California Poised to Disbar Trump 2020 Lawyer John Eastman 

The irony is striking for John Eastman, a constitutional attorney and one of President Donald Trump’s lawyers in the litigated post-2020 election. 

One week before a California panel is set to hear an appeal regarding Eastman’s disbarment, a group of Democrat attorneys general claims a Trump executive order runs “roughshod over the First Amendment” and sends “a menacing message to attorneys nationwide: unless they advance positions or represent clients favorable to the current administration, their livelihood may be at risk.”

“The shoe is on the other foot and they are complaining about things they have been doing for years,” Eastman told The Daily Signal. “This is just absolute projection.”

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Eastman’s hearing is set for Wednesday in Los Angeles before a panel of judges with the Review Department at the California Bar, which is the appellate level for the bar. The process stems from complaints by left-wing legal group The 65 Project, which targeted 111 Trump-associated lawyers—including Eastman—for discipline in contesting Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. 

Eastman is targeted for his legal argument that then-Vice President Mike Pence could delay counting Electoral College votes from states deemed contested during the certification of Biden’s win on Jan. 6, 2021.

Regarding the other matter, Trump signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose work with the Democrat-aligned law firm Perkins Coie. The firm is known for promoting the discredited Steele dossier that alleged Trump was a Russian agent. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, a Barack Obama appointee, temporarily blocked the Trump order in response to a Perkins Coie lawsuit.

Eastman, former dean of the Chapman University School of Law, said he planned to bring up the arguments by Perkins Coie and Democrat attorneys general in his hearing next week, calling the proximity of the two cases almost like a script. 

Eastman stressed the lawfare against lawyers for Trump violates the First Amendment and will have an obvious chilling effect on lawyers in future politically-charged cases.

“I am hopeful that judges can apply the law in an impartial way separate and apart from their personal or political prejudices,” said Eastman, the founding director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.  

The 65 Project’s targeting of 111 Trump-aligned lawyers across the country who challenged the 2020 election outcome had mixed success. 

“It was a concerted effort from lawfare groups, a nationwide conspiracy to deprive lawyers for Donald Trump of their constitutional rights,” Eastman said. “That makes it federally actionable.”

He added, “I hope the new FBI director is investigating.” Trump appointed Kash Patel as the new FBI director. 

The first bar hearing for Eastman began on June 20, 2023, almost a year before the initial ruling on March 27, 2024, by State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland, who recommended Eastman’s disbarment. Roland had been a Democrat donor. 

“I’m not aware of any that are longer or expensive. Most bar hearings are a few days,” Eastman said. 

According to OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics, Roland as a California lawyer contributed $500 to the Obama 2008 presidential campaign, $1,250 to Obama’s 2012 campaign, and $450 to the 2010 Kamala Harris attorney general campaign. In 2022, as a judge, Roland contributed $250 to the gubernatorial campaign of Gavin Newsom, according to OpenSecrets.  

Eastman said he spent about $1 million defending his law license. 

After the appeal division decides, the matter can go to the California Supreme Court. 

“If we win the appeal, that should be the end of it. But I expect the hyper partisan bar prosecutors to appeal it,” Eastman said. 

Eastman maintains that a vice president’s role in the certification process of a president was not settled law. 

“Case law in California is clear that even if you think an argument is likely to lose, you are ethically obligated to make a plausible, tenable argument for your client,” Eastman said.

Congress passed a bipartisan Electoral Reform Act of 2022 that included a provision specifically stating the vice president only has a ceremonial role when votes are counted. Trump said passing of the law meant the vice president previously had a role in the count.  

“The Constitution is not clear here. I was making a plausible argument. I think it was right,” Eastman said. “But even if it was wrong, it was tenable. To disbar someone for advancing a tenable argument is outrageous.”