Tonight in Your Rights: Eastman disbarredAs Trump's prosecutors play defense for Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, the brains of a "coup in search of a legal theory" loses his law license.
ADAM KLASFELD
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Jan. 6th Committee hearing from 2022. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Tonight’s legal briefing includes two dramatically different Jan. 6-related tales, a blow against Trump’s ICE warehouse scheme, and an update in an under-the-radar prosecution of a politician calling out immigration-related abuses.
Subscribe or upgrade to paid!On Tax Day, a little more than five years after the Jan. 6th insurrection, the mastermind of the legal prong of Donald Trump’s “coup in search of a legal theory” finally had to pay the piper.
John Eastman played an instrumental role in plotting an effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, leading to his appearance in Trump’s state and federal indictments.
Now, he’s been disbarred.
“The court orders that John Charles Eastman (Respondent), State Bar Number 193726, is disbarred from the practice of law in California and that Respondent's name is stricken from the roll of attorneys,” the
docket entry reads.
Eastman unsuccessfully tried to persuade former Vice President Mike Pence to try to illegally reject electoral college votes and send them back to the states.
In the fallout, the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol sent Eastman a subpoena pursuing information about the legal campaign to subvert the election. That pursuit resulted in a historic ruling where a federal judge found that Eastman and Trump both likely committed federal felonies.
“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower—it was a coup in search of a legal theory,” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter
wrote in 2022. “The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process.”
Carter’s ruling long predated Trump’s eventual prosecution and predicted two of the crimes to be charged against him: conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstructing an official proceeding.
In 2023, the California State Bar filed 11 disciplinary charges against Eastman, starting a years-long process that included a 35-day trial.
A trial judge recommended Eastman’s disbarment the following year, which was finalized on Wednesday following years of review.
States United Democracy Center, an advocacy group that filed a bar complaint against Eastman in late 2021, called the California Supreme Court’s decision a “reckoning for those who seek to undermine the rule of law in this country.”
“While Trump tries to consolidate power, the states and courts continue to successfully check executive overreach and the unlawful actions of his administration,” the group’s senior vice president Christine P. Sun said in a statement.
POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney
reports:
“Though the decision only applies to Eastman’s license to practice law in California, disbarment decisions are typically adopted by authorities in other jurisdictions in “reciprocal” rulings. Eastman is also a member of the bar in Washington, D.C., though his license
has been suspended there as well.”
Eastman is expected to appeal the decision.
