In a March 2 filing at the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the House Jan. 6 Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot tries hard to make the case that former President Donald Trump “potentially engaged in conspiracy to defraud the United States and may have obstructed an official proceeding.”
The filing states:
Evidence and information available to the Committee establishes a good-faith belief that Mr. Trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts.
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 also claims that, prior to the election, Trump and his supporters “began to lay the groundwork to cast doubt on the results.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, last year, the Committee subpoenaed thousands of emails from former Chapman University law professor John Eastman, one of the lawyers who advised Trump following the Nov. 2020 election.
A statement from the Jan. 6 Committee said, “Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power.”
In the filing, the Committee states, “Plaintiff’s [Eastman] role was not simply as an advisor; he spoke at the rally on the morning of January 6, spreading proven falsehoods to the tens of thousands of people attending that rally.”
Eastman, claiming attorney-client privilege, filed a lawsuit against the committee in December.
But in their Wednesday filing, the Committee maintains that this privilege does not apply when a crime is involved.
Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) wrote: “The facts we’ve gathered strongly suggest that Dr. Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power.”
Charles Burnham, Eastman’s attorney, issued a statement on Wednesday which read:
The Select Committee has responded to Dr. Eastman’s efforts to discharge this responsibility by accusing him of criminal conduct. Because this is a civil matter, Dr. Eastman will not have the benefit of the Constitutional protections normally afforded to those accused by their government of criminal conduct. Nonetheless, we look forward to responding in due course.
The Times’ report said that Eastman wrote two legal memos to then-Vice President Mike Pence ahead of Jan. 6, when he would be certifying the election results. Eastman “advised Pence he could declare the results in several states were [being] disputed and therefore their electoral votes would go uncounted. Doing so could also have potentially opened the door for several state legislatures to recast their votes for Trump.”
The Committee’s filing contained emails from Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, to Eastman. Prior to Jan. 6, Jacob had advised Pence that he did not have the authority to execute Eastman’s strategy and that no judge would support it.
During the riot on Jan. 6, Jacob emailed Eastman. He wrote: “Thanks to your bullsh**, we are now under siege.”
Eastman shot back, “The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so the American people can see for themselves what happened.”
Separately, the State Bar of California’s chief trial counsel, George Cardona, announced on Tuesday they are currently investigating Eastman for possible “violation of California law and ethics rules governing attorneys” relating to his work for Trump following the 2020 election. A news release from SBC states the investigation began in September.
Cardona said, “A number of individuals and entities have brought to the State Bar’s attention press reports, court filings, and other public documents detailing Mr. Eastman’s conduct.”
According to the news release: “Details of the investigation must remain confidential to comply with statutory limitations on disclosure and to give the investigation the greatest chance of success.”
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In August, Reuters reported that, according to their sources (four current and former law enforcement officials): “The FBI has so far found no evidence that he [Trump] or people directly around him were involved in organizing the violence.”
(Note: I posted about this story on August 20. Because AFNN is currently in the process of transferring content to our new site, this post is not currently available online. I am including it below for anyone who may be interested.)
August 20, 2021 AFNN post:
On Friday morning, Reuters reported that, according to four current and former law enforcement officials, the FBI has “found scant evidence,” that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was caused by a coordinated group of Trump supporters whose mission was to overturn the result of the presidential election.
Reuters writes that their sources “have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on” the FBI’s investigation.
One source told Reuters: “Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases. Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.”
The sources told Reuters:
FBI investigators did find that cells of protesters, including followers of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol. But they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside, the sources said.
Prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against 40 of those defendants, alleging that they engaged in some degree of planning before the attack.
They alleged that one Proud Boy leader recruited members and urged them to stockpile bulletproof vests and other military-style equipment in the weeks before the attack and on Jan. 6 sent members forward with a plan to split into groups and make multiple entries to the Capitol.
Here is the most stunning admission of all. After Reuters reports on Trump’s “incendiary” speech on Jan. 6, in which he “repeated false claims that the 2020 election was stolen,” they write:
But the FBI has so far found no evidence that he [Trump] or people directly around him were involved in organizing the violence, according to the four current and former law enforcement officials.
“The FBI has so far found no evidence that he [Trump] or people directly around him were involved in organizing the violence.”
Let me repeat that. NO EVIDENCE.
In other words, after 615 arrests, the FBI is finding out that there was no “there, there.”
Does anyone want to apologize to former President Trump for putting him through a second impeachment?
Will the venomous House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shut down her hyperpartisan Select House Committee investigation?
Will the media stop referring to Jan. 6 protestors as “insurrectionists”?
And what about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s push to eradicate domestic terrorism from the ranks of U.S. military forces?
Will the Justice Department finally grant bail to those who continue to languish in jail while DOJ officials decide if or when their trials will take place?
This has been a travesty in the same vein as the Russian collusion hoax that cast a shadow over the majority of Trump’s presidency and the Russian Bounty hoax brought to us just in time for the 2020 election. And so many others.
When a Republican once again occupies the White House, and yes, that will happen, a thorough sweeping of the FBI and the DOJ and a good many other federal agencies must be the first order of business. Until that happens, the double tier system of justice is here to stay.
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