The left's attacks on Attorney-client privilege

 Epoch Times:

...

Last year, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the powerful House Homeland Security Committee, made a stunning suggestion. It pertained to members of Congress who, during the Jan. 6, 2021 electoral vote count, favored investigating the election results. Thompson suggested they should be placed on the national terrorist “no-fly” list.

Thompson either didn’t know or didn’t care about the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause (Article I, Section 6, Clause 1). Based on a provision in the 1689 English Bill of Rights, the Speech and Debate Clause protects lawmakers from persecution or retaliation from other branches of government because of what they say or how they vote (pdf).

Other “progressives” demanded that Congressmen who voted the “wrong way” during the electoral vote count be formally disqualified from office under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Another guarantee older than the Constitution is the right of those accused of crime to a speedy trial. Codified by the Sixth Amendment, it’s traceable to Magna Carta (1215). Yet the right to a speedy trial apparently has been denied to some of the defendants detained in last year’s Capitol incursion.

The attorney-client privilege also antedates the Constitution. It was firmly established in England no later than the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). The privilege guarantees that if you confide in your lawyer, he or she cannot be compelled to disclose what you said in confidence. It also protects papers generated while your lawyer is working for you.

Like other treasured “privileges”—such as habeas corpus and trial by jury—attorney-client confidentiality is central to our legal system. It helps assure citizens effective legal representation. If it were lost, many accused people would feel they couldn’t tell their lawyers the whole truth. This would undermine the quality of their legal representation. Moreover, if lawyers are compelled to reveal information about their own clients, many of those accused would stand defenseless against government prosecutors.

Rep. Thompson appears to have no more regard for the attorney-client privilege than for the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause. The “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” which he chairs, is trying to deny the attorney-client privilege to former President Donald Trump and to his lawyer, professor John Eastman.

Eastman advised Trump during the latter part of 2020 and early 2021. He also helped develop strategy for addressing contested election results.

The mainstream media have gone to unconscionable lengths to abuse Eastman. One of their gentler tactics is to label him with epithets such as “right wing lawyer” (pdf). Calling Eastman a “right wing lawyer” is like calling Winston Churchill “an English cigar-smoker:” It omits everything you really need to know about the man.
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This is more evidence that when it comes to Donald Trump, the left in this country is willing to throughout the law and rights of anyone associated with him.  The fact is that Trump has a right to challenge elections like any other candidate.  He has a right to hire an attorney for those challenges.  Attacks on his attorneys are unseemly and against long-held judicial standards.  What we are seeing is that when it comes to Trump, Democrats are willing to do and say anything and attack in standard to advance their political agenda.

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