California Bar Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland disbarred Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman.
She issued a 128-page opinion on March 27, almost four months after she’d received the parties’ closing written statements.
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The disciplinary trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark wrapped up on Thursday with the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel making a nonbinding preliminary determination that Clark was culpable on at least one of the two counts against him.
For drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials advising them of their options in dealing with the 2020 election illegalities, he was charged with engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, and engaging in conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice, Rules 8.4(c) and (d) of the Rules of Professional Conduct.
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The second and final week of the disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official began to wind down on Wednesday with more testimony from operations security expert Harry Haury. Clark, who is also a defendant in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO prosecution, is being disciplined for drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials after the 2020 election advising them of their options for dealing with the election illegalities.
The trial is expected to wrap up on Thursday with closing statements.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official, Jeffrey Clark, continued into its second and final week on Tuesday, featuring testimony from three witnesses for him.
Clark, a defendant in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO prosecution, is being disciplined for drafting a letter never sent to Georgia officials after the 2020 election advising them of their options for dealing with the election illegalities.
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The second week of the disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official, Jeffrey Clark, resumed its second week on Monday. Clark, who is also a defendant in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO prosecution, is being disciplined for drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials after the 2020 election advising them of their options for dealing with the election illegalities.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark began last week, featuring testimony from several prominent statisticians. Clark, who is also a defendant in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s RICO prosecution, is being disciplined for drafting a letter that was never sent to Georgia officials after the 2020 election advising them of their options for dealing with the election illegalities. The trial is expected to last two weeks, into this coming week.
Hamilton Fox, the D.C. Bar’s attorney who has aggressively gone after other Trump attorneys, attempted to keep most of Clark’s witnesses from testifying. He described them as “sketchy witnesses” who want to talk about “supposed irregularities.” However, one of the witnesses who ultimately testified on Thursday had been allowed to testify in the similar disbarment trial of Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman last year.
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A District of Columbia Bar disciplinary panel held a pretrial hearing last month to prepare for the upcoming disbarment trial against President Donald Trump’s former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. Clark (pictured above) is also being prosecuted in Georgia and is an unindicted co-conspirator in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution, due to a letter Clark drafted to Georgia election officials after the 2020 election advising them of options the Georgia Legislature could take to address the concerns about election illegalities. The letter was never sent nor circulated.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, ended November 3, with closing written arguments submitted last Friday. California Bar Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland announced at the end of the trial that she found Eastman culpable, and will issue a written decision soon indicating whether she will fully disbar him or give a lesser punishment. Eastman is expected to appeal any negative decision.
The State Bar of California charged Eastman with violating his oath as an attorney to uphold the Constitution, by providing the Trump administration with options to handle the 2020 election illegalities that included a couple of scenarios where Vice President Mike Pence would delay or reject acceptance of the electoral slates from disputed states.
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The TV show 60 Minutes aired a story about the lawfare against Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman on Sunday, which repeated much of the mainstream media’s talking points about his legal advice to Trump regarding the illegal activity in the 2020 election. Host Scott Pelley interviewed both Eastman and former Vice President Mike Pence’s attorney Greg Jacob, who has made a considerable effort distancing himself from his advice in December 2020 stating that it was unclear whether the vice president had substantive authority regarding the acceptance of disputed electoral slates.
Pelley described Eastman as a “little known law professor” until he represented Trump in 2020, but Eastman is arguably the most preeminent law professor on the right, having clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, founded the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and served as dean for Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law.
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The disbarment trial of former President Donald Trump’s previous attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, wrapped up on Friday, the 33rd day. California Bar Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland found him “culpable” on Thursday and gave his attorneys and the State Bar of California until November 22 to submit written closing statements.
The parties presented aggravating and mitigating testimony on Thursday and Friday, which Roland will use to consider whether to fully disbar Eastman.
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The disbarment trial of former President Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, finished its 32nd day on Thursday. California Bar Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland could not get the former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to express remorse for his actions, and she pronounced him “culpable.”
The proceedings began with more cross-examination and redirect of Eastman on the witness stand. The California Bar’s attorney, Duncan Carling, attempted to get Eastman to admit that he was inciting violence by giving a speech at January 6. He asked Eastman if his speech risked causing violence. Eastman responded and said there was a risk to the republic if the election was illegal and allowed to stand.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, began its final week Monday, as the renowned former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas handled hours of cross-examination from State Bar of California attorney Duncan Carling. The California Bar is attempting to disbar Eastman over advice he gave Trump’s legal team regarding former Vice President Mike Pence accepting electoral slates from states suspected of election fraud in the 2020 election.
Carling asked Eastman about his belief that tens of thousands of mail-in ballots were returned in the 2020 Pennsylvania election before the date they were mailed out and wanted to know how Eastman figured out what the mailed-out date was. Eastman, who is prohibited from looking at any documents while testifying unless placed on the screen for the court, responded, “Footnote 1 of your exhibit 132.”
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Jeffrey Clark, an attorney who served at high levels of the Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump, is being stonewalled in his request to delay a disbarment trial while criminal proceedings in Georgia go forward. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted Clark and Trump in a racketeering case over the 2020 election challenges. Willis charged him with dishonesty and attempting to interfere with the administration of justice by the District of Columbia Bar. The charges in both relate to a letter Clark (pictured above) drafted about 2020 election irregularities in Georgia addressed to Georgia officials that was never sent.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, finished a partial ninth week on Tuesday, as the renowned former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas explained how he thought fraud occurred in the 2020 election. The State Bar of California is attempting to disbar him over advice he gave Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence regarding accepting electoral slates from states suspected of election fraud.
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Jeffrey Clark, an attorney who served at high levels of the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump, including briefly as acting Attorney General, has been indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis along with Trump in the racketeering case over the 2020 election challenges, and charged with dishonesty and attempting to interfere with the administration of justice by the District of Columbia Bar. The charges in both relate to a memo Clark drafted about 2020 election irregularities in Georgia addressed to Georgia officials that was never sent. His bar disciplinary trial is scheduled for January, but he has been attempting to postpone it until after the criminal proceedings are finished.
On Thursday, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility held a hearing to consider his deferral request. The court is expected to issue a ruling shortly.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman continued on Thursday during its eighth week, featuring testimony from statistician Dr. Stanley Young and two character witnesses. Young, who has been designated as an expert by California Bar Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland, spent much of the time discussing the election contrast report he co-authored with a team of statistical PhDs, which focused on what he repeatedly characterized as “unusual” differences between the number of votes Joe Biden received in 2020 versus the number of votes Hillary Clinton received in 2016.
Eastman’s attorney Randy Miller began his line of questioning asking Young about the report, which focused primarily on 10 states. Young observed how California stood out in comparison to the other states, with Biden receiving around 800,000 more “unexpected” votes than Clinton, taking into account the growth in population. In two states that decreased in population, there were around 300,000 more unexpected votes for Biden in New York, and Illinois got 75,000, he said. In some states that had population increases, the increases were significantly higher than those increases. Arizona and North Carolina each had 80,000 unexpected votes for Biden, Texas had 200,000, and Georgia over 200,000.
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The eighth week of the disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman wrapped up on Friday, featuring more testimony by Eastman as well as three of his character witnesses. Eastman discussed the evidence he relied upon when he gave Trump advice regarding what to do about the possibility there was cheating in the 2020 election, including official reports from the Georgia General Assembly, the Georgia State Election Board, and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s office.
Eastman’s attorney Randy Miller asked him about a Nov. 13, 2020 report that the Georgia State Election Board had Seven Hills Strategies prepare about problems in the 2020 election, which Eastman said he’d relied on. It discussed chain of custody issues surrounding ballots and the integrity of their transportation, lack of transparency, lack of access for Republican Party monitors, and incompetency by election officials. California Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland, who contributed to Democrats while serving on the bench, refused to let him discuss it.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman is in its eighth week, and expected to continue into a ninth week. On Wednesday, Eastman testified all day, focusing especially on the 1960 election and then-Vice President Richard Nixon’s role deciding which of three electoral slates from Hawaii to accept.
Eastman said Nixon received three slates of electors from Hawaii, including one that was not certified — the second one from the Democrats. Nixon opened up all three envelopes and chose which one to accept, the third Democratic one that was certified by the governor after the recount. None of the alternate slates of electors in the 2020 election were certified by a state government entity.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman entered its fifth and likely final week on Tuesday, featuring testimony from Eastman and Kari Lake’s attorney Kurt Olsen. The State Bar of California is attempting to disbar Eastman for allegedly advising Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that Pence could reject electoral slates from states suspected of election fraud, but Eastman disputed that characterization of his advice on Tuesday.
Eastman said that Pence asked him during a meeting with Trump on January 4, 2020, if the vice president had the power to reject electoral votes. Eastman responded and said it was an open question that has never been resolved, but even if Pence had the power, it would be “foolish” to exercise it. Eastman advised Pence to consider having merely a brief delay in certification in order to allow the state legislatures to investigate whether there was illegal activity that affected the election.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, wrapped up its seventh week on Friday, with more testimony from Kari Lake’s attorney Kurt Olsen, and Eastman resuming the stand briefly at the end. Olsen discussed several laws he said he believes were violated by state election officials in Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Olsen began testifying about a Motion for Leave to File a Bill of Complaint that he and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking to stop Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from certifying their 2020 election results due to multiple violations of state law and constitutional problems. One of the reasons he said he brought the complaint was that signature verification was halted in the 2020 election in Detroit.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman is in the middle of the seventh week. On Wednesday, retired Department of Defense analyst Ray Blehar returned to the witness stand, discussing his findings that “large injections of votes” were added during the U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia in January 2021. He was followed by Dr. Stanley Young, a statistician who appears to be the only one of Eastman’s witnesses who California Bar Disciplinary Court Judge Yvette Roland has allowed to be designated as an expert witness.
Eastman’s attorney Randy Miller asked Blehar about an email exchange he had with Eastman regarding the runoff, in which Democrat Jon Ossoff defeated Republican incumbent David Perdue. Blehar told Eastman that “large injections of votes (over 10,000) were added” on five occasions during the Georgia Senate runoff race overnight. Roland cut him off, stating that it wasn’t relevant to the charges against Eastman and was “wasting time.” The bar disciplinary charges state that Eastman “made false and misleading statements regarding purported election fraud.”
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The sixth week of the disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, wrapped up Friday with testimony by two witnesses from Eastman’s team. Attorney Kurt Olsen, who is representing Kari Lake in her election challenge, testified first. Next, Ray Blehar, a retired Department of Defense analyst, testified, discussing his findings that 280,000 to 300,000 votes in Pennsylvania were “vote laundered” through the electronic tabulating machines.
Olsen began his testimony explaining why he decided to become involved in an election lawsuit over the 2020 election. He said, “I believed that something was not right.” He listed what concerned him: video clips of poll workers not allowed to watch tabulation, the controversy in Michigan’s Antrim County, results that didn’t make sense such as the stopping of counting ballots overnight in key counties, and “clear violations of law.”
Physicist and auditor John Droz testified all day Thursday in the ongoing disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional scholar, John Eastman. California Disciplinary Court Judge Yvette Roland, who contributed to Democrats while on the bench, spent a large portion of the day successfully attempting to keep Droz’s investigative reports into the 2020 election and his testimony from being admitted into evidence. Some of his testimony that was struck from the record afterward discussed a report that attorney Jesse Binnall delivered to Congress, laying out what he found as 130,000 incidents of voter fraud in Nevada’s 2020 election.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, is in its sixth week. Wednesday featured more testimony by Berkeley constitutional law professor John Yoo, who was grilled by State Bar of California attorney Duncan Carling about his opinion that there was no fraud in the 2020 election—the day concluded with some direct examination of Joseph Fried, an auditor who authored the book Debunked? investigating the allegations of election fraud.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman began its sixth week on Tuesday, featuring more testimony from Berkeley constitutional law professor John Woo. The trial moved into the second half a couple of weeks ago, where Eastman’s team presents his side of the case. His attorney Randy Miller brought Woo back to contradict the testimony of the State Bar of California’s star witness, Matthew Seligman.
California Disciplinary Court Judge Yvette Roland, who donated to Democrats while serving on the bench, appeared to be a bit lost shortly after beginning Tuesday’s proceedings, asking Miller, “We’re in the midst of your case in chief right?” Shortly after that, the California bar’s attorney Duncan Carling told Roland that Yoo never claimed that there were dueling sets of electors in the 2020 election, which she did not remember.
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The fifth week of the disbarment trial of former President Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, is winding down with direct and cross-examination of Garland Favorito, co-founder of Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA), who has extensive experience with electronic voting machines and investigating election fraud in Georgia. The State Bar of Georgia is trying to prove that Eastman gave Trump advice when he suggested that one option after the 2020 presidential election would be to have Vice President Mike Pence refuse to accept electoral slates from states suspected of election fraud or delay the certification.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman continued on Tuesday, into its fifth week. Eastman’s attorney Randy Miller questioned expert witness Garland Favorito, co-founder of Voters Organized for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA), who has extensive experience with electronic voting machines and investigating election fraud in Georgia.
A former trial lawyer and evidence professor told The Arizona Sun Times that he thinks California Bar Disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland’s actions in the trial are so egregious that even the California Supreme Court — which is composed of all Democrats — may not uphold a disbarment. Instead, he thinks the court might issue a reprimand or some smaller amount of discipline. While serving on the bench, Roland donated to Democrats including California Governor Gavin Newsom.
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The disbarment trial of former President Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, started its fifth week with testimony from Eastman’s star witness, Berkeley Constitutional Law professor John Yoo. The State Bar of California contends that Eastman gave Trump advice when he said one option to deal with the allegations of election fraud in disputed states was to have former Vice President Mike Pence refuse to accept the electoral slates from those states or delay their certification, but Yoo said the majority of scholarship on the issue agrees with Eastman’s position.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s attorney and constitutional scholar, John Eastman, concluded its fourth week on Friday, as Eastman’s team put on his case featuring their key witness, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. The Wisconsin Assembly contracted Gableman to conduct a small investigation into election fraud in the state’s 2020 election, the same issues prompted Eastman’s involvement in the election litigation in Wisconsin.
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The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s attorney John Eastman is in its fourth week, and on Thursday the State Bar of California rested its case and Eastman’s attorney began putting on witnesses, beginning with former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. Gableman was directed by the Wisconsin Legislature to conduct a minimal investigation of the 2020 election, and he revealed numerous instances where he believed the law was broken, and had election officials referred for prosecution.
Thursday’s proceedings began with wrapping up the California bar’s case, as its attorney Duncan Carling finished his cross-examination of Eastman. He asked Eastman if the alternate slates of electors were valid, then could any private group of citizens submit slates to the vice president who would have to consider them? Eastman responded and said the difference is that in 2020, the slates were composed of electors “formally nominated by their own party,” not private people who chose themselves. He referenced a woman in Tennessee who submits her own private slate of electors regularly that gets ignored. Neither she nor her “slate” have been prosecuted or disciplined.
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The disbarment trial of constitutional legal scholar John Eastman, who advised former President Donald Trump on challenging election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, continued on Wednesday featuring cross-examination of Eastman by the State Bar of California’s attorney Duncan Carling and testimony from Jake Rollow, who was progressive election official from Michigan.
Rollow was the communications director for the Michigan Secretary of State during the 2020 election.
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The fourth week of the disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s attorney John Eastman resumed on Tuesday, with State Bar of California attorney Duncan Carling continuing his cross-examination of the constitutional scholar. The bar is trying to take away his license to practice law due to advising Trump that Vice President Mike Pence may have had the authority to reject electoral slates from states suspected of election fraud.
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The disbarment trial of former Donald Trump attorney and constitutional scholar John Eastman for his role advising the previous president about challenging the 2020 presidential election resumed on Thursday after almost a two-month break caused by conflicting schedules among the parties. It was scheduled to resume on Tuesday but was postponed for two days due to Eastman’s brief arrest in Georgia as one of the 18 people along with Trump who were indicted for their efforts investigating election fraud after the 2020 election.
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The second week of the disbarment trial of Trump attorney and constitutional scholar John Eastman concluded Friday, with testimony from the State Bar of California’s (SBC) expert witnesses Justin Grimmer and Jonathan Brater, director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections (MBE). Grimmer is a political science professor at Stanford.
Much of SBC attorney Duncan Carling’s questions to Grimmer consisted of asking him to debunk claims of election fraud, prompting First Amendment attorney Mark Fitzgibbons to tweet, “Am I wrong, but isn’t this bizarre CA Bar trial of Trump lawyer Dr John Eastman hearing more evidence than all the pre-Jan 6 election litigation challenges combined?” Analyzing election fraud claims did not come up in the 2020 election cases, since the judges dismissed them on technicalities without getting to the merits.
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The second week of the State Bar of California’s (SBC) disbarment trial against Trump attorney John Eastman resumed on Thursday, after a brief break due to one of the attorneys becoming sick. Throughout much of the day, SBC attorney Duncan Carling grilled Eastman about his allegations of illegal activity occurring in the 2020 election.
Carling repeated many of Eastman’s claims from the pleadings he filed in cases like Trump v. Raffensperger, prompting First Amendment attorney Mark Fitzgibbons to tweet, “The CA Bar lawyer is actually doing more to convince us the election illegalities merited what Prof Eastman recommended to his client. Courts rejecting cases on standing without EVER hearing evidence did a terrible injustice to the Constitution, and disenfranchised voters.”
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The first week of the disbarment hearing of Trump attorney John Eastman concluded on Friday, with State Bar of California (SBC) attorneys putting Eastman on the witness stand again along with Nevada Deputy Secretary of State for Elections Mark Waschin. The SBC continued to try and show that Eastman provided bad advice to President Donald Trump by telling him that one option for handling election fraud in the 2020 election would be to have Vice President Mike Pence reject certification of electoral votes from the disputed states.
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The third day of the State Bar of California (SBC) disbarment trial of Trump attorney John Eastman took place on Thursday, with the SBC calling Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Jonathan Marks, Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions in Pennsylvania, as witnesses. Richer is a Republican who started a PAC for election fraud-denying Republicans, and Marks was appointed to the position under then-Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Kathryn Boockvar, a Democrat.
Attorneys for Eastman and the SBC conducted direct and cross-examination of the two witnesses. Shortly into the direct examination of Richer, as he began testifying about his confidence regarding Dominion voting machine tabulators, Eastman’s attorney Randy Miller expressed his concern to the SBC disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland that she was allowing the SBC’s witnesses like Richer to present one side but not allowing Eastman’s witnesses to testify on the same topic. He said it was “quite prejudicial,” only “getting half the story.” Roland did not change her mind.
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The second day of the State Bar of California’s (SBC) disbarment trial of Trump attorney John Eastman on Tuesday featured mostly direct and cross-examination of the prosecution’s star witness, former Pence attorney Greg Jacob. Jacob was put on the witness stand by the SBC to debunk Eastman’s advice that Vice President Mike Pence did not have the authority to reject electoral slates from states suspected of going to Joe Biden due to election fraud, but Jacob gave testimony to the contrary several times.
Eastman’s attorney Randy Miller asked Jacob about a memo he wrote where he stated that “scholars disagree” whether it’s the vice president’s responsibility to substantively deal with accepting electoral slates. Jacob admitted, “There is a section in the Constitution that is at best ambiguous whether the vice president can reject electoral slates.” He cited three legal scholars who wrote articles arguing that the vice president has somewhat of a substantive role in that area. He said this question was “debated and disputed” in law review articles.
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