They are hitting Trump with everything they have.
In a court filing on Wednesday evening, the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol alleged former President Donald Trump may have committed a crime when attempting to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
This latest claim is part of the committee’s legal tassel with John Eastman, the lawyer charged with drafting the Jan. 6 strategy to prevent certification, as they attempt to compel documents from Eastman.
In the claim, the panel alleged Trump was working with Eastman to convince Mike Pence, then-Vice President, to obstruct Congress from certifying the Electoral College votes.
In the filing, the committee wrote: “Had this effort succeeded, the electoral count would have been obstructed, impeded, influenced, and (at the very least) delayed, all without any genuine legal justification and based on the false pretense that the election had been stolen. There is no genuine question that the President and Plaintiff attempted to accomplish this specific illegal result.”
The filing also revealed the committee “has a good faith basis” for its conclusion that former President Donald Trump and his Campaign “engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
The accusations leveled against Trump by the committee, so far, are the most serious, although they don’t constitute formal charges or mean Trump would face criminal prosecution. Instead, they reveal the panel’s desire to probe the events leading to the Capitol riot at the highest levels.
A mission that includes responding to Eastman’s lawsuit seeks to block the Jan. 6 panel’s subpoena to review his private communications. Eastman has responded to the subpoena, arguing his communication is privileged, partly because of his legal dealings with the former President.
The committee, however, has argued that Eastman’s communication with Trump is not covered by attorney-client privilege because legal advice rendered when the intention is to commit a crime does not have the protection of these privileges.
As a result, the Wednesday filing asked the judge to personally review the records the panel has requested from Eastman to ascertain if they are exempt from attorney-client privilege because they fall under the crime-fraud exception.
