John Eastman, the former Chapman University law dean who became the legal architect of President Donald Trump’s push to hold office despite losing the 2020 election, is no longer allowed to practice law in California.
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday, April 15, declined to hear Eastman’s appeal of a lower court ruling recommending his disbarment, essentially certifying that recommendation.
Eastman, 65, an outspoken conservative legal scholar, became a national figure five years ago after advising Trump on how the vice president might reject electoral votes from states that Joe Biden won. Though Eastman’s legal theories were dismissed as far-fetched or illegal by lawyers for Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s moves between the November 2020 vote and the January 2021 transition of power largely reflected Eastman’s strategy.
Eastman also joined Trump as a speaker at the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol building. After hearing from Trump and Eastman and other speakers, thousands of enflamed Trump supporters marched to the Capitol building to try to prevent Congress from certifying an election that Biden won by about 7 million votes.
In 2023, Trump and six alleged co-conspirators, including Eastman, were indicted for their efforts to overturn the election. Trump pleaded not guilty, and the indictment against him was withdrawn after he was elected to a second term in 2024. The special prosecutor in that case, Jack Smith, said he dismissed the charges because of long-standing federal policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
For Eastman, the effects of that indictment included a move by the California State Bar to revoke his license to practice law. Eastman has fought that effort, saying the pushback against him is political, not legal. He has described the move to disbar him as “extraordinary lawfare abuse” by “hardcore leftist activists.”
In an April 2 fundraising email, he said: “My legal team is already preparing for the next phase. Because if California rules against me, we will take this fight as far as necessary — even to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
What happened in California, he continued, is based on his political views. “My case was built around my public statements — defending President Trump and raising concerns about the 2020 election. That is core political speech. It is protected by the Constitution. Yet it was treated as misconduct.”
Randall A. Miller, one of Eastman’s attorneys, promised to fight.
“The California Supreme Court has allowed to stand a State Bar Court recommendation that we contend departs from long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the attorney discipline context,” Miller said by email.
“We disagree with that outcome and believe it raises pivotal constitutional concerns regarding the limits of state regulation of attorney speech. 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.”
Eastman, who left Chapman in 2021, has worked with the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank. He has said that his legal bills are expected to run between $2 million and $3 million and has been actively fundraising to pay them.
A complaint against Eastman was made to the California bar by the States United Democracy Center in 2022, signed by 25 people from both sides of the aisle, including former federal and California state supreme court judges, law professors and the Bush and Obama White House ethics advisors. The California Supreme Court has sent a clear message here, it said: Lawyers who misuse their power to undermine free and fair elections will face severe consequences.
“Eastman played a central role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election — pressuring state officials, advancing baseless claims in court and promoting a fringe theory that the vice president could reject certified electoral votes,” said Christine P. Sun, senior vice president of legal affairs, in a prepared statement.
“His unethical actions have had real, lasting consequences for our democracy, and we applaud the California Supreme Court’s decision to disbar him. This decision is part of a broader reckoning for those who seek to undermine the rule of law in this country.”
Laguna Niguel attorney James V. Lacy of Wewer & Lacy has conservative bona fides that include serving in the Reagan and Bush administrations and as a Trump delegate in 2016. But Lacy has long been critical of Eastman’s conduct and sees justice done here as well.
“I do not think John Eastman deserves jail time for what he did,” Lacy said by email. “But his legal advice to the President of the United States was deeply flawed and so constitutionally unhinged that even his own expert witness in his disbarment case, John Yoo, clearly rebuked it in court under oath. And after a lengthy trial, the State Bar found Eastman knew his advice was wrong.
“Eastman’s actions to interfere with the peaceful constitutional transfer of power on January 6, 2021, are a black mark on our legal profession, and he deserves consequences for the very misleading filings and statements the State Bar says he presented to the public, to elected officials, and to the Courts, let alone the President.
“I believe his permanent disbarment from practicing law in California, which must be followed by disbarment to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States according to its rules, is a just result. It is a great irony that a former Supreme Court Clerk is now facing inevitable disbarment from the U.S. Supreme Court itself.”
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