John Eastman wants to prevent the Jan. 6 panel from seeing Trump’s handwritten notes

The former law professor, a California federal judge, said he “rather than not” broke US law while backing former President Donald Trump’s push to sit in the White House for a second term against the wishes of American voters , the House wants to prevent on January 6 the selection committee from obtaining documents that contain handwritten notes in the former president’s own hand.

In a 50-page brief filed Thursday, John Eastman claims to have communicated with Mr Trump through “six channels to or agents of the former President” and argued that his communications with those individuals should also be shielded because their involvement was “necessary” to facilitate his contact with the then CEO.

“While Dr. Eastman was at times able (and did) communicate directly with former President Trump…many of his communications with the President necessarily passed through these agents,” he wrote. “Given the fact that the client of Dr. Eastman, who was President of the United States, the use of these intermediaries can easily be qualified as ‘reasonably necessary to facilitate the client’s communication with an attorney’.”

According to Mr Eastman’s brief, three of the “conduits” were Trump campaign officials who had email addresses showing they were employed on Mr Trump’s re-election campaign.

He’s also trying to protect two documents he describes as “communications from another attorney working with the campaign” to Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien “outlining a potential legal challenge.”

Mr Eastman, who said he was blind-copied in both emails, argued they should nevertheless be privileged because Mr Stepien “was an agent of both the campaign and the former President as a candidate”.

He has also asserted attorney-client privilege for 33 additional documents, which he describes as “communications between attorneys working on Trump’s legal team, either to relay confidential communications from former President Trump or to discuss advice to be given to him.” , including appendices consisting of “legal analysis memos” or draft court documents.

But two of the documents, he said, “contain handwritten notes” by Mr Trump himself “about information he thought was useful” for the legal challenges his team filed in hopes of convincing the courts that the Throwing out election results didn’t show him as a winner.

The former law professor also wants to prevent the panel from getting 12 emails between himself and Fox News personality Mark Levin as part of its investigation into the worst attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812.

Mr. Eastman alleges the documents were shielded because Mr. Levin, whom he identifies as “an attorney, former long-time president (and current chief executive officer) of a public interest law firm and … a former employee of the Claremont Institute” “worked” with him “in litigation … in the past” and said the emails exchanged with Mr Levin were “communications in that capacity”.

Mr Trump and his allies filed over 60 separate lawsuits in the days after his defeat by Joe Biden as they attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which Trump administration officials called the safest in US history.

None were successful.