John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer who helped design the plan to overturn the 2020 election, drops lawsuit to block his phone records from Jan. 6 committee

John Eastman testifies before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 4, 2013.

Charles Dharapak/AP

• John Eastman dropped a lawsuit he filed to prevent the Jan. 6 committee from accessing his phone records.
• The former Trump lawyer’s phone was seized by federal agents on June 22. 
• In the court document, Eastman’s lawyer said he’d sought to protect privileged conversations.  

In a late Tuesday filing, John Eastman dropped a lawsuit he’d filed to prevent the Jan. 6 committee from accessing his phone records.

“Plaintiff brought this lawsuit primarily to protect the content of his communications, many of which are privileged,” the latest filing read. “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.”

The former Trump lawyer’s phone was seized by federal agents on June 22, according to a separate suit he filed on Monday, seeking the return of his property. Of interest to investigators are call logs from Eastman’s personal device, and the search warrant indicates investigators will not review any additional content from his phone without a court order. 

Eastman, who wrote a memo to then-Vice President Mike Pence urging him to delay or block the certification of the 2020 election results, has previously refused to comply with subpoenas from Congress to testify about his involvement in the insurrection, pleading his 5th amendment right against self-incrimination.