According to a court filing on Wednesday, former US President Donald Trump and a lawyer who assisted with his re-election campaign are part of a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

The filing is an attempt to persuade a judge to allow the panel to gain access to emails from lawyer John Eastman, who is claiming attorney-client privilege.

Donald Trump’s January 6 Inquiry

A statement from the representatives, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who chaired the  January 6 investigation committee, reads in part.

“The facts we’ve gathered strongly suggest that Dr. Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power.”

The committee stated it has a sound legal basis to believe that Donald Trump broke federal law by obstructing or attempting to block an official government proceeding and by interfering with government functions.

The document reads, “As the courts were overwhelmingly ruling against President Trump’s claims of election misconduct, he and his associates began to plan extra-judicial efforts to overturn the results of the election and prevent the President-elect from assuming office,

At the heart of these efforts was an aggressive public misinformation campaign to persuade millions of Americans that the election had in fact been stolen.

Donald Trump’s Stolen Election Claims

The President and his associates persisted in making ‘stolen election’ claims even after the President’s own appointees at the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, along with his own campaign staff, had informed the President that his claims were wrong. The step was seen as a major development by legal observers, who called the committee’s arguments a “bombshell.”

However, the filling declares that Mr. Eastman cannot further claim attorney-client privilege over thousand documents withheld by him. This is because they might have been used in committing multiple crimes. It was also noted that the former US president had earlier escaped sanction during his second impeachment trial.