The January 6 House committee is still going strong. Here’s what I know about yesterday’s court filing.
The filing in a California federal court was in response to a suit filed by John Eastman, the Trump attorney who appears to be one of the architects of the scheme to overturn the election. Eastman is trying to block the committee’s subpoena for his documents on the Trump campaign, claiming attorney-client privilege.
The committee argued that communication is no longer privileged if the attorney is helping the client commit a crime. They asked the judge to privately review evidence the committee has so far gathered to understand Eastman’s culpability.
“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 says.
The filing also says, “The evidence supports an inference that President Trump and members of his campaign knew he had not won enough legitimate state electoral votes to be declared the winner of the 2020 Presidential election during the January 6 Joint Session of Congress, but the President nevertheless sought to use the Vice President to manipulate the results in his favor.”
It’s expected that the committee eventually will refer their findings to the attorney general, where they may either be acted upon or disappear into a big hole somewhere. It’s extraordinarily frustrated for a year to have passed after an event in which we all bleeping saw what Trump was doing, and yet he’s still a free man.
Greg Sargent writes that it’s important for any future prosecutor to prove that Trump knew good and well he had lost the election.
For instance, the filing notes that Trump’s attorney general publicly announced that the Justice Department had found no serious fraud. It says the committee has collected information demonstrating that department officials privately advised Trump of this as well. It notes that Republican election officials also confirmed this for Trump, and that extensive media fact-checks also demonstrated this beyond any doubt.
Here’s why this matters: Because in spite of knowing all this, Trump continued to press his vice president, Mike Pence, to abuse his powers to delay the electoral count. And Trump and his co-conspirators also sought to do this in other ways, by trying to get friendly state legislators to send sham electors, and by leaning on at least one GOP senator to delay it while violence raged.
And of course, Trump incited the mob to go after Pence, which could amount to an effort to weaponize his supporters to intimidate Pence into disrupting the electoral count, which Pence had refused to do.
To demonstrate criminality, it must be shown that Trump corruptly tried to carry this out, i.e., that he did so knowingly on fraudulent pretenses, which is what the filing seeks to illustrate. (The filing also suggests Trump might be similarly vulnerable to criminal charges of conspiring to defraud the United States.)
And, remember, some time this spring there will be televised hearings. Yesterday’s filing may very well be a sneak preview.
Update: Jennifer Rubin caught this:
On Wednesday, we saw a matter-of-fact announcement from the Justice Department: “A regional leader of the Oath Keepers pleaded guilty today to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding for his actions before, during and after the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His and others’ actions disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the presidential election.” The announcement continued: “Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Alabama, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol breach. As part of the plea agreement, James has agreed to cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigation.”
So there is an investigation at the Justice Department.
John Eastman
Joshua Jones was one of the two Oath Keepers arrested for the insurrection at the Capitol Building on 1/6 who were 'security' for Roger Stone on 1/5 and were in the 'war room' in the Willard Hotel. Also in those meetings were Steve Bannon, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliana, Michael Flynn, Bernie Karik, Boris Epshteyn and others with 25-30 people total.
Who was who in Trump’s Willard Hotel “war room”? – World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org)
Wait.
He's from where?
Arab, Alabama?
How in the name of Bobby E. Lee did some piss-ass place in sorry-ass Alabama get named, "Arab."
And how does one pronounce the name of said town? Is it, "Arab?"
Or "AAAY-rab!?"
Well?
I understand it is the latter…
"Attorney-client privilege" definition?
"Attorney-client privilege" don't mean your client consulting with you as his/her lawyer on how best to rob the bank.
Seems like a pretty simple rule to me…
When I was in the early stages of planning my flight (and still learning to fly) my brother tipped off the US Secret Service, who paid me a call at my home after midnight. The next day I consulted with my attorney to approximately determine how much trouble I was in.
My lawyer was a great help but a few weeks later when privileged conversations turned to my intent to continue the preparations for the flight, my lawyer became VERY apprehensive about the conversation. I thought you could say ANYTHING to your lawyer and have it confidential.
The line is not so clear as you suggest. Eastman is way across the line if he presented the plan to Trump as a genius way of stealing the election that Trump lost.
Theoretically, the lawyer can not participate in the planning but in an abstract discussion, can the lawyer explain and describe the hypothetical differences in legal liability if 1) someone is killed or 2) someone is injured or 3) weapons are used in the robbery vs 4) the weapons are all unloaded… A lawyer can't participate in planning or execution but he can kinda/sorta/almost discuss how to mitigate liability. But it's a gray area and interesting.
I love Eastman's Raiders of the Lost Ark hat! I used to sport one of those 30 some odd years ago. It was fun driving around in my 1979 Ford F-150 trying to project an image of being a dashing young adventurer. And they say, youth is wasted on the young?
I do not think that anyone will ever prove that Trump knew he'd lost the election as a matter of objective fact. IMO, Trump knows that lies are VERY convincing when the liar has convinced himself he's speaking truth. Second, Trump has, in statement and in action, shown that he thinks 'truth' is completely subjective. Case in point: his personal net worth and the value of his properties varies according to who he is reporting to. For taxes, he's nearly a pauper – for the media and for anyone he's trying to borrow from, his wealth jumps by billions overnight. Most people think Trump is aware of his manipulation, but IMO, Trump is his own chump – he believes his own lies.
Assume for the moment that Trump is charged with Conspiracy to Incite Insurrection. My evaluation (with no law degree) is that Trump's defense would be that it's not insurrection if Trump believed that he'd been robbed through massive election fraud. Under that premise, if the prosecution has to prove that Trump KNEW it was a lie, the burden for the prosecution is insurmountable.
But if the burden is on Trump to show objective evidence on which Trump based his opposition to proceeding and/or cooperating with a fraudulent installation of the loser as the winner, Trump is screwed. Especially if the Smartmatic suit finds Guiliani, Lindell and Fox guilty of spreading malicious lies about the election. (A prudent reason to let other litigation proceed to establish the basis of criminal charges.)
I'm not sure of the law – maybe it would come down to instructions from the judge to the jury what the law is.
One of the biggest mistakes this county ever made (and there's a long list of mistakes to pick from) is letting Nixon off the hook for his crimes. I'm not at all sure Ford's pardon was constitutional. The precedent is that the president is above the law – and that invites lawless abuse because there can only be consequences for the people around the president who carry out unlawful orders. Trump is a sign on the road to US fascism – and unless Trump is held to account, the next authoritarian will be smarter (a low bar) and potentially even more malicious and cruel.
I’m not sure Trump appreciates what an “objective fact” is. He is seriously miswired. What’s come out over the past couple of days, however, is that there has been copious testimony to the committee from a lot of people in his administration and other positions of responsibility who say they told him that there was no fraud in the 2020 election and that the theories he was promoting were bonkers. So it may come down to what a reasonable person should have understood in that circumstance, not what Trump understood. I completely agree with you that the burden must be on Trump to show that he has evidence of fraud that was at least plausible and not ridiculous. And if he can’t do that, it has to be assumed that he had absolutely no basis on which to claim the election was stolen from him, even if he sincerely believes it was.
Top of the list is Barr, who resigned on this point alone and will testify to it (in order to sell books.) It's critical that the issue of whether the election was stolen IS LITIGATED IN COURT WITH TRUMP.
He wants to scream it was stolen but Lindell has reportedly spent millions to get "proof" and come up with zilch. No A/G in any Republican state will run with what he's presented them in an attempt to get a case to the USSC. So it's likely bordering on certain that they want to claim fraud but a courtroom is the last place they want to be. Cause they got nothing.
The place to resolve the "he said – she said" aspect to most voters is a trial – invite/demand that Trump proves his claim(s) and demolish them one by one. Trumpsters think they never got their day in court in all of 60+ cases. We need to give it to them before 2024.
One almost needs string, thumbtack, photos and a huge cork board to display the who's who of the Republican party these days. The list of 'respectable' Republicans keeps getting shorter and shorter and what Republican even has any plan other than being oppositional or ducking reality?
Like a junkie they might have to hit rock bottom to find a path to redemption. We can only stick their nose in the mess they made and give them a stern lesson. Then I guess it is up to them to decide if they want to be socialized or not.
Trump could plead [temporary] insanity, but his out-sized ego wouldn't let him.
I think the American Psychiatric Associations ethics rules prohibit supporting a plea of insanity for anyone on the Forbs 500 list. They offer a wide array of other options.