SANTA ANA, Calif.—A federal judge on March 28 ordered former Chapman University law professor John Eastman to turn over 101 emails requested by a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
In a 44-page ruling, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter claimed former President Donald Trump “more likely than not'' attempted to illegally block Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election, and said he likely conspired with the ex-Chapman professor to do it.
Carter found that 10 emails requested by the Jan. 6 committee were privileged and did not have to be surrendered.
Eastman “intends to comply with the court’s order,'' according a statement issued by his attorney, Charles Burnham.
However, Eastman has “an unblemished record as an attorney and respectfully disagrees with the judge’s findings,'' Burnham said in the statement.
During a hearing earlier this month, Douglas Letter, the attorney for the Jan. 6 committee said the “easy'' way to release the mails would be to find that Eastman violated the university’s policy against working for a political candidate, and that he had no expectation of privacy due to the university’s unusual policies regarding its email servers.
But Carter knocked down most of those arguments.
Carter’s ruling “rightly rejected the Jan. 6 committee’s attempts to invade attorney-client privilege by arguing that no attorney-client relationship existed between Dr. Eastman and President, that Dr. Eastman somehow waived privilege by using a law school email, and that the Jan. 6 committee’s claimed ‘compelling need’ for the materials overrode attorney-client privilege,'' Eastman said in the statement.
Carter instead opted for the more politically charged allegations that the former president and Eastman engaged in a criminal conspiracy to halt the election of President Joseph Biden.
“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,'' Carter wrote.
If Trump and Eastman had succeeded, Carter wrote, “It would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution. If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the court fears Jan. 6 will repeat itself.'’
Letter argued that Eastman could only come up with one unsigned agreement from Trump hiring Eastman to be his campaign attorney, but Carter said that did not matter since Eastman appeared for Trump in court and was involved in various meetings in the White House discussing the various lawsuits challenging the election results.
His ruling cited meetings that occurred in the White House in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
“Based on these repeated meetings and statements, the evidence shows that an agreement to enact the electoral count plan likely existed between President Trump and Dr. Eastman,'' Carter wrote.
Carter refers to an email chain including a memo written by another Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
“The memo recommended that Vice President Pence reject electors from contested states on Jan. 6,'‘ Carter wrote. ”The draft memo pushed a strategy that knowingly violated the Electoral Count Act, and Dr. Eastman’s later memos closely track its analysis and proposal.’’
Carter said the memo “furthered the crimes of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States,'‘ so it cannot be kept privileged, or secret, because it meets the guidelines under a ”crime-fraud exception.’’
The judge rejected Eastman’s arguments that his interpretation of the Electoral Count Act was in “good faith.”
Meanwhile, Eastman’s attorney said that the Jan. 6 committee has “evidence inconsistent with the crime-fraud finding but refused to produce it. The court’s findings were therefore not based on the complete picture, but instead relied on evidence cherry-picked by the committee, supplemented by news articles.'’
The emails that prompted the legal action were written between Jan. 4-7 on Eastman’s Chapman University email account. Chapman officials were willing to turn over all of the former professor’s emails to the House committee, which amounted to about 30,000, but Eastman sued to block the handing over of the emails to the select committee.
Carter eventually agreed to privately review 111 emails the House committee was requesting as it investigates the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
The select committee argued that it needs the emails and revealed that it was investigating the possibility that Trump—with Eastman’s help—was in charge of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election of Biden.
Burnham said earlier he did not think the emails in question would show any evidence of an intent to commit criminal fraud in seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election result.
Eastman resigned from Chapman when faculty and students objected to his attendance at a rally in Washington, D.C., before protesters entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Eastman is also facing a state bar ethics investigation related to his work for Trump.
