The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol says there is enough evidence to conclude that former President Donald Trump and some of his associates may have engaged in criminal conduct in his bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Reuters reported:
"Evidence and information available to the Committee establishes a good-faith belief that Mr. Trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts," the committee said in a court filing.
"The Select Committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States," the filing said.
The court document was filed Wednesday in a civil case in federal court in Los Angeles as part of the committee’s dispute with John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Trump on a plan to overturn the election results in key battleground states.
The committee is trying to force Eastman to turn over thousands of emails and documents. It said Eastman’s participation in potential crimes trumped his argument that he could withhold them on the grounds of attorney-client privilege. The committee’s lawyers were responding to a lawsuit filed by Eastman who claimed attorney-client privilege as a basis for refusing to turn over many documents and emails.
The Guardian reported:
House counsel Douglas Letter said in the 61-page filing that the select committee had a basis for concluding Trump violated the law by obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding and defrauded the United States by interfering with lawful government functions.
Eastman has so far turned over about 8,000 pages of emails and documents from 4-7 January to the panel, but has withheld an additional 11,000 documents on the basis that they are protected by attorney-client privilege or constitute confidential attorney work product.
MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner had this reaction:
Here is a link to the complete court filing.
The New York Times reported that the filing represented “the first time” the committee’s lawyers “laid out their theory of a potential criminal case against the former president.”
They said they had accumulated evidence demonstrating that Mr. Trump, the conservative lawyer John Eastman and other allies could potentially be charged with criminal violations including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the American people.
The filing also said the men might have broken a common law statute against fraud through Mr. Trump’s repeated lies that the election had been stolen.
Although some key witnesses have refused to respond to subpoenas or taken the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination when appearing before the committee. But the committee has collected information from more than 550 witnesses.
According to the filing, Jason Miller, a senior Trump campaign adviser, had said in a deposition to the committee that Trump had been informed soon after Election Day by a campaign data expert “in pretty blunt terms” that he was going to lose, suggesting that Trump was well aware that his claims about a stolen election were false, The Times reported.
Members of the House Jan. 6 committee have indicated that they are considering making a criminal referral to the Department of Justice against Trump and his allies.
The filing said Eastman “was a leader” in an effort “to persuade state officials to alter their election results” based on fraudulent claims by Trump and his associates to propagate “dangerous misinformation to the public.”
In its subpoena to Eastman, the committee cited a memo he wrote outlining how Vice President Mike Pence could invalidate the presidential election results by rejecting electors from some key swing states.
Eastman also participated in a meeting of Trump advisers in the so-called “war room” set up at the Willard Hotel in D.C. on Jan. 6. He also shared the stage with former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally outside the White House that preceded the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters.
During the Capitol insurrection, Eastman sent a message to Pence’s top lawyer blaming the vice president for the violence because the vice president did not go along with his plan to overturn the election results. Even Pence found that there was no legal basis for Eastman’s plan.
On Tuesday, George Cardona, chief trial counsel for the State Bar of California, announced that Eastman was under investigation to determine whether he violated California law and ethics rules "following and in relation to the November 2020 presidential election."