A federal judge rejected an attempt by one of the many disgraced lawyers in the wake of Donald Trump, John Eastman, to get his cell phone back from the Department of Justice, which is investigating Eastman’s role in submitting slates of fake electors to the National Archives and Records Administration to undermine the 2020 election.
Politico reports the judge, New Mexico-based Senior U.S. District Court Judge Robert Brack, noted that Eastman failed to show that not having the phone was causing him irreparable harm, noting that Eastman obtained another phone hours after the FBI confiscating his phone as he left a restaurant in June.
Eastman made additional claims that the phone should be returned to him because it contained privilege attorney-client communications. However, Brack noted investigators took standard safeguards to protect such information, calling the issue “moot.”
Finally, Brack said that Eastman’s claim that the seizure of the phone chills his First Amendment rights needed to be addressed with the court that issued the search warrant. “Eastman’s argument regarding privileged material fails for the same reason that his argument on the purported First Amendment violation fails: he is pressing this issue with the wrong court,” Brack ruled. “Should Eastman be concerned that the Government has access to material protected by the attorney-client privilege or work-product doctrine, he may file a motion for relief in the District of Columbia.”