Former Chapman University law school Dean John Eastman was formally disbarred by the state Supreme Court Wednesday, about two years after a recommendation from a State Bar hearing judge in response to Eastman’s role as President Donald Trump’s attorney in the 2021 attempt to delay or block certification Joe Biden’s election.
The hearing judge, Yvette D. Roland, recommended Eastman’s disbarrment March 27, 2024. Eastman was admitted to the State Bar in 1997.
Eastman had argued he provided good-faith legal advice for Trump in the aftermath of Biden’s election.
Eastman’s attorney, Randall A. Miller, issued this statement:
“The California Supreme Court has allowed to stand a State Bar Court recommendation that we contend departs from long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the attorney discipline context. We disagree with that outcome and believe it raises pivotal constitutional concerns regarding the limits of state regulation of attorney speech. We will seek review in the Supreme Court to repudiate this threat to the rule of law and our nation’s adversarial system of justice.”
Eastman was thrust into the national spotlight when he addressed a crowd of Trump supporters in Washington, D.C., before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. His remarks set off a firestorm at Chapman University, where some faculty and students pushed for his ouster.
Eastman, who had been the university’s law school dean from 2007-10, agreed to retire in January 2021.
A year later, Eastman sued the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot in an effort to block release of his university emails. That litigation led U.S. District Judge David O. Carter to release some of the mails that would usually be kept private by law. Carter ruled there was evidence of a crime committed in the efforts to reverse the election results.
Eastman’s legal woes continued when the State Bar sought to disbar the constitutional scholar. The hearings lasted 35 days and included 23 witnesses.
In the midst of that trial, Eastman was indicted along with multiple other defendants in Georgia, including Trump, on election fraud charges. Some defendants pleaded guilty but others had their charges dropped by a prosecutor there who took over the case after questions were raised about the original prosecutor who filed the racketeering case.
Eastman was accused by the State Bar of conspiring with Trump “to develop and implement a strategy to obstruct the counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, and to illegally disrupt the peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joseph Biden, knowing that there was no plausible evidence, and no good faith theory or argument, to lawfully undo or delay the January 6 electoral count,” State Bar attorney Duncan Carling argued in his closing brief.
In her ruling, Roland disagreed with the Bar’s prosecutors that Eastman’s “misconduct contributed to the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” citing a lack of “specific evidence” of that.
“Here, the connection between Eastman’s actions and the alleged harm remains speculative,” Roland wrote.
Roland said there was no previous case history that was “directly on point” regarding the allegations presented in Eastman’s case, but she agreed with prosecutors that the most closely aligned precedent involved former President Richard Nixon’s campaign supporter, Donald Segretti.
“The scale and egregiousness of Eastman’s unethical actions far surpasses the misconduct at issue in Segretti,” Roland said. “Unlike Segretti, whose offenses occurred outside his role as an attorney, Eastman’s wrongdoing was committed directly in the course and scope of his representation of President Trump and the Trump campaign. This is an important factor, as it constitutes a fundamental breach of an attorney’s core ethical duties.”
Segretti, she noted, was 30 at the time and was remorseful.
“To the contrary, Eastman has exhibited an unwillingness to acknowledge any ethical lapses regarding his actions, demonstrating an apparent inability to accept responsibility,” Roland said. “This lack of remorse and accountability presents a significant risk that Eastman may engage in further unethical conduct, compounding the threat to the public.”
Carling, the Bar prosecutor, noted in his closing brief that by mid-December 2020, election challenges filed in seven key states had been “uniformly rejected.” The Trump administration’s Justice and Homeland Security Departments had also rebuked Trump’s claims of widespread fraud, Carling added.
The governors in the seven states, including some who were Republicans with legislative majorities, had certified Biden’s election. The Electoral College had also certified the results.
“By the time (Eastman) wrote his Dec. 23 and Jan. 3 memoranda, therefore, he knew that there could be no true dispute about who had won the election,” Carling said.
Still, Eastman pressed then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the slates of electors in the seven states or send them back to the state legislatures for continued investigation of the debunked fraud claims, Carling said. That move would violate the Electoral Count Act, which has been in place for more than a century, Carling said.
He added, “it would effectively make Pence the sole and final super-judge of the lawfulness of state elections — and, indeed, of his own election — contrary to the Framers’ intent, established principles of federalism and separation of powers, and any notion of checks and balances.”
Carling also criticized Eastman’s speech at the Ellipse before mobs of Trump supporters marched over to the Capitol, with many rioting and breaking into the buildings to disrupt Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. Eastman continued making the case to Pence’s attorney even as the violence was unfolding, Carling added.
Eastman relied on and “purposely parroted the misguided opinions and narratives of demonstrably unqualified, unvetted, and unreliable `experts,”’ Carling said.
Carling pointed out that even Eastman’s own expert, John Yoo, acknowledged that Biden won “fair and square” in his testimony. Carling added that Yoo himself capitulated when then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr declared there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the election.
Eastman’s attorney, Miller, however, argued that the “renowned constitutional scholar, professor, and former dean” did nothing wrong and was “zealously” advocating for his client as he pursued a legal theory.
Eastman “based on thorough research and his extensive knowledge (gained during decades of scholarly study) of core separation of powers principles codified in the Constitution, Dr. Eastman determined that another viable remedy was for the President of the Senate (the vice president of the United States) to accede to requests from state legislators for a brief delay in the electoral college proceedings, in order to allow for additional time for state legislatures to exercise their constitutional power of determining whether illegality in the election had affected the outcome,” Miller wrote in his closing brief.
Miller contended that it was still an “open question” how much authority the vice president has in the counting of electoral votes.
“Crafting such legal arguments, grounded in a good-faith interpretation of the historical record and not foreclosed by precedent, is precisely what is demanded of attorneys in our adversarial system,” Miller said.
Miller further argued that Eastman was “fully protected by the First Amendment” in his statements about election fraud.
Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, testified during the disbarment hearing that all his former boss was tasked with doing was opening the envelopes from the electors and recording the results. Jacob said Pence lacked any authority to delay the proceedings or reject any of the electors who sided with Biden.
Jacob said there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that spells out anything about the role of the vice president — as president of the U.S. Senate — in certifying the Electoral College results other than opening them. It is a “ministerial” role, he said.
Roland noted in her ruling that Eastman’s testimony in the trial “seemed evasive and inconsistent at times and there is limited clear and convincing evidence to establish that Eastman was dishonest in his testimony.”