Lawyers for the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot said on Friday they would be dropping efforts to have close to 14,000 pages of documents they originally sought from conservative lawyer John Eastman.
The House select panel’s legal team said in court filings that after receiving 15,616 pages of documents from Eastman and a consolidated log highlighting 20,110 pages identified as being covered by attorney-client privilege, the committee would be dropping their requests to have 13,929 pages of documents handed over.
The committee’s lawyers said that their request for a separate 3,236 pages would be placed on hold but added that the panel “stands on its objections to the remaining 721 documents, totaling approximately 2,945 pages.”
The House select committee’s lawyers asked for those 721 contested documents to be reviewed by the court, suggesting an expedited briefing schedule should Eastman raise an objection, noting that public hearings would start next month.
“Without knowing which documents remain at issue, [Eastman] is unable to offer a position on the continuing need for discovery, an appropriate briefing schedule, or whether further narrowing of the disputed privilege issues may be possible. [Eastman] will file a prompt status with the Court upon receipt of the Bates numbers and preliminary review of remaining documents,” lawyers for Eastman responded on Saturday in a court filing obtained by Politico.
His lawyers added that it was “premature” to ask for an expedited briefing schedule or review of the contested documents, saying in court documents that while Eastman “will continue to work with defendants to narrow the issues, it remains a distinct possibility that novel legal issues may remain to be briefed to the Court.”
The development comes as Eastman’s lawyers late last month withdrew privilege claims to more than 10,000 documents from the more than 37,000 that the committee is seeking.
This story originally appeared on The Hill.
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