WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s former adviser says a Jan. 6 committee court filing alleging he and the ex-president committed crimes in attempting to prevent certification of the 2020 election results is unprecedented and a hearing in the case should be indefinitely delayed.
The committee has “unveiled an entire criminal case” in a fight over evidence, John Eastman said in a court filing Friday. “Were this court to sustain the defendants’ claims, it may be the first formal finding of presidential criminality by a federal court in United States history.”
Eastman, former dean of the Chapman University School of Law, drafted a two-page memo after the 2020 election that outlined ways for Vice President Mike Pence to derail the count of Electoral College votes in Congress, thereby denying Joe Biden’s victory and handing the election to Trump. He also spoke alongside Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani at a Jan. 6 rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol.
