U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter found that several documents between Trump associates should be made public because their group participated in “misrepresenting voter fraud numbers in Georgia and seeking to overturn election results in federal court.”
“The emails show that President Trump knew certain voter fraud numbers were false, but continued to falsify those numbers in court and to the public,” Carter wrote. “The Court finds that these emails are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
In March, Carter said Trump committed “overwhelming” federal crimes in an attempt to block Congress’ count of the Electoral College vote on January 6. That decision came in a ruling addressing several critical emails. Eastman He opposed moving to a House committee.
Eastman wrote key legal briefs aimed at denying the victory of Democrat Joe Biden Later cited Attorney-client privilege is a shield against turning over documents requested by the group, which he said was a Trump representative at the time.
The committee argued in the filing that Eastman’s claim of privilege was waived by the “crime/fraud waiver.” That exemption means that communications between a lawyer and his client need not be kept confidential if the lawyer is found to be helping the client commit a crime. To resolve the dispute, the panel asked Judge Carter to personally review the documents to see if he thought Eastman was actually aiding Trump in criminal activity.
In Wednesday’s filing, Carter concluded from the joint documents that Trump’s legal team now “clarifies that President Trump has filed certain lawsuits through the courts not to seek legal relief, but to obstruct or delay Congressional action on Jan. 6.”
Eastman said in an email that Trump signed documents for a lawsuit in Georgia on Dec. 1, but learned that “some of the allegations in it are false.” Eastman wrote that Trump signing new documents for that case “would not be accurate with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference).”
But Carter wrote, with knowingly inaccurate numbers, that “Trump and his lawyers eventually filed a complaint.” Carter also wrote that Trump signed a legal document in a court in Georgia, certifying it to be “true and correct” to the best of his knowledge.
Carter ordered Eastman to release more than 30 documents requested by the House committee by 2 p.m. on October 28.
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