John Eastman’s encounter with feds
Federal prosecutors say former President Donald Trump’s attorney John Eastman has no legal basis to oppose the search of his seized cellphone, writing in a new filing on Monday that his request in U.S. District Court in New Mexico is for the “destruction of evidence obtained by the Government.”
Eastman’s request, according to the 24-page opposition, “goes beyond even suppression from use at trial to encompass a complete purge of the documents from the Government’s investigatory files.”
“Such an unprecedented purge would cause substantial detriment to the investigation, as well as seriously impede any grand jury’s use of the seized material in a future charging decision,” according to the filing from Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Windom and Mary Dohrmann in Washington, D.C. “The law does not support such action.”
They dismissed Eastman’s argument that the public interest in the case is with not allowing unconstitutional law enforcement searches, saying he’s “shown neither a breach of attorney-client privilege nor an unconstitutional search.”
“To the contrary, the public’s interest lies in allowing the Government’s investigation to proceed without the unprincipled and unfounded interference of the movant,” Windom and Dohrmann wrote.
The opposition follows prosecutors stating on July 27 that they’d obtained a second search warrant regarding Eastman’s two weeks earlier. The warrant allowed them to search the contents of the phone, while the original warrant allowed for the search of Eastman and seizure of his phone.
Eastman is the one who announced his phone had been seized, filing a motion for a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court in New Mexico in June.
Senior U.S. District Judge Robert C. Brack rejected Eastman’s temporary restraining order request but said he was “was relying to a considerable extent on the assertion in the warrant that the investigative team will not examine the contents of the phone until it seeks a second warrant.” Brack ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to tell him where the phone is and whether they’d applied for a second warrant, which led to the July 27 filing.
Today’s filing is the DOJ’s full written argument against Eastman’s request for an injunction, which Brack is to consider at a hearing scheduled Sept. 6. in Albuquerque.
This is a developing story.
Read the full filing, below.
(Image: screenshot from YouTube)
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