When Jan. 6 investigators sought answers from John Eastman, the Republican lawyer responded with predictable pushback: He argued that he couldn’t testify because his work related to keeping Donald Trump in power after his 2020 defeat was protected by attorney-client privilege.
It was at that point that the political world received a helpful legal primer about the limits of the legal protection: Communications between attorneys and clients are not protected if they’re discussing committing crimes. (Eastman ultimately took the Fifth.)
Today, the same issue is coming to the fore in ways the former president isn’t going to like — not as part of the Jan. 6 investigation, but rather, as part of the other federal criminal investigation he’s facing. The Washington Post reported:
A federal judge has at least partially granted a request from U.S. prosecutors request to force an attorney for Donald Trump to testify before a grand jury about the former president’s possession of classified documents after leaving office, according to two people briefed on the decision.
A CNN report described this as “monumental,” and it’s worth appreciating why.
The lawyer in question is Evan Corcoran, whom special counsel Jack Smith is apparently eager to speak with as part of the ongoing criminal investigation into Trump’s mishandling of classified materials.
At this point, I imagine some readers are asking, “This all seems important, but who’s Evan Corcoran?”
The attorney may not have an especially high national profile, but he’s a highly relevant player in the former president’s documents scandal. Let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point.
Last June, Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterespionage section of the national security division of the Justice Department, went to Mar-a-Lago with a few FBI agents in the hopes of retrieving documents the former president improperly took and refused to voluntarily give back.
As part of that…
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