Ex-Trump Lawyer Petitions US Supreme Court.

A former lawyer to Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse lower court rulings that enabled the now-defunct House January 6 committee to access information. John Eastman argues that those decisions harm the former president’s presidential aspirations.

“created a stigma for both Petitioner and his client, the former President of the United States and current candidate for the presidency.”

A petition (pdf) filed by John Eastman with the Supreme Court argued that a March 2022 ruling handed down by Judge David O. Carter, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, “created a stigma for both Petitioner and his client, the former President of the United States and current candidate for the presidency.”

Corruption Allegations

Carter had written last year that his court found it “more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021” along with Eastman. Both Trump and Eastman have denied wrongdoing, while Trump has often pointed to public statements he made on Jan. 6 that protesters should demonstrate peacefully and respect local law enforcement officials.

The California-based judge, who ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for California’s 38th Congressional District years ago, also claimed that the “illegality of the plan was obvious” and said the United States was “founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections.”

Attorney-Client Privilege

Eastman had claimed attorney-client privilege, but Carter rejected the claim and ruled that attorney-client privilege does not apply if the discussion involved an alleged crime.

At the time, he ordered Eastman to turn over documents and electronic communications to the House Jan. 6 committee, which was scrapped after Republicans took control of the lower congressional chamber earlier this year. He alleged that 33 documents were emails that allegedly demonstrated “an effort by President Trump and his attorneys to press false claims in federal court for the purpose of delaying” the Jan. 6 certification.

Legal Strategy Memo

That was in connection to Eastman having written a memo outlining a legal strategy for Vice President Mike Pence to reject the Electoral College votes for then-candidate Joe Biden while he presided over the Jan. 6 session. Pence did not ultimately go through with what was outlined in Eastman’s document, and Trump—now a 2024 presidential candidate—criticized Pence on social media for the move. Pence is reportedly slated to announce a presidential bid of his own in the coming weeks.

In late 2022, Trump criticized Carter for what he described as a partisan ruling.

“Who’s this Clinton appointed ‘Judge,’ David Carter, who keeps saying, and sending to all, very nasty, wrong, and ill informed statements about me on rulings, or a case (whatever!), currently going on in California, that I know nothing about—nor am I represented,” Trump wrote on social media. “With that being said … he shouldn’t be making statements about me until he understands the facts, which he doesn’t!”

Petition

In his Supreme Court petition, Eastman argued that the “respondent committee’s action of accessing disputed documents while a motion to stay was pending, and then publishing in a public filing a live link to the confidential documents that were the subject of the appeal, deprived Petitioner (Eastman) of the opportunity to show that the ‘crime-fraud’ conclusions of the District Court were clearly erroneous, thus clearing his name and that of his former client, former President Trump,” according to his petition.

“Because the law i