A lawyer who had pushed to overturn the 2020 election lack of then-President Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Modification proper towards self-incrimination in refusing to reply questions throughout an look Wednesday earlier than a grand jury in Georgia, his attorneys stated.

John Eastman additionally invoked protections beneath attorney-client privilege in refusing to reply not less than some questions he was requested earlier than the grand jury, which was convened as a part of a felony probe into the potential for unlawful interference in Georgia’s presidential election contest, his attorneys stated.

Eastman is one in all a gaggle of Trump allies who had been subpoenaed by that panel, which is listening to testimony in Atlanta. A second ally, Trump’s former private lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has been named a goal in that investigation and lately testified earlier than the identical grand jury.

Eastman wrote a collection of memos after the 2020 election calling on then-Vice President Mike Pence to successfully undo President Joe Biden‘s win by refusing to certify the Electoral School outcomes.

“In his look earlier than the Fulton County Particular Grand Jury, we suggested our consumer John Eastman to say attorney-client privilege and the constitutional proper to stay silent the place applicable,” Eastman’s attorneys, Charles Burnham and Harvey Silverglate, stated in an announcement.

“Out of respect for grand jury secrecy we is not going to disclose the substance of the questions or testimony. We want to thank the grand jurors for his or her service,” the attorneys stated.

The assertion additionally blasted Fulton County District Lawyer Fani Willis for the probe itself.

“By all indications, the District Lawyer’s Workplace has set itself on an unprecedented path of criminalizing controversial or disfavored authorized theories, presumably in hopes that the federal authorities will comply with its lead,” the attorneys stated.

“Criminalization of unpopular authorized theories is towards each American custom and would have ended the careers of John Adams, Ruth Ginsburg, Thurgood Marshall and plenty of different now-celebrated American attorneys,” the assertion stated. Adams was the second president of the USA, whereas Ginsburg and Marshall had been Supreme Courtroom justices who helped set up new authorized precedents with their work through the civil rights motion.

“We ask all observers of any political persuasion to affix us in decrying this troubling growth,” Burnham and Silverglate wrote.

Eastman final month revealed that his cellphone was seized by federal brokers who stopped him in New Mexico and compelled him to unlock it.

That seizure was performed as a part of an investigation by the Justice Division’s inside watchdog, the Workplace of the Inspector Normal.

The IG’s workplace is probing the position of the Justice Division and its parts in “making ready for and responding to” the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, in response to the workplace’s web site. That riot occurred as a joint session of Congress was convened to certify Biden’s victory, with Pence presiding over the proceedings.

A former Justice Division official, Jeffrey Clark, had electronics seized from his Virginia residence on the identical day that Eastman’s cellphone was seized.

Clark additionally backed Trump’s effort to overturn the election.

Trump thought of putting in Clark as lawyer common within the days main as much as Jan. 6, 2021, however dropped the thought after a gaggle of high Justice officers stated they might resign in protest if that occurred.