Carter, a federal judge in California, ordered Eastman to deliver 101 emails from about Jan. 6, 2021, which he sought to keep secret from a select House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol attack. Carter’s reasoning is an astonishing admission by a federal court that Trump’s interest in overturning the election could be considered criminal. “The illegality of the plan was obvious,” Carter wrote. “Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, which is the epitome of George Washington who left his sword to pave the way for democratic elections. Ignoring this story, President Trump campaigned vigorously for the Vice President to determine himself. the results of the 2020 elections … Every American – and certainly the President of the United States – knows that in a democracy, leaders are elected, not installed. “ Neither the judge nor the House committee has the power to prosecute Trump or his allies for the alleged conspiracy. It is up to the Justice Department, which is facing pressure from the left, to pursue more aggressively those – such as Trump and his inner circle – whose involvement in the January 6 uprising went beyond the Capitol’s physical violation. Trump has not been charged with any crime, nor has Eastman. In his order, Carter made an unusually bold statement, wanting to be held accountable so that history would not repeat itself. “If the country does not commit itself to investigating and seeking accountability for those responsible, the Court fears that January 6 will be repeated,” the judge wrote. “More than a year after the attack on our Capitol, the public is still seeking accountability. This case can not provide it. The Court has sole jurisdiction to decide a dispute over a handful of emails. It is not a criminal prosecution. even a civil liability lawsuit “, he wrote. “At most, this case is a warning of the dangers of ‘legal theories’ that have gone wrong, the strong abuse of public platforms and the desperation to win at all costs,” Carter added. “If the plan by Dr. Eastman and President Trump had worked, it would have definitively ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution.”
Disagreement over Eastman emails
Carter was examining the allegations of possible crime in the context of the file disclosure dispute. The House committee had summoned Chapman University, where Eastman was employed during an attempt to overturn the election results, for an email he sent to the university’s e-mail account. Eastman challenged the summons in court in Central California. Lawmakers pointed to the exclusion of criminal fraud among many because they said those documents should not be hidden from the commission’s investigators. The exclusion of criminal fraud allows for the violation of the formal protection of the privilege of a lawyer-client in cases where current or future crimes are being discussed. In his ruling Monday, Carter clarified that a document the commission could receive seems to help the alleged Trump-Eastman conspiracy to obstruct Congress: a draft note written for another of Trump’s lawyers, Rudy Giuliani. advising Vice President Mike Pence to reject some state voters. at the congressional hearing on Jan. 6. “This may be the first time that members of President Trump’s team have turned a legal interpretation of the election count into a day-to-day action plan,” Carter said. This story is breaking and will be updated.
