attorney to disclose 159 documents, including emails and papers related to meetings he held with a secretive group supporting Donald Trump, to the House select committee just days before its first public hearing on the Jan.6 insurrection, reported Politico.
“The Select Committee has a substantial interest in these three meetings because the presentations furthered a critical objective of the January 6 plan: to have contested states certify alternate slates of electors for President Trump,” Carter ruled. “Dr. Eastman’s actions in these few weeks indicate that his and President Trump’s pressure campaign to stop the electoral count did not end with Vice President Pence — it targeted every tier of federal and state elected officials. Convincing state legislatures to certify competing electors was essential to stop the count and ensure President Trump’s reelection.”
Five documents include the agenda for a Dec. 9, 2020, meeting where a member of Congress discussed a plan to challenge Joe Biden’s electors in the House of Representatives, and Carter identified a single email from Dec. 22, 2020, from an unidentified attorney as evidence of a potential crime.
“Because the attorney concluded that a negative court ruling would ‘tank the January 6 strategy,’ he encouraged the legal team to avoid the courts,” Carter found.
“This email cemented the direction of the January 6 plan,” Carter added. “The Trump legal team chose not to seek recourse in court — instead, they forged ahead with a political campaign to disrupt the electoral count. Lawyers are free not to bring cases; they are not free to evade judicial review to overturn a democratic election. Accordingly, this portion of the email is subject to the crime-fraud exception and must be disclosed.”
Other documents include several communications directly from the former president, including a photo with a handwritten note from Trump about the size of his campaign rallies, and two were sent from Trump’s executive assistant seeking advice for framing his public statements about sending alternate slates of electors to Congress.