The State Bar of California’s (SBC) Review Department upheld the bar disciplinary judge’s decision to disbar John Eastman, President Donald Trump’s former attorney.
Eastman was disbarred for representing Trump in his legal challenges related to the 2020 election. The court agreed with California Bar Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland, who has a history of donating to Democrats while serving on the bench, that Eastman was guilty of numerous counts of “moral turpitude,” a broad, vague attorney ethics rule typically used to target conservatives.
Roland found Eastman culpable on 10 of 11 counts brought by the SBC, a decision with which the higher court agreed.
The 3-judge panel, which heard oral arguments in March, declared Eastman, whose resume is over 100 pages long, is an attorney who “attempts to actively undermine the results of an election to the most powerful office in the United States with the goal of delaying or invalidating the lawful installation of his client’s electoral opponent and thereby keep his client in office.”
The other counts against Eastman were “failing to support the Constitution and laws of the United States” and two counts of “seeking to mislead a court.”
Eastman’s appeal contended that he was denied due process because he was not afforded a fair adjudicator and was prevented from presenting certain witnesses. Additionally, his appeal said his right to free speech was violated.
The panel quoted Canon 5 of the California Code of Judicial Ethics, which states in part, “Judges … shall, however, not engage in political activity that may create the appearance of political bias or impropriety.” The panel concluded, “Because he identifies no evidence other than his subjective belief, we reject his claims of bias as speculative and conclusory.”
In regard to Eastman pointing out that the bar prosecutors are registered Democrats, the panel said, “Once again, Eastman’s arguments are based on facts outside of the record.”
Roland prohibited Eastman from allowing substitute witnesses to testify after some of his original witnesses were forced to withdraw due to being named as possible defendants in prosecutions over the 2020 election. The panel dismissed his concern, “Eastman has failed to demonstrate any actual prejudice regarding either generalized contention.”
The panel stated there was “no support for his allegations of bias” regarding how Roland treated his witnesses and excluded evidence that was favorable towards him. Roland refused to accept as evidence U.S. Supreme Court briefs from state attorneys general and legislators. He repeatedly refused to admit evidence from after January 6, 2021, despite the fact it exonerated him.
Most of the charges against Eastman related to a memo he drafted for Trump — which the president ultimately never saw — outlining several possible legal strategies, including ones where Vice President Mike Pence might choose to accept, reject, or postpone accepting slates of electors from states where there was illegal election activity. Whether Pence had this substantive authority or whether his role was merely ministerial has been hotly debated by constitutional legal scholars. However, according to nationally known Berkeley constitutional law professor John Yoo, all but one constitutional scholar agrees the vice president has that authority.
During the first trial, Roland asked Yoo how many legal scholars believe it’s not the vice president’s responsibility to determine disputed electoral slates. Yoo said there has been only one legal scholar who has ever thought otherwise, University of Virginia law professor John Harrison.
Despite this testimony, the panel asserted, “Nor were there sufficient scholarly works to support Eastman’s vice presidential authority claim. … We reject Eastman’s arguments as detailed post and further find Eastman intentionally pushed both his reject electors and delay theories, knowing those theories were not supported by the facts, the relevant historical record, or the law.” The panel added, “Eastman worked to create an appearance of a legitimate dispute when in fact none existed.”
In Eastman’s appeal, he stressed the historical constitutional significance of the legal dispute over the issue. “[I]t must be emphasized that the Hearing Department is the first court in the nation’s history to consider the constitutional question of the Vice President’s authority to resolve disputes over electoral votes. This is a novel and unresolved issue, directly derived from our nation’s highest law, and arguably a non-justiciable political question not subject to judicial review. Nevertheless, the Hearing Department of the State Bar Court of California found itself qualified to authoritatively resolve this issue.”
Despite the complexity and seriousness of the legal issue at hand, the panel agreed with Roland that Eastman should be denied the opportunity to present his other expert witnesses and evidence. They reasoned, “We note that in his reply brief, Eastman conceded the judge did admit some but not ‘much’ of his 2021 evidence.”
In regards to Roland repeatedly refusing to let Eastman submit evidence from after January 6, 2021, the panel stated, “Based upon our review of the record, we find Eastman’s allegations of bias in the exclusion and admission of post-January 2021 evidence lack support in the record and, therefore, he has not established an abuse of discretion and resulting prejudice.”
The panel said it was fine for Roland to allow briefs filed by defendant states in the 2020 cases before SCOTUS that took the opposite position to Eastman into evidence, but not allow briefs filed by states that took Eastman’s position. “On this issue and after review of the record, Eastman has not established an abuse of discretion or any resulting prejudice, let alone bias,” the judges wrote.
The panel said it was acceptable for Roland to refuse to allow Eastman’s attorney to ask an SBC witness what his political party was, while allowing the SBC to ask a witness whether Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was a Republican, since Raffensperger “upheld the election outcome in Georgia.”
Concluding its analysis of this area, the panel stated, “After a thorough review of the record, we see no legally cognizable bias as Eastman has argued. The hearing judge exercised appropriate trial and courtroom management. We reject his arguments on this issue entirely.”
Next, the panel analyzed Eastman’s role in filing a brief for Trump in the lawsuit Texas v. Pennsylvania, which challenged illegal activity during the 2020 election. The court emphasized that the Supreme Court denied certiorari, asserting that the states lacked standing. However, the panel failed to mention that both justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Scalito filed dissents. The panel claimed that Eastman made “false and misleading statements” to the court, such as stating that there was “rampant lawlessness” in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Eastman was accused of ignoring “former United States Attorney General William Barr’s December 1, 2020 conclusion that insufficient evidence existed of widespread outcome determinative fraud.” However, the panel didn’t address the fact that Barr made that statement without allowing U.S. attorneys around the country to investigate the wrongdoing when they requested permission. Barr did not conduct an investigation.
German-owned Politico reported at the time, “The Department of Justice ended up conducting no formal investigations of voter fraud…” The rest of the article discussed Trump’s falling out with Barr for not investigating the wrongdoing. The former U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, William McSwain, said in a letter to Trump, “I wanted to be transparent with the public and, of course, investigate fully any allegations. Attorney General Barr, however, instructed me not to make any public statements or put out any press releases regarding possible election irregularities.”
The panel addressed Eastman’s representation of Trump in a complaint against Georgia election officials, which included allegations of constitutional violations and other law violations.
Much of the opinion asserted that Eastman failed to provide proof of his accusations of election illegalities. However, in court proceedings regarding election challenges, much of the evidence comes out during discovery and trial. Since judges found ways to dismiss Eastman’s lawsuits early on, he was never afforded the ability to obtain this evidence.
The panel faulted Eastman for not disclosing various negative opinions in other election cases. However, many of these opinions were not directly relevant to the issues he was addressing, and the opposing parties raised them.
The decision faulted Eastman for stating Fulton County election officials “remove[d] suitcases of ballots from under a table where they had been hidden, and processed those ballots without open viewing in violation of [state law].” The panel agreed with Roland, who “found the allegations to be false and made with actual knowledge that Eastman intended to deceive the federal district court.” However, The Georgia Record published the transcript of an interview with one of the election workers in question, which appears to contradict this finding.
The panel repeatedly said that “Eastman knew there were serious factual errors by the experts,” but the mistakes were relatively minor. Eastman was faulted for stating at the January 6 rally that deceased voters cast ballots. While one of the experts acknowledged later that he had miscounted the number of ballots cast in the names of deceased voters, this did not contradict Eastman’s assertion that some ballots were cast, which was verified by state authorities.
The opinion accused Eastman of changing his position on whether the vice president had substantive authority to accept or reject slates of electors, citing a comment he made on a draft letter that was to be sent to Trump in October 2020, prior to the election. At that time, Eastman expressed concern that the vice president lacked substantive authority. However, the panel ignored the fact that constitutional legal scholars vary on whether the vice president has this authority, the courts have never ruled on it, and Eastman’s ultimate advice to Trump outlined both options and other variations. After Eastman began heavily researching the issue, he concluded that the vice president might have that substantive authority.
Despite Eastman’s memo laying out multiple options, including Pence rejecting the alternate slates and allowing Joe Biden to win the presidential election, the opinion repeatedly stated that Eastman pressured Pence to reject or delay certification, refusing to give his memo any weight.
“Eastman’s argument on review references Jacob’s December 8, 2020 memorandum to former Vice-President Pence that there was debate about his Joint Session role, but this argument misses the mark,” the judges wrote.
The panel dismissed the significance of Hawaii’s 1960 presidential election, which featured three slates of electors and suspected election fraud, but no one was disciplined or prosecuted. Then-Vice President Richard Nixon ultimately selected the third slate offered, for John F. Kennedy, rejecting the first slate for himself and a second slate for Kennedy. The second slate of Democratic electors was not certified by the governor or any other government entity.
However, the panel emphasized that “Eastman understood the ‘alternate electors’ he and others worked to gather for President Trump were not authorized by any state government.” The panel also repeatedly emphasized that Eastman knew that “no majority of state legislators in any Republican-controlled legislature communicated a desire to send an alternate slate of electors.”
Nationally known experts on researching election anomalies were dismissed as irrelevant or unqualified by the panel. Eastman’s witness, John Droz, has undergraduate degrees in physics and mathematics from Boston College and a graduate degree in physics from Syracuse University. He worked in technical roles at companies including GE Aerospace Electronics and Mohawk Data Sciences. He has testified in numerous election cases. He runs an election integrity group with other PhDs, which has produced numerous reports on their findings of election illegalities.
However, the panel asserted that “they were not election professionals,” without explaining what an election professional is. Instead, it faulted Eastman for stating there was “illegal election conduct,” which was “not based on any personal knowledge.” The panel didn’t cite any legal precedent that required Eastman to base his legal advice and litigation on his own personal knowledge.
The panel dismissed Eastman’s expert Stanley Young because he “was only qualified as a general expert in statistics, not in statistics relating to elections.” Young is a statistician with a PhD in statistics and genetics from North Carolina State University. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has served as an adjunct professor at multiple universities. His expertise lies in data mining, meta-analysis, and ensuring scientific integrity through transparency, particularly in evaluating the reproducibility of research claims.
Instead, the panel heavily relied on a paper issued by various PhDs and other academics who claimed there was no wrongdoing. Most of them were computer professionals with no experience in elections. The group declared that the 2020 election “was the most secure in American history.”
The panel criticized Eastman for reportedly not realizing that Russell Ramsland, the author of the Antrim County, Michigan report, had significant election experience before relying on his report. Eastman “only learned at some point later that Ramsland had once given advice to a Texas governmental entity regarding the purchase of voting machines years before.”
The opinion criticized Eastman multiple times for not recalling all of the extensive backgrounds of his experts while testifying on the witness stand. For example, “Eastman believed [Joe] Oltmann ran a ‘data company’ but had no recollection how or when he learned that piece of information.”
The opinion often criticized Eastman for not remembering specific details, although the trial took place three years after the election.
“Eastman was never able to precisely identify at trial the items on which he specifically relied in late 2020 as opposed to materials reviewed after the fact and in anticipation of trial,” the judges wrote.
The panel repeatedly asserted that officials who claimed there was no election wrongdoing — despite evidence showing that laws were broken — were correct, and Eastman was wrong. The panel assumed that any officials or technical experts who found no wrongdoing were correct, while officials and technical experts who found wrongdoing were incorrect.
Similarly, the panel faulted Eastman since he “knowingly ignored any evidence contradicting the notion of voting machine manipulation…” However, as an attorney, Eastman is not required to argue both sides of an issue; that position is for the opposing party to argue. The panel said this constituted moral turpitude.
Much of the criticism of Eastman focused on a handful of typos. For example, Eastman said Michigan mailed absentee ballots to all registered voters in violation of Michigan law. However, he meant to say that Michigan mailed absentee ballot applications. Eastman corrected himself, but the panel claimed that mailing the applications was not a violation of the law. The panel failed to mention that the issue had been heavily litigated.
Michigan state law makes no mention of the secretary of state’s authority in this area, so the plaintiffs argued that the law prohibited the secretary of state from sending voters unrequested absentee ballot applications. Many courts have ruled in election lawsuits that where the law does not specifically authorize an official to take a certain action, that official lacks the authority to act.
Additionally, in a 2007 case, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that city clerks are not permitted to mail absentee ballot applications to voters who have not requested them. In another case, the court held in 2008 that a county clerk acted illegally when she mailed unsolicited absentee ballot applications.
However, Michigan courts did not stick with precedent and ultimately ruled that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had the authority to mail the unrequested applications.
Other counts against Eastman consisted of accusations that he made intentionally false statements about voting machine manipulation. The opinion provided no evidence showing there wasn’t any voting machine manipulation.
The panel found that Eastman made a false claim when he alleged there was “massive evidence that this election was at least conducted illegally … in violation of state statutes.” They did not acknowledge the laws that were broken, which many courts agreed with. In Bailey v. Antrim County, an audit was conducted after voting machines in Antrim County were found to have switched votes for the president.
In RNC/Trump v. Miller, a judge halted the secretary of state from sending unrequested absentee ballot request forms to every voter with pre-populated fields. In Donald J. Trump for President v. Simon, a judge prevented the secretary of state from extending the deadline for receipt of ballots without legislative authorization.
In Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. Kathy Boockvar, et al., a judge stopped the secretary of state from accepting proof of ID late. In PA Democratic Party v. Boockvar, the judge stopped the state Board of Elections from contacting individuals whose mail-in or absentee ballots contain a minor facial defect to provide them an opportunity to cure those defects, and invalidated the ballots instead of allowing them to be returned without the secrecy envelope.
In RNC v. Weipert and RNC v. Gill, a judge ordered county auditors to stop sending voters absentee ballot applications prepopulated with some of their voter information. In Carson et al v. Simon, a judge ruled that it was illegal to accept ballots after the deadline. In Reed v. Virginia Dept. of Elections, a judge issued a consent decree prohibiting the state from accepting absentee ballots received up to three days after Election Day without a postmark.
In Genetski & MI GOP v. Benson, the judge ruled “signature-matching standards were issued in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.” In VoterGA v. Gwinnett Cty Bd of Elections, a judge allowed a voter integrity group to inspect electronic ballot images due to improper ballot counting.
Bar counsel stated in pleadings that Eastman said there was “‘massive evidence’ of fraud.” However, Eastman did not make that statement; fraud is a very specific legal term that requires showing multiple prongs. The panel dismissed the serious accusation by the bar counsel and did not reprimand the attorneys. Instead, the panel asserted Eastman meant to say fraud.
The panel said Eastman’s speech wasn’t constitutionally protected free speech, since it “prejudices the administration of justice.” That is a vague, broad ethics rule frequently used by state bars to target conservative attorneys. The panel said the First Amendment does not protect crimes, and Eastman was convicted in count one of “conspiring to promote and assist President Trump in executing a strategy to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states.” However, Eastman has not been convicted of a crime in any court of law.
The only count Roland and the panel did not find Eastman culpable for was allegedly making statements during his January 6 speech, knowing they would incite violence.
The panel agreed with Roland on finding aggravating factors, such as committing acts multiple times and a lack of remorse. However, it did not agree with her fully on mitigating factors, seeing that his absence of a disciplinary record did not qualify since “we have great concern that future misconduct will occur.”
The panel concluded that disbarment was the appropriate remedy, since “[h]e used his skills to push a false narrative in the courtroom, in the White House, and in the media.”
Eastman is also facing prosecution in the Georgia RICO case, formerly led by District Attorney Fani Willis, and the alternate electors prosecution by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. The judge in the latter case has indicated that he may dismiss the prosecution due to a First Amendment violation. Eastman’s GiveSendGo legal defense fund has raised $923,490.
The complete list of articles about the disbarment trial is located here.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to .
The post Court Upholds Disbarment of Trump’s Former Attorney John Eastman first appeared on The Arizona Sun Times.