John Eastman, the lawyer who developed strategies to block certification of the 2020 election, is “probably a target” in the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Donald J. Trump’s election loss in Georgia, one of Mr. Eastman’s lawyers said on Wednesday. Mr. Eastman spent the morning appearing before an Atlanta special grand jury looking into the matter.
The assertion that Mr. Eastman could face indictment in the Georgia case came from Harvey Silverglate, a well-known Boston-area criminal defense lawyer and civil liberties advocate who is representing Mr. Eastman.
Mr. Silverglate said that his client had not been identified as a target by Fulton County prosecutors in Atlanta, as a number of other pro-Trump figures have been, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who served as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer after the November 2020 election.
However, in a phone interview on Wednesday morning, Mr. Silverglate said of Mr. Eastman: “I think he’s probably a target, but I don’t think he’s a legitimate target,” adding that he believed Mr. Eastman had broken no laws in Georgia.
“I don’t think my client is going to be convicted of anything,” Mr. Silverglate said. “If he is indicted, a motion to dismiss will end the case.”
In a brief phone interview after he left the Fulton County courthouse — where he appeared behind closed doors in front of the special grand jury — Mr. Eastman said that he never sought to overturn the November 2020 election but rather was calling for investigations into what he described as “illegality” in the process.
“We really take issue with the district attorney’s office appearing, apparently, to criminalize contested legal theories,” he said. In a statement, Mr. Silverglate and another of Mr. Eastman’s lawyers, Charles Burnham, said they advised Mr. Eastman “to assert attorney client privilege and the constitutional right to remain silent where appropriate” in Wednesday’s grand jury appearance.