The former dean of Chapman University has been removed from his position in the Trump 2020 election
The California Supreme Court ordered attorney and former law school alumnus John Eastman to be disbarred Wednesday for his role in helping the Trump administration’s bid to overturn the 2020 election.
The court ordered that Eastman’s name “removed from the list of lawyers” and that you pay $5,000 to the State Bar of California.
Eastman’s attorney, Randall A. Miller, told the Associated Press that the court’s decision “is rooted in the United States Supreme Court’s long-standing practice of protecting First Amendment rights, particularly in the context of disciplinary action.” Miller did not immediately return a later call seeking comment from The Times.
Chief District Court Judge George Cardona said in a statement that the decision “underlines that Mr. Eastman’s misconduct did not meet the standards of integrity required of all California attorneys.”
“Today’s order by the California Supreme Court disbarring John Charles Eastman from the practice of law in California affirms the important principle that lawyers must act honestly and respect the law, regardless of the client they represent or the context of that representation,” said Cardona. said.
The Supreme Court’s decision affirms a 2024 ruling from District Court Judge Yvette Roland that Eastman could not be allowed to practice law.
In a marathon trial that ran from June to November 2024, the State Bar, which regulates lawyers in California, argued that Eastman was unfit to practice law for peddling false allegations that fraud cost Trump the election and promoting a fake voter scheme to block the election count.
“It is true that an attorney has a duty to zealously represent a client,” Roland wrote in 2024 in a 128-page decision. “However, Eastman’s inaccurate assertions were as unforgivable as falsehoods.”
Roland found Eastman guilty of 10 of 11 counts of misconduct.
Eastman fueled “predictable and destructive chaos” when he stood alongside Trump adviser Rudolph W. Giuliani on Jan. 6, 2021, and told a large crowd at the Ellipse that the election was fraudulent, the bar argued.
Eastman said he was acting honestlyand as a powerful champion of his client. But State Bar lawyers argue that “the evidence, including his extraordinary trial testimony, shows that he held – and still holds – the truth and democracy in contempt.”
Despite Eastman’s repeated assertions that Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate, Roland ruled, Eastman’s own words show that he knew the evidence was not there.
The judge cited an email Eastman sent to his friend, Cleta Mitchell, on November 29, 2020, admitting that fraud was bad enough to influence the results without evidence.
“It would be good to have strong documented evidence of fraud in areas where the analysis points to it,” Eastman wrote.
After the 2024 decision Eastman responded in his Substack post that he hopes the California Supreme Court or the US Supreme Court “will step in to stop this law which is a serious threat to the First Amendment, the right of litigants and causes to legal representation, and more broadly to our adversarial justice system.”
Eastman has a long history in California legal circles. He was hired by Chapman Law School in 1999 and was 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 faculty and other university associates signed a letter calling for the school to take action against him for his role in the January 6 uprising.
Wednesday’s decision is the bookend in a long investigation into Eastman’s actions that began in 2021. In October of that year, the nonpartisan legal group United States United Democracy Center filed an ethics complaint asking the State Bar to investigate Eastman’s actions on January 6.
Christine P. Sun, senior vice president of legal affairs at the United States United Democracy Center, said Wednesday that the court’s decision is “part of a broader crackdown on those who seek to undermine the rule of law.”
“Eastman played a major role in the call to subvert the 2020 election — pressuring federal officials, advancing baseless claims in court, and promoting the idea that the vice president could reject guaranteed electoral votes,” the Sun said in a statement. “His unethical actions have had real, lasting consequences for our democracy, and we applaud the California Supreme Court’s decision to disbar him.”
Staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this report
