While conversations between a client and attorney are privileged and cannot be revealed without violating ethics codes that could lose a lawyer his license to practice, the crime fraud exception ensures that “if you are using the attorney-client relationship to perpetrate a crime, there is no privilege.” Since it has become all too evident that crimes were committed in the lead-up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, and just as evident who is responsible for organizing those crimes, lawyers for Donald Trump may very well find themselves disclosing their conversations in court in the coming months.
Justice Department asks a federal judge to force the top two lawyers from Donald Trump’s White House counsel’s office to testify about their conversations with the former President, as it tries to break through Trump's privilege firewall, sources say https://t.co/Q5HcqWfEqX
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 25, 2022
The Department of Justice, who is investigating all the levels of criminality behind the January 6 attack, has asked a judge to force former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin to testify about their conversations with Trump around that time. Although attorney-client privilege and executive privilege have been invoked to block much of the testimony requested from legal advisors in the White House, recent testimony from vice presidential advisors Greg Jacob and Marc Short turned the tide on the DOJ’s ability to penetrate Trump’s inner circle.
According to CNN:
‘The litigation around Cipollone and Philbin’s testimony may be important for investigators in the long run, given how close the pair was to the Trump leading up to and during the Capitol riot. Prosecutors are likely to aim for the grand jury to hear about their direct conversations with the then-President.’
Twitter had a lot to say about the news around Trump’s legal advisors, and the conversation was not without controversy and division. Read some of their comments below:
