Politico:

A federal judge on Monday moved to speed up efforts to supply Jan. 6 investigators with a crucial set of emails from John Eastman, the attorney who helped develop then-President Donald Trump’s strategy to subvert the 2020 election.

U.S. District Court Judge David Carter, based in California, specifically ordered an expedited schedule to review efforts by Eastman to shield 568 pages of emails — all sent and received between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2021 — from the Jan. 6 select committee.

“The Select Committee has repeatedly noted the significance of communications immediately before and after the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” Carter said in a late-Monday order. “Given the investigation’s urgency, the Court finds it appropriate to expedite its privilege review of the January 4-7, 2021 documents.”

Eastman has tried to withhold the emails, held by his former employer Chapman University, by citing attorney-client and attorney work-product privileges.

The select committee, represented by House Counsel Douglas Letter, has protested Eastman’s privilege claims, arguing that Eastman has provided no evidence of a formal legal relationship with Trump, the White House or the Trump campaign.

“One of the biggest things is we don’t know whether there was any attorney-client relationship at all,” Letter said on Monday.

Carter, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, seemed to agree with Letter’s complaint, and his Monday order gives Eastman one week to provide justification for his privilege assertions — including “evidence of all attorney-client and agent relationships” that he relied on to make his claims.