The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the disbarment of attorney and former law school dean John Eastman for his role in helping the Trump administration's attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
The court ordered that Eastman's name be “removed from the list of lawyers and to pay $5,000 to the California State Bar.
Eastman's attorney, Randall A. Miller, told the Associated Press that the court's decision “departs from long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the context of attorney discipline.” Miller did not immediately respond to an after-hours phone call seeking comment from the Times.
The State Bar's chief trial attorney, George Cardona, said in a statement that the ruling “underscores that Mr. Eastman's misconduct was inconsistent with the standards of integrity required of every California lawyer.”
“Today's order by the California Supreme Court disqualifying John Charles Eastman from practicing law in California affirms the fundamental principle that lawyers must act honestly and uphold the rule of law, regardless of the client they represent or the context in which that representation occurs,” Cardona said saying.
The Supreme Court's decision upholds a 2024 ruling by State Bar Judge Yvette Roland that barred Eastman from practicing law.
In a marathon trial that lasted intermittently from June to November 2024, the State Bar, which regulates lawyers in California, argued that Eastman was unfit to practice law for peddling false claims that fraud cost Trump the election and for promoting a fake elector scheme to block the electoral count.
“It is true that a lawyer has a duty to zealously defend his client,” Roland wrote in 2024 in a 128-page ruling. “However, Eastman's inaccurate claims were lies that cannot be justified as zealous defense.”
Roland found Eastman guilty of 10 of 11 counts of misconduct.
Eastman fomented “predictable and destructive chaos” when he stood alongside fellow Trump adviser Rudolph W. Giuliani on Jan. 6, 2021, and told a huge crowd at the Ellipse that the election had been fraudulent, the bar argued.
Eastman stated that it was acting in good faithand as a vigorous advocate for his client. But lawyers for the State Bar argued that “the evidence, including his often non-credible trial testimony, shows that he held, and still holds, contempt for truth and democracy.”
Despite Eastman's repeated claims that Joe Biden's victory was illegal, Roland ruled, Eastman's own words showed that he knew the evidence was missing.
The judge cited an email Eastman sent to a friend, Cleta Mitchell, on Nov. 29, 2020, acknowledging that fraud serious enough to influence the results could not be proven.
“It would be nice to have truly documented evidence of fraud in the areas the analyzes pointed to,” Eastman wrote.
After the 2024 ruling, Eastman responded in his Substack brief that he hoped the California Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court “would intervene to end this legal war that has become a serious threat to the First Amendment, the right of clients and controversial cases to legal representation, and, more broadly, to our adversarial system of justice.”
Eastman has a long history in California's conservative legal circles. He was hired by Chapman Law School in 1999 and served as dean from June 2007 to January 2010, then continued to teach courses in constitutional law, property law, legal history, and the First Amendment.
He retired in early 2021 after more than 100 Chapman professors and others affiliated with the university signed a letter asking the school to take action against him for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Wednesday's decision caps a long-running investigation into Eastman's actions that began in 2021. In October of that year, the nonpartisan legal group States United Democracy Center filed an ethics complaint asking the State Bar to investigate Eastman's Jan. 6 actions.
Christine P. Sun, senior vice president of legal affairs at the American United Democracy Center, said Wednesday that the court's decision is “part of a broader recognition of those who seek to undermine the rule of law.”
“Eastman played a central role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election: he pressured state officials, filed baseless claims in court, and promoted a fringe theory that the vice president could reject certified electoral votes,” Sun said in a statement. “His unethical actions have had real and lasting consequences for our democracy, and we applaud the California Supreme Court's decision to disqualify him.”
Staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.
