Trump lawyer ordered to respond to January 6 committee subpoena for his Chapman

Federal Judge David Carter in Santa Ana, California, on Monday pinned down exactly when law professor John Eastman was at work for his client, Trump, as he devised a plan to overturn the 2020 election result.

A lawyer for Eastman told the judge during a court hearing Monday that his client had been working for Trump during a number of major controversial moments leading up to January 6: When he told state legislators on January 2 they needed to “fix this, this egregious conduct” that would put Joe Biden in the White House, when he was in the Willard Hotel with other Trump contacts, and when he met with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on January 3 about blocking the congressional certification of the 2020 vote.

The admissions from Eastman’s lawyer, Charles Burnham, are the clearest statements yet on how much Eastman was doing on Trump’s behalf — rather than on his own initiative — in the days leading up to January 6, 2021.

“That work was done pursuant to representation of the president,” Burnham said, when asked specifically about Eastman briefing hundreds of state legislators.

The judge then asked Eastman’s team who his client was during each of the moments the House sought information about in their letter to Eastman announcing his subpoena. Eastman had been working for his client, Trump, his lawyer said in court to nearly every question.

Eastman previously refused to provide information to the House when it subpoenaed him directly for testimony and documents. He had claimed his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination as a response to nearly 150 questions and to his document subpoena, a lawyer for the House said on Monday.

The House committee then went to his former employer, Chapman University, to seek his records. The university received a House subpoena last week, and Eastman sued to block it, pulling the dispute into the California federal court.

House panel properly composed

Carter had announced he would rule against Eastman on Monday night, after the long hearing, but he didn’t explain his full reasoning until issuing his written opinion on Tuesday.

Eastman had tried with Carter to undercut the committee by arguing it didn’t have enough Republicans or the Republicans that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wanted. But the judge decided Tuesday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had followed House regulations in appointing members and “the Select Committee is property constituted.”

The committee, Carter said, was properly composed and within its abilities to subpoena Eastman’s emails from his former employer.

The ruling marked the first time a judge has ruled on substantive arguments that witnesses have made attacking the House panel’s composition.

“The public interest here is weighty and urgent,” the judge wrote, endorsing the committee’s work as within the law. “Congress seeks to understand the causes of a grave attack on our nation’s democracy and a near-successful attempt to subvert the will of the voter.”