A new court filing on Wednesday by the House January 6 committee in a California civil court gives the first, clear hint of what might be included in any potential, criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice of former President Donald Trump and his campaign advisers, according to a late-breaking, New York Times piece.
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said on Wednesday that there was enough evidence to conclude that former President Donald J. Trump and some of his allies might have conspired to commit fraud and obstruction by misleading Americans about the outcome of the 2020 election and attempting to overturn the result.
In a court filing in a civil case in California, the committee’s lawyers for the first time laid out their theory of a potential criminal case against the former president. They said they had accumulated evidence demonstrating that Mr. Trump, the conservative lawyer John Eastman and other allies could potentially be charged with criminal violations including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the American people.
The filing also said the men might have broken a common law statute against fraud through Mr. Trump’s repeated lies that the election had been stolen.
The piece also explained that the filing was triggered by a lawsuit by Eastman:
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.”
The NYT added that, although the committee’s filing contains mostly information that is publicly known about Trump and others’ efforts to uncover voting irregularities and fraud during the 2020 election, there was “information from its more than 550 interviews with state officials, Justice Department officials and top aides to Mr. Trump, among others.” It’s thought that this material would possibly be handed over to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ for future criminal cases.
As this is breaking news, RedState will provide further updates as they become available.
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