(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge said in a ruling Wednesday that evidence shows former President Donald Trump had been told the number of 2016 voter fraud instances he alleged occurred in Georgia were wrong, but that he continued to make the claims both in court and publicly.
The revelation came as part of a ruling from Judge David Carter ordering Trump election lawyer John Eastman to turn over additional emails to the Jan. 6 committee that he’s been withholding.
In one of Eastman’s emails, according to the ruling, Eastman says that, “Although the President signed a verification for [the state court filing] back on Dec. 1, he has since been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate. For him to sign a new verification with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate.”
The ruling then says that “President Trump and his attorneys ultimately filed the complaint with the same inaccurate numbers without rectifying, clarifying, or otherwise changing them.”
“Trump, moreover, signed a verification swearing under oath that the incorporated, inaccurate numbers ‘are true and correct’ or ‘believed to be true and correct’ to the best of his knowledge and belief,” Carter wrote in the ruling.
Carter previously ruled in March of this year that it was “more likely than not” Trump and Eastman had committed felony obstruction and other crimes in their failed effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, rejecting a legal effort by Eastman to shield many of his emails from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Eastman is already under scrutiny from the Justice Department in its own criminal investigation of efforts to overturn Trump’s election loss. Federal law enforcement officials seized his cellphone in June and have issued multiple grand jury subpoenas questioning Trump allies about Eastman’s role in the effort to appoint fake electors in states that he had lost to Joe Biden.
Eastman also repeatedly pleaded the Fifth in an August appearance before a grand jury empaneled by the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, in a separate criminal investigation into efforts to pressure officials in the state to change the outcome of the election.
Eastman has denied any wrongdoing in his role advising Trump.
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