Judge Orders John Eastman to Turn Over His Documents To The January 6 Committee, Finds Trump Probably Broke The Law

NBC News reports, Trump probably broke the law in an effort to obstruct Jan. 6 proceedings, judge says:

A federal judge presiding over a civil suit involving the House committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol found Monday that then-President Donald Trump “likely attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress” on Jan. 6, which would be a crime.

“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” Judge David Carter wrote of Trump and lawyer John Eastman’s plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence determine the results of the 2020 election.

“Every American — and certainly the president of the United States — knows that in a democracy, leaders are elected, not installed. With a plan this ‘BOLD,’ President Trump knowingly tried to subvert this fundamental principle. Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” Carter wrote, ordering emails that Eastman wrote furthering the plan to be turned over to the Jan. 6 committee.

Charles Burnham, an attorney for Eastman, said in a statement that his client “intends to comply with the court’s order.” He noted that the judge had agreed with some of their arguments about attorney-client privilege and ordered that “precisely one document (which Dr. Eastman did not author) produced pursuant to the so-called crime/fraud exception.”

Carter’s ruling was in a civil case, where the burden of proof is less than a criminal case.

“The court is tasked only with deciding a dispute over a handful of emails,” he wrote. “This is not a criminal prosecution; this is not even a civil liability suit. At most, this case is a warning about the dangers of ‘legal theories’ gone wrong, the powerful abusing public platforms, and desperation to win at all costs. If Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution.”

In his ruling, Carter wrote that Eastman should give the committee 101 of the 111 documents he was trying to keep from the panel. One of those documents, the judge wrote, is a email chain “forwarding to Dr. Eastman a draft memo written for President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani.”

“The memo recommended that Vice President Pence reject electors from contested states on January 6. 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,” the judge wrote, adding that the “draft memo pushed a strategy that knowingly violated the Electoral Count Act, and Dr. Eastman’s later [coup] memos closely track its analysis and proposal.”

The ruling does not say who wrote the memo, but said, “Because the memo likely furthered the crimes of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, it is subject to the crime-fraud exception and the court orders it to be disclosed.”

Since it was written for Rudy Giuliani, I will summize that it was Jenna Ellis (above), a member of his laughable “elite strike force team,” who has previously been identifed as writing coup memos. Trump campaign lawyer authored 2 memos claiming Pence could halt Biden’s victory:

The memos from then-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, which contain widely disputed legal theories about Pence’s ability to stop a Biden presidency, underscore Ellis’ promotion of extreme arguments that she promulgated amid Trump’s effort to reverse the election results. Her actions have remained largely below the radar as House investigators probe Trump’s inner circle.

A Dec. 31 Ellis memo delivered to Trump’s office suggested that Pence — who was constitutionally responsible for presiding over Congress’ counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6 — should simply refuse to open envelopes from states whose election results Trump considered to be fraudulent. That memo was described by ABC reporter Jonathan Karl in his recent book “Betrayal.” POLITICO is publishing it in full for the first time.

In a second, previously unreported memo dated Jan. 5, Ellis argued that key provisions of the Electoral Count Act — limiting Pence’s authority to affirm or reject certain electors — were likely unconstitutional. She concluded that Pence, while presiding over lawmakers’ counting of electors, should simply halt the process when their alphabetical proceeding reached Arizona.

Then, she said, he should declare that the state failed to meet the legal standard for certifying its own electors and “require the final ascertainment of electors to be completed before continuing.”

In his statement, Burnham noted that the judge’s “crime/fraud findings were not subject to the presumption of innocence, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or any of the constitutional protections normally applicable in criminal proceedings.”

Eastman filed suit against the committee in California federal court in January, arguing the panel had improperly subpoenaed his emails from his former workplace, Chapman University.

The committee had previously subpoenaed Eastman to turn over documents, which he’d refused to do, citing attorney-client and other privileges. The House panel had urged the judge to deny Eastman’s arguments, citing an exception when a client is involved in criminal activities while alleging that Trump had been “engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

The judge sided with the committee, finding that both Trump and Eastman likely knew what they were doing was wrongful.

“President Trump and Dr. Eastman justified the plan with allegations of election fraud — but President Trump likely knew the justification was baseless, and therefore that the entire plan was unlawful. Although Dr. Eastman argues that President Trump was advised several state elections were fraudulent, the Select Committee points to numerous executive branch officials who publicly stated and privately stressed to President Trump that there was no evidence of fraud,” Carter wrote.

The judge said Trump and Eastman had “launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower — it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process.”

Carter closed his 44-page ruling with a warning: “If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will repeat itself.”

Law & Crime adds, Federal Judge, Fearing Repeat of Jan. 6, Finds Trump ‘More Likely Than Not’ Committed Felony Obstruction of Congress:

The ruling does not fall under any criminal proceeding but rather in a discovery battle filed by so-called “coup memo” author, lawyer, and former law professor John Eastman in the Central District of California. Eastman had been fighting to preserve 111 emails from his tenure as dean at Chapman University. The communications at issue were from between Nov. 3, 2020 and Jan. 20, 2021, between Election Day and President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Earlier this month, the Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol tried to overcome Eastman’s assertions of privilege through the crime-fraud exception, outlining three theories of allegedly illegal conduct by Trump and Eastman: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and common law fraud.

Finding the first two theories plausible, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter did not see a need to reach the final theory. Carter also found that the evidence “clearly supports” an attorney-client relationship between Eastman and Trump and his campaign between Jan. 4 and 7, 2021. But the judge, citing Eastman’s remark “we’re no longer playing by Queensbury Rules,” found that the lawyer explicitly envisioned going beyond the boundaries of law and norms in urging former vice president Mike Pence to engage in what he called a “minor violation” of the Electoral Count Act.

[Of] the 111 emails at issue in the civil proceeding, Carter gave the committee the green light to scrutinize 101. The remainder, the judge found, were “entirely non-substantive.” They even included a blank page, which Eastman wanted to protect, according to the ruling. The judge emphasized that his purview was limited in the civil lawsuit, but he ended his ruling with a flourish.

Judge Carter’s ruling raises the obvious question: “What exactly is the Department of Justice doing to hold the Coup Plotters accountable at law?”

David Atkins explains at the Political Animal Blog, Refusing to Prosecute Trump Is a Political Act: “If the facts warrant prosecuting Donald Trump and anyone in his circle, they should be charged. Prosecuting them would not be political. Failure to prosecute them would be.”