In an effort to obtain evidence from Trump lawyer John Eastman, the January 6 committee is suggesting that Trump and company may have committed crimes. It probably won’t lead to criminal charges, but could expose Trump’s vast plot.
In a development that will please anyone hoping to see Donald Trump finally brought to justice, the U.S. House Select Committee on January 6 submitted a court filing to a federal judge in California alleging that the 45th president and some of his allies may have engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to defraud the federal government and obstruct Congress by seeking to prevent confirmation of Joe Biden’s designation as president-elect on January 6, 2021. The purpose of the court filing is to enforce a subpoena against Trump’s lawyer John Eastman, author of the infamous Eastman memo, the document aimed at convincing Vice-President Mike Pence that he could throw out electoral votes won by Joe Biden. The committee wants emails Eastman sent to various people, including members of Congress, during the run-up to the violence-marred joint session of Congress on January 6. Eastman is trying to use attorney-client privilege to hide documents from the committee, but communications in the pursuit of fraud or criminal acts are a recognized exception to that privilege. So the fraught subject of where the investigation might ultimately lead has officially come up, with the committee asking the California judge to privately review some of the evidence it has already compiled.
