Trump Coup Lawyer Benchslapped In Jan. 6 Committee Dispute. Again.

Woof, that one's gonna leave a mark.

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Friday night brought another humiliating benchslap for John Eastman, Trump’s infamous coup curious lawyer.

Eastman, who convinced the former president that Mike Pence had the power to overturn Biden’s win, is suing the January 6 Select Committee in DC to block a subpoena for his phone records. But the Committee subpoenaed Chapman’s former employer Chapman University, since that genius used work email for his acts of mental onanism. So Eastman filed a second suit against the Committee in the Central District of California seeking to block disclosure.

Judge David O. Carter had little patience for Eastman’s antics, ordering him in January to begin reviewing emails and producing a privilege log for those he was withholding. In the dispute over Eastman’s expansive claims of privilege, the Committee filed a brief on Wednesday arguing that the crime-fraud exception to privilege applies, since Eastman functionally advised his client Donald Trump how to obstruct certification of the election, an official act of Congress.

Eastman countered on Friday afternoon with his own creative legal filing, arguing that “the defendants have unveiled an entire criminal case under the auspices of a filing on an evidentiary privilege issue” making him a “pseudo-defense attorney for the former President.” As such, he claimed to be entitled to exculpatory Brady and Giglio materials including evidence impeaching Committee witnesses, internal Justice Department deliberations about possible election fraud prosecutions, and any statements by Donald Trump which might prove that he actually believed Eastman’s fakakta legal theories and thus lacked the requisite mens rea to willfully violate the law.

Eastman demanded a postponement of a hearing scheduled for this Tuesday, March 8, so that the government might scour its records to comply with his request. He also complained that the government had exceeded its page count in its brief, and thus he should also be able to opine at length on why he’s entitled to criminal protections in a civil trial.

Judge Carter responded on Friday morning by reminding the public that it could access Tuesday morning’s hearing via Zoom, and ordering the Committee to respond to Eastman by 4:30pm that afternoon. Which is not exactly subtle, as judicial foreshadowing goes.

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The Committee immediately docketed a response noting that Eastman is not entitled to criminal protections in a civil case, because LOLWUT, and that the defendants have said for months that they might invoke the crime-fraud exception.

These procedures exist to safeguard the substantial liberty interests at stake in criminal proceedings. But nothing here places Plaintiff’s (or anyone else’s) liberty in jeopardy. If this Court ultimately finds that the crime-fraud exception applies, Plaintiff will not be incarcerated, nor will he suffer civil sanctions. Chapman University will produce relevant documents. Plaintiff cites no case transposing these constitutional criminal procedure protections into a civil crime-fraud dispute about the applicability of the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine (and the Congressional Defendants are aware of none).

And apparently the court agreed wholeheartedly, since just hours later Judge Carter unceremoniously dropkicked each and every one of Eastman’s arguments.

Here, Dr. Eastman’s liberty is not at issue—only his emails. The legislature raises allegations of crime in the limited context of privilege; but it is the executive branch that is solely responsible for deciding whether to prosecute. For Dr. Eastman to risk incarceration, there would have to be entirely separate criminal proceedings, where the Government would face a substantially higher burden of proof and Dr. Eastman would receive the full protections of criminal law.

Noting that the plaintiff “is the architect of his own pleadings and may present any evidence in his possession to defend his privilege claims,” the court invites Eastman to make any argument he wants about the crime-fraud exception at Tuesday’s hearing. And furthermore, his lawyer completely misunderstood the Central District’s Local Rules and mistakenly included the table of contents, authorities, exhibits, and appendices in his page count. D’oh!

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We should all give a round of grateful applause to John Eastman. Because no matter what what any of us did this weekend, whatever mortification we inflicted upon ourselves out of drunkenness, rage, or sheer stupidity, none of us faceplanted as hard as the president’s unpaid lawyer did on Friday night.

So, thank you “Dr.” Eastman, sir. Truly, you are an inspiration.

Eastman v. Thompson [Docket via Court Listener]


Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.