This week was the start of the State Bar of California’s live-streaming trial seeking to disbar John Eastman for allegedly violating his ethical duties as an attorney in his role in challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump’s campaign. The charges boil down to accusations that Eastman failed to uphold the Constitution and U.S. laws by advancing facts and/or legal theories he knew to be false, and further, advising his client to act based on these falsehoods.
California State Bar attorney Duncan Carling claimed Eastman attempted to help Trump steal an election he knew Trump had lost. The bar’s evidence, according to Carling? That Eastman’s “entire course of conduct” was designed to halt the congressional count of electoral votes. At the time of Eastman’s efforts, there was considerable public controversy about the ballot counting in half a dozen key states, with a large number of allegations of “election irregularities” submitted in affidavits, and Eastman and many others were calling for state legislatures to conduct full audits.
The California State Bar’s prosecution of Eastman assumes it was frivolous and in bad faith for Trump campaign election lawyers to push for such audits and try to get Vice President Mike Pence to either “reject or adjourn”: that is, reject electors from specific states on Jan. 6, 2021, or adjourn that day’s proceedings so state legislatures could investigate the numerous allegations of misconduct in their states.
Although Democrats may today cheer Eastman’s prosecution, disbarment would be a
