House Panel Obtains Coup Plot Emails That Eastman Tried To Conceal

John C. Eastman was the author of an infamous two-page memo that found the far-right attorney and Donald Trump supporter outlining a scheme in which then-Vice President Mike Pence would throw out the 2020 presidential election results during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021. Eastman’s insurrectionist activities have been probed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House Select Committee, which, according to CNN, has “obtained a cache of emails” that Eastman “sought to keep secret.”

CNN reporters Katelyn Polantz and Paul LeBlanc explain, “The 101 e-mails, exchanged between January 4 and January 7, 2021, were released to the committee after Judge David Carter ruled that Eastman had not made a sufficient claim to attorney-client privilege. One e-mail, a draft memo for Rudy Giuliani, was obtained by the committee because the judge decided it was potentially being used to plan a crime. The memo recommended that then-Vice President Mike Pence reject some states’ electors during the January 6 congressional meeting.”

According to Carter, “This may have been the first time (that) members of President Trump’s team transformed a legal interpretation of the Electoral Count Act into a day-by-day plan of action.”

Carter, describing the e-mails, wrote, “In another e-mail thread, Dr. Eastman’s colleagues discuss whether to publish a piece supporting his plan, and they touch on state lawsuits only to criticize how they are being handled by the Trump campaign…. In a different e-mail thread, Dr. Eastman and a colleague consider how to use a state court ruling to justify Vice President Pence enacting the plan. In another e-mail, a colleague focuses on the ‘plan of action’ after the January 6 attacks.”

Efforts by the January 6 committee to obtain those e-mails, Polantz and Paul LeBlanc note, were “closely watched in the legal community because of the panel’s bold move to accuse Eastman and Trump of criminal conspiracy.”

“The House said it believed Trump had been trying to obstruct Congress and to defraud the government by blocking his loss of the election and discussing it with Eastman,” the CNN journalists note. “Still, neither Trump nor Eastman has been charged with any crimes. Further, despite the House’s filings, lawmakers aren’t prosecutors and can’t bring charges. And there is no public indication that the Justice Department is seriously investigating Eastman and Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet