Attorney and former senior advisor to then-President Donald Trump, Eric Herschmann, has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, after his explosive primetime testimony before the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack last month.
“A federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack has subpoenaed Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann for documents and testimony, according to a person familiar with the matter,” Politico reports.
Herschmann, who also defended Trump as part of the first Senate impeachment trial, famously attended the “craziest meeting of the Trump presidency,” a post-election Oval Office meeting during which he allegedly told conspiracy theory promoter and Trump loyalist Patrick Byrne, “Do you even know who the fuck I am, you idiot?”
In February of 2021, less than one month after the January 6 insurrection, Axios reported on that meeting, adding this exchange between Herschmann and Trump’s “Kraken” attorney Sidney Powell:
“Powell, fixing on Trump, continued to elaborate on a fantastical election narrative involving Venezuela, Iran, China and others. She named a county in Georgia where she claimed she could prove that [voting machine manufacturer] Dominion had illegally flipped the vote,” Axios reported. “Herschmann interrupted to point out that Trump had actually won the Georgia county in question: ‘So your theory is that Dominion intentionally flipped the votes so we could win that county?'”
Herschmann, who is also becoming known for his colorful language, says he told coup memo author and far right attorney John Eastman to “Get a great f’ing criminal defense lawyer,” on January 7, 2021, one day after the insurrection.
“He started to ask me about something dealing with Georgia, preserving something, potentially for appeal,” Herschmann says in his testimony to the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, NBC News reported. “And I said to him, are you out of your f’ing mind? Right? I said I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on, ‘orderly transition.’”
“Now I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life: Get a great f’ing criminal defense lawyer. You’re gonna need it.”
During the first impeachment hearing, Herschmann argued that Trump should not be convicted by the Senate, claiming he was no threat to the nation because his approval rating was high.