Former Trump lawyer appeals disbarment recommendation over role in 2020 election

LOS ANGELES (CN) — John Eastman, a former lawyer for President Donald Trump and a constitutional law expert, on Wednesday tried to persuade a review panel of the California State Bar to overturn last year’s recommendation that he should be disbarred for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Eastman’s attorney Randall Miller told the three-judge panel that Eastman had both a factual basis for challenging the outcome of the election that Trump lost against Joe Biden as well as tenable legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the U.S. Senate, could reject or delay counting of the electoral votes and confirming Biden’s win.

Miller said Eastman was retained by Trump to evaluate whether state measures leading up to the elections, including such things as drop-off boxes for ballots, signature requirements and voting deadlines, could impact the outcome and integrity of the vote and if they were constitutionally valid.

“State actors were acting outside their authority,” Miller said, referring to election and other local officials who he claimed had no constitutional authority to decide on how and when voters could cast their ballot. “Dr. Eastman looked at that, and that was the basis for challenging the election.”

In addition, according to Miller, Eastman’s legal theory about the scope of the vice president’s power to reject the certified electoral slates, had at least some support in legal scholarship. Even Greg Jacobs, Pence’s legal counsel who ultimately rejected that theory, initially agreed with it in part.

This line of argument, however, met with some skepticism by Presiding Judge Richard Honn, who observed that Jacobs has called Eastman’s theory “bullshit.”

“I think you’re coloring it to make it appear plain vanilla,” Honn said.

Hearing Judge Yvette Roland of the California State Bar concluded, in an 128-page ruling issued in March of last year, that Eastman had failed to uphold his primary duty of honesty and had breached his ethical obligations by deliberately propagating false claims about the 2020 presidential election. She recommended he’d be disbarred.

The Orange County attorney, a constitutional scholar who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote two memos arguing the election had been stolen by Democrats by the electronic manipulation of voting tabulation machines.

He urged Pence to delay the election certification and suggested that state legislators could appoint alternative slates of pro-Trump electors. This, he said, could lay the groundwork for Pence to reverse the election results by selecting the alternative slates.

Danielle Lee, an attorney for the state bar, argued at Wednesday’s hearing that there had been no evidence of a single fraudulent vote anywhere to support Eastman’s argument that the election results were invalid. The whole point of the false claims and Eastman’s spurious legal theory, she said, was to deceive Pence.

“Respondent’s behavior was beyond the pale,” Lee told the panel. “He was the president’s lawyer and constitutional expert. It was incumbent on him to be 100% right when he gave that advice.”

Eastman is appealing the hearing judge’s finding that found him culpable on 10 of the 11 misconduct counts the state bar had brought against him, including one count of failing to support the U.S. Constitution and laws of the U.S. by conspiring with Trump to obstruct the electoral count on Jan. 6, 2021, and nine counts of making multiple misrepresentations to various entities, individuals and the public.

The state bar is appealing the hearing judge’s conclusion that Eastman wasn’t culpable for the 11th count, committing acts of moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption based on his statements at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally.

While agreeing that Eastman’s statements at the rally were false and deceptive, the judge dismissed that count because she found no evidence that those statements contributed to the assault on the Capitol.

Eastman addressed the review of panel at Wednesday’s hearing to reiterate that it wasn’t true that he knowingly made false claims about the election results.

It was his job, he said, to focus on the illegality of election procedures that weren’t put in place by state legislatures, as the Constitution demands, but by judges and local officials instead.

“To accuse me of making false statements runs afoul of my First Amendment right to raise questions,” Eastman said.

The panel took Eastman’s appeal under submission without issuing a decision.

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