California Supreme Court Disbars Former Trump Attorney For Aiding Challenge Of 2020 Election Results

Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

The California Supreme Court decided to disbar former Trump attorney John Eastman over his aiding the president in challenging the 2020 presidential election results.

The court has not yet handed down an opinion to explain the April 15 decision, which affirmed the California Bar court’s recommendation for disbarment for alleged attorney ethics violations.

Eastman, a former Chapman University law professor, gained national attention for advising President Donald Trump on constitutional challenges to election procedures in several battleground states after the president alleged widespread election fraud.

The California decision is not the end of the line for Eastman. He can still practice law in the U.S. Supreme Court and possibly in another state.

“Federal courts are supposed to let me keep practicing, and the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed me to continue practicing, even while I’ve been placed on inactive status [in] California,” he said.

Eastman told The Epoch Times the state court’s decision is “outrageous” and “Orwellian.”

“What’s happening here to our institutions that have been captured by hard line, political, weaponized activists needs to be addressed. I was hopeful that the state Supreme Court would do that, but they’ve obviously punted,” he said.

“And so, it’s now up to the U.S. Supreme Court to fix this metastasization of the weaponization problem.”

Eastman said his attorney will file a certiorari petition, which is a formal request asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the state court’s decision “because of the First Amendment violations that it represents.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that “professional speech does not get lesser First Amendment protection than anybody else’s speech,” Eastman said.

“And yet, what the court has done here is basically said ... I don’t get the same First Amendment protection that the man on the street gets because I was representing a client,” he said.

Eastman claims he is a victim of “lawfare” and was “debanked” over the controversy, which he said is “obviously partisan in nature.”

George Cardona, the chief trial counsel of the State Bar of California, alleged in a June 14 statement that Eastman violated his fundamental obligation to be truthful and uphold the rule of law “when, at the behest of his client, now-President Donald Trump, he engaged in a calculated campaign to falsely undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election, which then-candidate Donald Trump lost.”

Cardona alleged that Eastman “lied to courts,” then-Vice President Mike Pence, and the American people.

Randall Miller, an attorney with the Miller Waxler law firm who represents Eastman, criticized the decision in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

“The California Supreme Court has allowed to stand a State Bar Court recommendation that we contend departs from longstanding United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the attorney discipline context,” Miller wrote.

“We disagree with that outcome and believe it raises pivotal constitutional concerns regarding the limits of state regulation of attorney speech,” he wrote.

“We will seek review in the U.S. Supreme Court to repudiate this threat to the rule of law and our nation’s adversarial system of justice.”

Deborah Pauly, an attorney with the LEX REX Institute and longtime conservative activist in Orange County, Calif., told The Epoch Times in a text message that the California Supreme Court “rubber-stamped the Bar Court’s recommendation.”

“California is trying to silence anyone who endeavors to protect and defend our Constitution from the swamp,” she said.