On Wednesday, California’s left-leaning Supreme Court disbarred the brilliant constitutional scholar John Eastman. His cardinal sin was zealously representing a client – President Donald Trump – during the dispute over the 2020 election. Eastman committed no crime; indeed, his sham charges against Georgia were dropped after disgraced Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was excluded from the case. What the California Supreme Court did was a legal outrage usually found in banana republics, not in the United States.
John Eastman, former lawyer for Donald Trump, speaks to members of the media after leaving the State Bar Court of California in Los Angeles on June 20, 2023. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The 2020 election was so close. If about 20,000 votes in three states — Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — had been switched, President Trump would have defeated Joe Biden, according to the official results. The election problem was, of course, related to the unprecedented rewriting of election laws by courts in many states as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. States began sending ballots to addresses even if no one at the addresses had requested a ballot. This led to ballots being sent home long after the recipients had left. States have also dropped signature verification requirements as the coronavirus has apparently changed signatures. States allowed random people to drop off their votes in so-called drop boxes that were publicly accessible. In short, the election was a mess that, thanks to its proximity, led to justified suspicions and calls for investigations.
At the forefront of those calling for investigations was President Trump, who reasonably requested election audits. He challenged the results in several states and hired a bevy of lawyers to assist him. One of them was Eastman, a prominent law professor and constitutional scholar who had assisted Judge Clarence Thomas on the U.S. Supreme Court. Eastman devised a strategy to legally challenge the certification of results. The Electoral Count Act of 1887, following the provisions of the Constitution, set out detailed procedures by which the House and Senate would certify electoral votes. Eastman attempted to defeat House and Senate certification in several contested states.
District Attorney Fani Willis listens during a hearing in the State of Georgia’s case against Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse on March 1, 2024 in Atlanta. (Alex Slitz-Pool/Getty Images)
As part of Eastman’s plan, several alternate electors from the disputed states were available to vote for President Trump, should the need arise. These were not “fake voters,” as leftists claim. The same scenario played out during the hotly contested presidential election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. It also happened in relation to the disputed 1960 elections in Hawaii between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. No reasonable person believed that these voters were trying to impersonate the way one might, say, impersonate a police officer. Instead, they stood by in case Congress failed to certify the election results and sent the matter back to the states. This is the course Eastman Vice President Mike Pence urged; that is, Pence, according to Eastman, should have called on the contested states to reexamine their election certificates in light of the many reasonable questions that had arisen as a result of election irregularities.
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Eastman also appeared at the Jan. 6 rally near the Capitol with President Trump. Eastman gave a speech and explicitly stated that what he and the president were seeking was lawful. The Electoral Count Act is a mysterious law that was created almost a century and a half ago. Congress agreed; That’s why it passed the Electoral Count Reform Act during the Biden administration to clarify the law. Eastman has never advocated bribing anyone, threatening anyone with violence or throwing out legitimate votes. Instead, he tried to ensure that all legal votes were counted. The same goes for President Trump, who exercised his First Amendment right to call for the overturning of an election that he believed with every fiber of his being was rigged. It is not a crime to advocate for an election to be overturned; the First Amendment, contrary to the views of deranged special prosecutor Jack Smith, allows exactly that.
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Although he broke no laws, Eastman is now shockingly suspended. The criminal prosecution against him in the form of the farcical indictment against Willis failed, but this kangaroo court has achieved its disgusting goal. There is another lawyer whose legal fate awaits judgment: Jeff Clark, an exceptional legal mind who served in President Trump’s Justice Department. Clark is charged by the District of Columbia Bar with the ridiculous crime of “attempted dishonesty.” His case awaits a decision from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, D.C.’s highest court. The Article III Project proudly filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Clark’s behalf because, like Eastman, he did nothing to warrant the suspension. The California Supreme Court has failed John Eastman and the legal profession with its shameful decision. Let us pray that the DC Court of Appeals reaches the common sense conclusion that Jeff Clark did nothing wrong and deserves exoneration.
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