
A judge ruled that former President Donald Trump’s lawyer John Eastman should be disbarred for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
State Bar Court of California Judge Yvette Roland announced her ruling Wednesday. The former Trump lawyer is facing 11 disciplinary charges in California’s bar court.
Attorney John Eastman, the architect of a legal strategy aimed at keeping former President Donald Trump in power, talks to reporters after a hearing in Los Angeles, June 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
“In view of the circumstances surrounding Eastman’s misconduct and balancing the aggravation and mitigation, the court recommends that Eastman be disbarred,” Roland wrote in her decision. The recommendation will now go to the California Supreme Court for a final ruling.
Roland’s ruling marks a defeat for Eastman, though she did side with him on one of his 11 counts.
The state bar accused Eastman of moral turpitude over a speech he gave on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse outside the White House, tying it to the riot later in the day, but the judge dismissed the count after holding the bar “presented no evidence to show that Eastman’s statements contributed to the assault on the Capitol.”
In early November, Roland found Eastman culpable for multiple ethics violations, a tentative ruling that gave the Office of Chief Trial Counsel more time to consider further evidence that could have strengthened their argument for a harsher punishment.
Eastman, a former Chapman University law school dean, faced 11 counts of ethical and legal violations for his post-2020 election activities ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. He and Trump, along with 17 others, were also charged in Georgia over an alleged plot to overturn the election results in August last year.
The lawyer and constitutional law professor defended himself against the ethical violations by saying he was advising then-President Trump as a client, advice that included suggesting to then-Vice President Mike Pence that the electoral count be suspended so state legislatures could investigate alleged illegalities or election irregularities, concerns he said were “well-grounded in fact and anything but frivolous.” No evidence of election interference on a large scale has been found.
Eastman’s trial in California began in …