Emails show Trump knowingly pressed false voter fraud claims, judge says
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[October 20, 2022]
By Jacqueline Thomsen
(Reuters) -A California federal judge on
Wednesday said then-U.S. President Donald Trump had signed a sworn
statement asserting that voter fraud numbers included in a 2020 election
lawsuit were accurate, despite being told the numbers were not correct.
U.S. District Judge David Carter made the disclosure in ordering lawyer
John Eastman to provide more emails to the congressional committee
investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump's
supporters.
Eastman was one of Trump's attorneys when the former president and his
allies challenged his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Representatives for Trump and Eastman did not immediately return
requests for comment.
Carter said Wednesday that Trump had "signed a verification swearing
under oath" that the inaccurate fraud numbers were "true and correct" or
"believed to be true and correct" to the best of his knowledge and
belief, when alleging the improper counting of votes in a county in
Georgia.
"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 wrote.
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Carter has previously ruled that Eastman and Trump had likely committed
a felony by trying to pressure his then-vice president to obstruct
Congress.
The ruling was made in a lawsuit filed by Eastman to block disclosure of
the emails to the Jan. 6 select committee, following a congressional
subpoena.
Carter has previously ordered Eastman to provide over 200 emails to the
committee, after the lawyer resisted the subpoena and claimed that the
communications were privileged.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump
speaks during a rally ahead of the midterm elections, in Mesa,
Arizona, U.S., October 9, 2022. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
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The judge said Wednesday that the vast majority of emails still
being sought by congressional investigators should not be handed
over, as legal protections given to attorneys and their clients
apply to the records.
He said eight emails that would normally be shielded under those
protections must be given to the committee, after he found that the
communications were in furtherance of a crime -- one of the few
times those legal safeguards can be lifted.
Carter found that four emails show that Eastman and other lawyers
suggested that the "primary goal" of filing lawsuits was to delay
Congress's certification of the 2020 election results.
The judge said four other emails "demonstrate an effort by President
Trump and his attorneys to press false claims in federal court for
the purpose of delaying the January 6 vote."
Trump and his allies filed over 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020
election, which Biden won, with some complaints alleging voter fraud
without evidence to support those claims. Those cases were
overwhelmingly rejected by judges, some of which Trump appointed to
the federal courts.
The Jan. 6 select committee last week voted to subpoena Trump in its
investigation. It is set to issue a report in the coming weeks on
its findings.
(Reporting by Jacqueline Thomsen in Washington; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker)
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