Trump lawyer Eastman should be disbarred, California regulators say

By Andrew Goudsward

Jan 26 (Reuters) – California attorney regulators said
on Thursday they will seek to disbar attorney John Eastman over
his involvement in former U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempts
to overturn the 2020 election.

The State Bar of California charged Eastman, a former
personal lawyer to Trump, with 11 counts of ethics violations,
including misleading courts and making false public statements
about voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Eastman participated in a strategy “unsupported by facts or
law” to obstruct the count of presidential electors in Congress
following Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory, the bar’s
complaint said.

George Cardona, the bar’s chief trial counsel, said his
office will ask a court to revoke Eastman’s law license.

An attorney for Eastman, Randall Miller, disputed the
allegations on Thursday, saying it was Eastman’s responsibility
as a lawyer to provide Trump with a range of legal options to
contest the election results.

Eastman, a former law professor at Chapman University in
California, drafted legal memos suggesting then-Vice President
Mike Pence could refuse to accept electoral votes from several
swing states when Congress convened to certify the 2020 vote
count. Pence rebuffed his arguments, saying he did not have
legal authority.

Eastman also represented Trump in a long-shot lawsuit at the
U.S. Supreme Court seeking to invalidate votes in four states
where Trump had falsely claimed evidence of widespread voter
fraud.

Eastman repeated many of those claims at a rally outside the
White House on Jan. 6, 2021, after which a mob of Trump
supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and delayed the
congressional certification of the election.

A state bar court will weigh the charges against Eastman and
recommend any discipline. The California Supreme Court would
need to approve disbarring or suspending Eastman.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward
Editing by David Bario and Lincoln Feast)