John Eastman drops challenge to House subpoena for his call log data

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN Reporter, Crime and Justice

Right-wing attorney John Eastman has dropped his challenge to the House’s pursuit of his call log data, according to a new federal court filing.

The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack had subpoenaed Verizon for three months of records related to Eastman’s personal cell phone, prompting him to go to court in December to block the company from turning over his data.

This challenge was separate from Eastman’s largely unsuccessful attempt to block a House subpoena for communications on his work email account up to and around January 6.

Eastman said in court Tuesday night he was dropping the phone records challenge because the House wasn’t seeking the communications themselves.

“Plaintiff brought this lawsuit primarily to protect the content of his communications, many of which are privileged. The Congressional Defendants represented in their motion to dismiss that they were not seeking the content of any of Plaintiff’s communications via the subpoena they had issued to Defendant Verizon,” his attorneys wrote.

The limited nature of the House select committee’s demands from phone companies like Verizon has been clear for months.

Still, Eastman was among dozens of people with ties to former President Donald Trump and other conservative political operatives who went to court to block phone call logs from becoming part of the January 6 investigation on Capitol Hill.

Verizon and AT&T have said they were honoring those requests made in court not to turn over the information to the House select committee until judges weighed in. The cases have moved slowly and are still unresolved.

Eastman has had a momentous few weeks. After losing a major legal bid to block the House select committee from getting his emails as he worked to convince states to try to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss, he became a key focus of the House committee’s public hearings and condemnations.

Separately, federal law enforcement searched Eastman in New Mexico last week as part of a criminal probe and seized his cell phone, Eastman disclosed this week. It is not clear if he may be the target of an investigation, or a witness. He has not been charged with any crime.

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