调查1月6日国会大厦袭击事件的众议院委员会周三表示，有证据表明，前总统唐纳德·特朗普和他的一些同伙可能非法试图阻挠国会对选举人票的计票，并“参与了欺诈美国的犯罪阴谋”，以推翻2020年的选举结果。

该委员会在周三提交给联邦法院的一份文件中辩称，特朗普可能犯了两项罪行，因为它挑战了特朗普前律师约翰·伊斯曼(John Eastman)阻止调查人员获取数千页电子邮件的提议。

该小组认为，鉴于伊士曼的法律建议可能帮助特朗普犯下了多项罪行，这些记录不应受到犯罪欺诈例外下的律师-客户特权的保护。

“我们收集的事实强烈表明，伊士曼博士的电子邮件可能显示，他帮助唐纳德·特朗普推进了一项腐败计划，以阻挠选举人团选票的计票，以及一项阻碍权力移交的阴谋，”该委员会的领导人、密西西比州民主党众议员本尼·汤普森(Bennie Thompson)和怀俄明州共和党众议员利兹·切尼(Liz Cheney)在一份声明中说。

伊士曼的律师查尔斯·伯恩汉姆在给美国广播公司新闻的一份声明中说，伊士曼“有责任保护客户的机密，即使冒着巨大的个人风险和费用。”

伯纳姆说:“特别委员会对伊斯曼博士履行这一职责的努力作出了回应，指控他有犯罪行为。”。“因为这是一个民事问题，伊斯曼博士将不会享有通常给予那些被政府指控犯罪行为的人的宪法保护。尽管如此，我们期待在适当的时候做出回应。”

特朗普的代表没有回应置评请求。

马尔科·贝洛/路透社

美国前总统唐纳德·特朗普在保守党大会上讲话时做手势...

新的文件标志着该委员会第一次正式指控特朗普从事具体的犯罪活动，试图扰乱1月6日的国会联席会议，并发起一场运动，以推翻关键州的结果，并推动关于广泛选民欺诈的毫无根据的说法。

该委员会在提交的文件中写道:“由于法院以压倒性多数裁定特朗普总统对选举不当行为的指控，他和他的同事开始计划司法外的努力，以推翻选举结果，并阻止当选总统就职。”

“这些努力的核心是一场咄咄逼人的公开误导运动，让数百万美国人相信选举事实上被偷了。即使在总统自己在司法部和国土安全部任命的人以及他自己的竞选工作人员告诉总统他的说法是错误的之后，总统和他的助手们仍然坚持声称‘选举被盗’。”

尽管该委员会的立法者不能正式指控特朗普犯罪，但他们表示，他们的调查将导致刑事案件移交给司法部，然后由司法部决定是否起诉这位前总统。

该委员会引用了对白宫高级官员和彭斯助手的几次采访，包括他的律师和幕僚长，以证明特朗普和主要盟友试图停止计算选举人票，并向前副总统迈克·彭斯施压，“操纵对他有利的结果”。

“证据支持一个推论，即特朗普总统、原告和其他几个人达成了一项协议，通过干扰选举认证过程、传播有关选举欺诈的虚假信息，以及向州官员施压以改变州选举结果和联邦官员协助这一努力，来欺骗美国，”该委员会在文件中写道。

今年1月，伊斯曼因参与起草两份法律备忘录而被委员会传唤，这两份备忘录认为彭斯有权推翻1月6日的选举结果。

他继续为彭斯推翻选举结果辩护，尽管支持特朗普的暴徒与国会警察发生了冲突，并将副总统藏在国会山。

“我们现在受到了围攻，”彭斯的律师格雷格·雅各布(Greg Jacob)写信给伊士曼(Eastman)，在该委员会周三发布的1月6日的电子邮件中指责他。

“围攻是因为你和你的老板没有做必要的事情，让这件事以公开的方式播出，让美国人民可以亲眼看到发生了什么，”伊士曼在骚乱中回答雅各布。

当天晚上晚些时候，伊斯曼再次写信给雅各布，“我恳求你再考虑一个相对较小的违反[选举计数法]的行为，并休会10天，以便立法机构完成调查，并允许对这里发生的大量非法活动进行全面的法医审计，”根据该委员会发布的另一封电子邮件。

在法庭文件中，该委员会写道，这封电子邮件通信表明伊士曼“知道他的提议将违反法律，但他仍然敦促副总统采取这些行动。”

本周早些时候，加利福尼亚州律师协会宣布调查伊士曼在与特朗普挑战2020年选举结果的工作中是否违反了州律师道德法。

作为周三法庭文件的一部分，公布的证据还包括该委员会过去几个月采访的几名关键证人的证词摘录，包括特朗普顾问杰森·米勒、前彭斯幕僚长马克·肖特(Marc Short)和前彭斯国家安全顾问基思·凯洛格(Keith Kellogg)。这些采访显示了特朗普圈子内的关键人物在1月6日之前和当天发生了什么样的对话。

根据一个展览，特朗普的高级顾问米勒描述说，“选举后不久，一名竞选数据专家‘非常直言不讳地’告诉总统，他会输。”

根据展览，米勒说，特朗普不同意竞选数据专家的观点。

在周三公布的另一份证据中，时任代理副总检察长理查德·多诺霍(Richard Donoghue)告诉1月6日的委员会，特朗普一再敦促司法部“公开表示选举腐败或可疑或不可靠”，尽管多诺霍本人“以非常明确的措辞”亲自通知特朗普，司法部得出结论，没有证据支持选民欺诈的主要指控。

另一个展览显示了特朗普前幕僚长梅多斯的助手本·威廉姆森(Ben Williamson)1月6日发出的一条短信，警告梅多斯:“建议总统在国会大厦发布一条关于尊重警察的推文——在那里有点毛骨悚然。”

Jan 6. committee: Trump engaged in 'criminal conspiracy,' may have broken laws

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack said Wednesday it has evidence that former President Donald Trump and some of his associates may have illegally tried to obstruct Congress' count of electoral votes and "engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States" in their efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The committee argued in a federal court filing Wednesday that Trump may have committed two crimes as it challenged a bid by former Trump lawyer John Eastman to block investigators from obtaining thousands of pages of emails.

The panel argued that the records should not be protected by attorney-client privilege under the crime fraud exception, given that Eastman's legal advice may have helped Trump commit multiple crimes.

"The facts we've gathered strongly suggest that Dr. Eastman's emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power," Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, and Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, the leaders of the panel, said in a statement.

Eastman's lawyer, Charles Burnham, said in a statement to ABC News that Eastman "has a responsibility to protect client confidences, even at great personal risk and expense."

"The Select Committee has responded to Dr. Eastman's efforts to discharge this responsibility by accusing him of criminal conduct," Burnham said. "Because this is a civil matter, Dr. Eastman will not have the benefit of the Constitutional protections normally afforded to those accused by their government of criminal conduct. Nonetheless, we look forward to responding in due course."

Representatives for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

The new filing marks the first time the committee has formally accused Trump of specific criminal activities, by working to disrupt the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 and by waging a campaign to overturn the results in key states and promote unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.

"As the courts were overwhelmingly ruling against President Trump's claims of election misconduct, he and his associates began to plan extra-judicial efforts to overturn the results of the election and prevent the president-elect from assuming office," the committee wrote in its filing.

"At the heart of these efforts was an aggressive public misinformation campaign to persuade millions of Americans that the election had in fact been stolen. The president and his associates persisted in making 'stolen election' claims even after the president's own appointees at the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, along with his own campaign staff, had informed the president that his claims were wrong."

While lawmakers on the panel cannot formally charge Trump with a crime, they have suggested their investigation would result in a criminal referral to the Justice Department, which would then decide whether to prosecute the former president.

In making their case that Trump and key allies tried to stop the counting of electoral votes and pressure former Vice President Mike Pence "to manipulate the results in his favor," the committee cited several interviews with senior White House officials and aides to Pence, including his attorney and chief of staff.

"The evidence supports an inference that President Trump, plaintiff and several others entered into an agreement to defraud the United States by interfering with the election certification process, disseminating false information about election fraud, and pressuring state officials to alter state election results and federal officials to assist in that effort," the committee wrote in the filing.

Eastman was subpoenaed by the committee in January for his role in crafting two legal memos that argued Pence had the authority to overturn the election results on Jan. 6.

He continued making the case for Pence to overturn the results even as pro-Trump rioters clashed with Capitol Police and sent the vice president into hiding on Capitol Hill.

"We are now under siege," Pence's counsel Greg Jacob wrote to Eastman, placing blame on him in a Jan. 6 email released by the committee Wednesday.

"The 'siege' is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened," Eastman replied to Jacob in the middle of the riot.

Later that evening, Eastman again wrote to Jacob, "I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation [of the Electoral Count Act] and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations, as well as to allow a full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that has occurred here," according to another email released by the committee.

In the court filing, the committee wrote that this email correspondence suggests Eastman "knew what he was proposing would violate the law, but he nonetheless urged the vice president to take those actions."

Earlier this week, the State Bar of California announced an investigation into whether Eastman violated state ethics laws for attorneys in his work with Trump challenging the 2020 election results.

Exhibits released as part of Wednesday’s court filings also included excerpts of depositions from several key witnesses the committee interviewed over the last few months, including Trump adviser Jason Miller, former Pence Chief of Staff Marc Short, and former Pence national security advisor Keith Kellogg. The interviews show what kinds of conversations took place among key figures within the Trump circle leading up to and on Jan. 6.

According to one exhibit, Miller, a senior advisor to Trump described that, “soon after the election, a campaign data expert told the President ‘in pretty blunt terms’ that he was going to lose.”

But Trump disagreed with the campaign data expert, Miller said, according to the exhibit.

In another exhibit released on Wednesday, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue told the Jan. 6 committee that Trump repeatedly pressed the Justice Department to “publicly say that the election is corrupt or suspect or not reliable” even though Donoghue himself had “personally informed” Trump “in very clear terms” that the Justice Department concluded that there’s no evidence to support major allegations of voter fraud.

Another exhibit shows a text message from Ben Williamson, an aide to Trump’s former Chief of Staff Meadow on Jan. 6 warning Meadows: “Would recommend POTUS put out a tweet about respecting the police over at the Capitol — getting a little hairy over there.”