New court filings in the battle between Trump ally John Eastman and the Jan. 6 committee have helped flesh out the details behind how the conservative attorney came into his role advising former President Donald Trump.
Eastman, who authored a strategy pressuring former Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election for Trump, revealed he was first invited to join the former president’s “election integrity working group” on Sept. 3, 2020. The group was preparing for “post-election litigation” and that effort had been underway since at least August.
It was Cleta Mitchell, a prominent conservative attorney, the filings show, who was “deputized” by Trump to launch the so-called working group and in turn, Mitchell turned to Eastman for help.
The disclosures from Eastman have surfaced as result of a lawsuit he brought against the Jan. 6 committee. The committee first subpoenaed Eastman for his records and deposition in October seeking information about his interactions with Trump leading up to Jan. 6.
Citing executive privilege, Eastman balked and pleaded the Fifth Amendment. The committee went around that obstruction, however, and subpoenaed his employer, Chapman University. Ultimately, a federal judge ordered the records to be produced, directing Eastman to mock up a privilege log and itemize any records the committee might have asked for but are, in his opinion, protected by privilege. He was also ordered earlier this month to describe why they are considered privileged and explain the specific nature of “all attorney-client and agent relationships” that he premised the privileges on.
As a result, in a 14-page declaration filed in a federal court in California, Eastman offered for the first time a description of his work for Trump.
“As a member of the Election Integrity Working Group and in furtherance of my representation of President Trump as candidate and his campaign committee, I began conducting legal research and collaborating with academic advisers and other supporters of the President about the myriad number of factual and legal issues we anticipated might arise following the election,” he wrote.
Eastman Declaration by Daily Kos
Though Mitchell came to Eastman in the late summer of 2020, Eastman notes he did not sign a formal engagement letter with Trump until December.
He was still working for Trump, though, noting how he met with the former president’s legal team in Philadelphia on Nov. 7 to prepare a challenge to election results in Pennsylvania.
Investigators have pegged Eastman as one of the most integral figures in Trump’s push to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020. The attorney provided counsel to the president on how to subvert the results, a maneuver that would have overturned the will of millions of voters.
He also corresponded with state officials on Trump’s behalf in Georgia and Wisconsin to “advise them of their constitutional authority” on how to choose presidential electors.
Eastman was often at Trump’s “war room” at the Willard Hotel in D.C., investigators say. It was there that he and others, like Rudy Giuliani, Bernie Kerik, and Steve Bannon would meet to hash out the overthrow strategy. He was also in frequent contact with Pence’s counsel, Greg Jacobs.
“i communicated extensively with statistical and other experts to analyze voting anomalies that raised serious questions about the validity of the election in a number of key counties and states,” Eastman wrote. “Several of those experts requested anonymity for fear of losing their academic or corporate positions and being threatened with violence were it to become known, in the hyper-partisan atmosphere of the post-election litigation, that they were working on statistically analysis with members of President Trump’s legal team.”
Important to note, however, is in an engagement letter Eastman shared with the court. The letter is dated Dec. 5. And while it details how Eastman would service Trump as his client, the letter is not signed.
Engagement Letter for Trump by Daily Kos
There are a few redactions in the brief defending the privilege claims. The names redacted appear to belong to at least one volunteer attorney and another person listed as “an attorney.” Discussions with those individuals, Eastman said, revolved around “work product discussion.”
Other names are redacted too, including someone who was “apparently outside the attorney client relationship” and was following up with Eastman about a meeting held with “forensic experts who had information that might have been useful in anticipated litigation,” the brief states.
Notably unredacted in Tuesday’s filing was the name “Oltmann.” That is likely a reference to Joe Oltmann, a Colorado-based right-wing activist who hosts the podcast Conservative Daily. Oltmann made dubious claims in October about Dominion Voting Systems, claiming the voting machines were rigged. Oltmann also claimed he snuck onto “an antifa conference call,” The Colorado Sun reported, where he heard an official at Dominion Voting Systems say the company would ensure Trump would lose.
A “data technology expert” working with Eastman sent an email to Oltmann, Eastman wrote, and one of the volunteer Trump attorneys about their “work product.”
An attorney for Eastman, Charles Burnham, did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
Eastman Thompson Brief in Support Privilege Assertions Feb 22 2022 by Daily Kos on Scribd
Document and privilege log production will continue for Eastman in the days and likely weeks ahead. Though the committee agreed to narrow its request for now to Chapman University emails spanning just Jan. 4, 2021 to Jan. 6, 2021, there are 90,000 pages of records at review.
