Pulliam: SCOTUS Could Affirm First Amendment Rights of Attorneys If It Takes Eastman Disbarment Case

Kaitlin Housler

Legal commentator and retired attorney Mark Pulliam said the U.S. Supreme Court could have an opportunity to address the First Amendment rights of attorneys as it considers former Trump attorney John Eastman’s challenge to his California disbarment.

The California Supreme Court disbarred Eastman in April after the State Bar Court found him culpable on 10 of 11 disciplinary charges related to his legal work challenging the 2020 presidential election. The California Supreme Court denied his petition for review without issuing an opinion.

Eastman has argued that his legal advocacy was protected by the First Amendment and that the disciplinary proceedings improperly punished him for advancing legal theories on behalf of his client.

On Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pulliam said the case now presents a significant question for the nation’s highest court.

“Now John Eastman is at a fork in the road where either the Supreme Court agrees to hear his case and to rule on the First Amendment issues that are raised, or he’s done,” Pulliam said, as Leahy clarified that he meant Eastman was done “as a practicing attorney.”

Eastman’s petition was prepared by Jay Sekulow and Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice.

Pulliam said the petition makes an argument that goes beyond ordinary free-speech protections.

“A lot of what John Eastman was doing, it’s not just freedom of speech, it’s petitioning the government for redress of your grievances,” Pulliam stressed. “People had grievances about the 2020 election, and he was petitioning the government for redress. The First Amendment expressly protects this.”

Pulliam also argued that the case raises questions about whether lawyers can be disciplined for presenting controversial legal arguments.

“The argument is lawyers have First Amendment rights just like everybody else,” Pulliam said, adding that lawyers “play a very important role in our society and in our legal system.”

He said the petition argues restrictions on protected speech should face the highest level of constitutional scrutiny.

“The First Amendment is the First Amendment,” Pulliam said. “And part of this is you have to get the court’s attention, and you have to convince them that this is an important case that really needs to be heard.”

Pulliam also called on conservative organizations to support Eastman through friend-of-the-court briefs.

“I hope that they grant it this term,” Pulliam said. “What needs to happen is every conservative organization needs to weigh in with a friend-of-the-court brief in support of John Eastman to let the court know this is not just one lawyer; this is our legal system.”

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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.

 

 

 

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