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A federal district court judge says Donald Trump, the former president, signed court documents that he knew contained false information on voter fraud. The judge says emails former Trump attorney John Eastman is refusing to hand over to the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack “are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
Under certain circumstances it can be a federal crime to make false statements to the federal government.
In his 18-page opinion on Wednesday Judge David O. Carter, ordered the “coup memo” author, disgraced former law professor John Eastman, to hand over emails to the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
Politico reports Judge Carter wrote that the emails “show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public.”
The judge also found that Trump “filed certain lawsuits not to obtain legal relief, but to disrupt or delay the January 6 congressional proceedings through the courts.”
Eastman, citing attorney-client privilege, has refused to hand over the emails. But on Wednesday Judge Carter pointed to the crime-fraud exception which, according to the ACLU states the can be no privilege “if you are using the attorney-client relationship to perpetrate a crime.”
According to Politico, in one of the emails Eastman admitted Trump had already signed a statement that contained false information, and warned Trump’s other attorneys it “would not be accurate” for him to do so again, as “he has since been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate.”
“However,” Politico adds, “Trump and his lawyers opted to file the federal complaint using the same numbers that Eastman conceded were inaccurate.”
Judge Carter said that Trump “signed a verification swearing under oath that the incorporated, inaccurate numbers ‘are true and correct’ or ‘believed to be true and correct’ to the best of his knowledge and belief.”
Journalist Marcy Wheeler posted a screenshot from Judge Carter’s ruling.
Judge Carter finds that Trump lied in GA lawsuit, releases related emails under crime-fraud exception.. https://t.co/uEii3vXOYV pic.twitter.com/NTxh23acYI
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) October 19, 2022
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