The filing laid out a sweeping if by now well-established account of the plot to overturn the election, which included false claims of election fraud, plans to put forward pro-Trump “alternate” electors, pressure various federal agencies to find irregularities and ultimately push Vice President Mike Pence and Congress to exploit the Electoral Count Act to keep a losing president in power.
“As the president and his associates propagated dangerous misinformation to the public,” the filing said, Mr. Eastman “was a leader in a related effort to persuade state officials to alter their election results based on these same fraudulent claims.”
The court filing stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Mr. Eastman, who is trying to persuade a judge to block the committee’s subpoena for documents in his possession, claiming “a highly partisan” invasion of his privacy. The committee issued a subpoena to Mr. Eastman in January, citing a memo he wrote laying out how Mr. Trump could use the vice president and Congress to try to invalidate the 2020 election results.
As part of the suit, Mr. Eastman sought to shield from release documents he said were covered by attorney-client privilege. In response, the committee argued — under the legal theory known as the crime-fraud exception — that the privilege does not cover information conveyed from a client to a lawyer if it was part of furthering or concealing a crime.
Mr. Eastman then argued the committee had offered “no evidence” of the existence of a crime-fraud exception, prompting the committee’s latest filing.
“The evidence supports an inference that President Trump, plaintiff and several others entered into an agreement to defraud the United States by interfering with the election certification process, disseminating false information about election fraud, and pressuring state officials to alter state election results and federal officials to assist in that effort,” the filing states.
It also made reference to a recent ruling in a civil suit in Washington, D.C., in which Judge Amit P. Mehta of the Federal District Court found that it was “plausible to believe that the president entered into a conspiracy with the rioters on Jan. 6, 2021.”