John Eastman, University of Colorado Boulder, conservative thought and policy scholar, speaks about his plans to sue the university at a news conference outside CU Boulder on Thursday, April 29, 2021. After CU spoke, Eastman was relieved of his public duties. At President Donald Trump’s rally before the Capitol uprising on January 6.
Andy Cross | Denver Post | Getty Images
John EastmanThe Trump-affiliated lawyer, who wrote a memo urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to reverse the 2020 election results, filed in a court Monday that his phone was confiscated by federal agents last week.
In papers filed in federal court In New Mexico, Eastman said he was stopped last week by federal agents in New Mexico, who executed a search warrant and confiscated his phone. He said that on the evening of June 22, FBI agents stopped him on his way to the car after having dinner at a restaurant with his wife and a friend. Agents patted Eastman on the back, confiscated his phone and “forced” him to unlock it, he said.
The court filing said the warrant allowed the seizure of “any electronic or digital device—including cell phones, USB devices, iPads and computers identified in the affidavit—and all information on such devices.” Eastman is demanding the return of his phone.
NBC News has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
CNN first reported Court filing on Monday.
The alleged seizure came on the same day as the federal agent search warrant executed at home of virginia Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who, like Eastman, played a major role in this month’s January 6 committee hearing. “They took all the electronics out of my house,” Clark said on Fox News last week.
Eastman’s lawsuit states that federal agents involved in the seizure of his phone at first refused to show him a warrant, and when he finally doneThis indicated that his phone was taken by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General.
According to Eastman’s filing, the warrant said, “After seizing the device, law enforcement intends to take the device to a DOJ-OIG forensic laboratory in Washington, D.C., or Northern Virginia.”
inspector general Website says that it is “examining the role and activity of the DOJ and its constituents in preparing for and responding to events at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Eastman argues that the seizure of his assets was “unlawful” because he does not work for the DOJ, and that the IG is only empowered to “initiate, conduct and supervise” investigations involving people within the Justice Department.
Legal experts told NBC News that IGs can and do conduct criminal investigations and follow up on evidence wherever they can. Experts said that in this case, agents had to convince a federal judge that there was probable cause for committing a crime in order to get a judge to sign the warrant.
Clarke was a top Justice Department official at the time of the January 6 riots. According to testimony Before a House committee inquiry last week into the rebellion, Clark was a supporter of then-President Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories, and Trump’s choice to serve as acting attorney general during the days of his presidency. Trump later backed that plan after DOJ leadership threatened to leave Collectively if Clarke were given the top position.
At a committee hearing earlier this month, Greg Jacobs, Pence’s attorney at the time, testified that Eastman had requested the vice president To disallow voters from contesting states to reverse the election on January 5, the day before it would be illegal to do so.
Eastman also included an email Eastman sent to Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani after January 6 at the congressional hearing, which read, “I have decided that I should be on the pardon list, if he is still in the works.”