A federal judge has put John Eastman on a strict and speedy schedule to begin reviewing and producing thousands upon thousands of emails housed with his former employer, Chapman University, for the Jan. 6 committee. 

Eastman, a conservative attorney and author of legal memos laying out an unconstitutional strategy to keep former President Donald Trump in office despite his defeat in 2020, has been ordered to review no fewer than 1,500 pages of records per day beginning Friday. 

Each day, Judge David Carter ordered, Eastman must then immediately sort those records into privileged or unprivileged categories, remitting—without delay—all items he deems unprivileged to the select committee investigating the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol. 

Scribd Content

Eastman Privilege Log Order… by Daily Kos

Whatever Eastman wants to keep away, he must also account for by creating a daily privilege log. The logs must disclose the date a record was created; its author and recipients, including those who might have been blind copied; the name of the client involved; the range of documents to be withheld or redacted; and a general description of the underlying record. 

Eastman can, however, assert privilege over a client’s name, but he will be expected to itemize what privileges he asserts and why. 

If the Jan. 6 committee wants to see what Eastman tries to shroud at that point, it can try.

The judge gave the select committee three days upon receiving Eastman’s privilege log to issue any challenges. He won’t be able to drag his feet, either. He will have just one business day to review the committee’s objections before all of this finally comes to a head for a briefing in court. 

Eastman has become a key figure in the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation given his proximity to former President Trump before, during, and after the November 2020 election.

Eastman was often surrounded by a cast of White House and campaign officials, delivered remarks on Jan. 6, and spearheaded several of Trump’s doomed legal challenges to the 2020 election results. He was also a reported participant at meetings hosted in the Trump campaign’s “war room” at the Willard Hotel in Washington. 

When the Jan. 6 committee first came knocking with a subpoena for Eastman last November, he refused to cooperate, opting instead to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The congressional probe cut around him, going straight to his former employer, Chapman University. The school complied, producing for investigators some 30,000 pages of records. The committee ultimately narrowed its scope to just 19,000 pages. It is that pile that Eastman must now pore over. 

Carter’s order comes after the committee, in a joint status report, plainly disclosed that it was “concerned about the pace” of Eastman’s production efforts given his “apparent unwillingness to engage” with the probe unless he is forced to do so. 

Scribd Content

Joint Status Report John Ea… by Daily Kos