, a former Justice Department official who Trump considered appointing to run the department because he was willing to further a scheme to declare the election results invalid in some key states.Both Clark and Eastman played crucial roles in Trump’s efforts in late 2020 and early 2021 to convince state legislators in about a half dozen states to replace the electors that Biden had won with electors for Trump. In theory, such a replacement would have kept Trump in the White House.
The inspector general is an independent entity tasked with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse within the Justice Department. IG investigations examine the conduct of current or former department officials, and the office’s role in this case suggests it may be reviewing the contents of Eastman’s phone as part of a criminal investigation into Clark or others who once worked at the department.
The court papers say that when Eastman asked to see the warrant, the request was refused. He was frisked, his iPhone taken from him and he was “forced to provide biometric data to open” the phone, the filing says. That claim may become a matter of dispute, since the warrant for Eastman’s phone explicitly states that Eastman may be asked to willingly provide a password or biometric data, but cannot be forced to provide that information.
The warrant also suggests that the inspector general’s office is prepared for a legal fight over the contents of the phone, because it contains a provision that its contents will not be viewed right away by the investigative team.In his own filing, Eastman notes that his phone contains “emails that have been the subject of an intense, five-month privilege dispute between movant and the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
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