Jan 6 committee gets secret emails Trump’s lawyer wanted to keep hidden

More than 100 emails included in release

The bipartisan House committee investigating January 6 has been handed emails from Donald Trump’s lawyer John Eastman, according to a report.

It comes a week after a US district court judge dismissed Mr Eastman’s appeal to keep his emails secret, with the decision marking yet another win for the committee in its probe.

On Wednesday, CNN said Mr Eastman had fought against the committee’s request for his emails from January 4 to January 7 2020, when he was employed by the former US president, but failed to show privilege.

There were 101 emails in the release, many of which are expected to shed light on what happened in the days before and after 6 January.

Judge David Carter said Mr Eastman failed to show sufficient reasoning to claim attorney-client privilege, which protects the private communications between a lawyer and their client – in this case, Mr Trump.

The judge said one email – a draft memo for Trump layer Rudy Giuliani – pointed to a possible plan for a crime and so should not be held back by the court, although no further details were given.

Mr Eastman is widely known as the author of the infamous “Eastman memo” that is said to have plotted to overturn the result of the 2020 election with a six-point legal plan for former vice president Mike Pence to follow, but was not acted on.

John Eastman (left) and Rudy Giuliani (right) (REUTERS)

The plan involved appointing alternative state electors and declaring the original election result invalid, as seen in a two-page document reported by CNN and The Washington Post last year.

Mr Trump has frequently claimed the election in 2020 was “rigged” or “stolen” and hired a team of lawyers to work to challenge the outcome, although in no cases did those attempts work to overturn the result.

His eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, voluntarily appeared in from of the January 6 committee on Tuesday to give evidence to the panel. She is among 800 witnesses who have given evidence to the committee, which is due to publish its findings in October.