Former Chapman University Law Professor John Eastman faces disbarment on 11 counts for his conduct in assisting Trump’s effort to undo the 2020 election, following the filing of a notice of disciplinary charges [NDC] by the State Bar Association on January 26.
“The 11 charges arise from allegations that Eastman engaged in a course of conduct to plan, promote, and assist then-President Trump in executing a strategy, unsupported by facts or law, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states,” the Bar stated in a press release.
Other Trump-assisting lawyers are facing similar proceedings, but Eastman’s role was arguably the most central. He crafted two memos proposing strategies to block then-President-elect Joe Biden from taking office, and spoke at a rally the morning of the attack on the Capitol.”The NDC alleges that the strategies proposed by these memos, as well as in remarks Eastman made publicly and privately to President Trump, Vice President Pence, and others, were unsupported by law, based on false and misleading assertions of fact, and designed for the purpose of keeping Trump in office,” the Bar said in its press release. “The NDC alleges that, after hearing from the U.S. Department of Justice that it had not seen any election fraud on a scale that could have affected the election’s outcome, and after multiple courts had rejected election fraud lawsuits, Eastman knew or should have known, that the factual premise for his proposals―that massive fraud was at play―was false, and that Trump had lost his bid for re-election.”
The NDC notes that “by early January 2021, more than 60 courts had dismissed cases alleging fraud in the presidential election,” and while many were dismissed on procedural grounds “approximately 30” were dismissed for lack of substance. There was no evidence whatsoever supporting Eastman’s claims that had been recognized in a court of law.