John Eastman, the attorney who architected Donald Trump’s last-ditch legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election, revealed Friday that he routinely communicated with Trump either directly or via “six conduits” during the chaotic weeks that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
In a late-night court filing urging a federal judge to maintain the confidentiality of his work for Trump, Eastman provided the clearest insight yet into the blizzard of communications between Trump, his top aides, his campaign lawyers and the army of outside attorneys who were working to help reverse the outcome in a handful of states won by Joe Biden.
The filing also describes the direct role of Trump himself in developing strategy, detailing “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.” Those notes are among the documents Eastman is seeking to shield via attorney-client privilege. Eastman said he would also speak directly with Trump by phone throughout his legal challenges to the election.
Eastman described these contacts and records as part of an effort to prevent the Jan. 6 select committee from accessing 600 emails that describe his efforts to build Trump’s legal gambit to reverse the 2020 election outcome — and, when that failed, urge state legislatures to simply overturn the results themselves. He argues that the documents are protected by attorney-client and attorney work product privileges.
Politico
Those documents must be doozies if he's willing to state he consulted with Trump but won't produce supporting documentation.
While most of Eastman’s Friday filing pertains to Trump’s broad legal effort, Eastman also described a set of far lower-profile contacts he is seeking to shield from the select committee, including a dozen emails he appears to have exchanged with Fox News host Mark Levin.
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The select committee has previously described other Fox commentators’ contacts related to Trump’s actions around Jan. 6, revealing communications from hosts Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade.
[...]
Eastman is also urging the judge, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter of California, to shield dozens of contacts with state legislators, some of whom he advised to appoint slates of pro-Trump electors, overriding the certified results of the popular vote in their states.
Eastman provides few details about the White House officials and attorneys with whom he was communicating, leaving their names out of the filing. But several of the attorneys filed declarations supporting Eastman’s descriptions of his work for Trump.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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