Former Trump attorney John Eastman voluntarily withdrew his lawsuit that sought to block the Jan. 6 Select Committee from gaining access to his phone records, according to a filing late Tuesday.
In the filing, Eastman’s lawyer, Charles Burnham, wrote that that the committee had assured in their motion that they were only seeking his call logs, not the content of any of his messages held by his phone provider, Verizon.
The filing was issued a day after another lawsuit from Eastman revealed that his phone was seized by the FBI last week. The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in New Mexico, asks a federal judge to order that the DOJ return his phone, dispose of records it obtained from the device and block investigators’ access to it.
The filing said that six federal investigators approached Eastman in the state as he left a restaurant where he had dinner with his wife and a friend. Burnham wrote that federal agents identified themselves as FBI agents, but “appeared to be executing a warrant issued at the behest of the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General.” The filing claimed that agents “forced” Eastman to provide biometric data, such as fingerprints, needed to unlock his phone.
Eastman’s previous efforts to stonewall the committee investigating the events surrounding Jan. 6 have also been unsuccessful. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered that Eastman must turn over hundreds of Trump-related emails to the panel, rejecting Eastman’s claims of attorney-client privilege. The same judge, David Carter, previously ruled that Eastman and Trump “likely” committed criminal conspiracy to obstruct Congress on Jan. 6.
Eastman was a key player in Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election results. Eastman pressured then-Vice Mike Pence to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory on the day of the joint session of Congress.
During a public Jan. 6 Select Committee hearing earlier this month, evidence and testimony by former Pence chief counsel Greg Jacob showed that even Eastman doubted the legitimacy of his own plot to steal a second term for Trump.
At some point the cost of fighting all the requests and subpoenas becomes prohibitive, save the lawyer money for the actual trial.
I really hope this means he uses one of those, uh, flip phones.
(Pipe dream, I know… )
Burner phone? He’s never heard of such a thing!
Hope he enjoyed that dinner at the restaurant because I don’t think the food at camp fed will be as nice.