John Eastman Says He Plans to Stay in the Fight, Win or Lose

Donald Trump attorney John Eastman said he plans to fight what he sees as inaccurate election results “with everything I’ve got” even if he loses his California State Bar disciplinary trial and, potentially, his license to practice law there.

Disciplining and disbarring attorneys who take unpopular positions on behalf of their clients is a “very dangerous thing,” Eastman told Bloomberg Law Friday in an exclusive interview during a break from his Los Angeles trial.

A California federal judge last year found Trump, Eastman, and other Trump allies likely engaged in criminal activity after the 2020 election. The professor, the ex-president and 17 other people were indicted last month on charges of racketeering by a state prosecutor in Georgia.

Eastman has entered a plea there of not guilty.

“This thing should have never been brought in the first place,” Eastman said, “and I continue to hope that the justice process will play out properly and I’ll get exonerated.”

But if this trial doesn’t go his way, his legal team will, on appeal, raise objections “as we determine is necessary,” Eastman said, against California State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland‘s frequent blocking of witness testimony she deems can only come from experts.

If the California process doesn’t recognize his federal constitutional rights, the former Chapman University law school dean said his team will have the grounds to ask for US Supreme Court weigh-in.

The State Bar of California has charged Eastman with 11 counts of violating ethical and statutory obligations in connection with his efforts to help former President Donald Trump overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election.

Valid Legal Basis

Eastman’s legal team is arguing before Roland that the memos he wrote to Trump campaign officials prior to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol have a legal basis.

The state bar says those memos to Vice President Mike Pence saying Pence could delay or ignore the electoral vote count go against history, law, and precedent and it was grossly negligent for him not to understand that.

Fellow conservative lawyer John Yoo, who—during the administration of President George W. Bush—authored his own controversial memoranda widely seen as justifying the use of torture, testified Wednesday as one of Eastman’s defense witnesses and said that he doesn’t share his peer’s belief that Pence had grounds to overturn the 2020 election results.

Eastman had outlined scenarios for rejecting electors or delaying a ballot count in memos to Trump campaign officials leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Still Friends

Yoo’s testimony hasn’t impacted their friendship at all, Eastman said during the Friday interview.

“We’re both among the leading constitutional scholars in the country,” he said. “We don’t agree, and John and I have debated all over the country on our disagreement on birthright citizenship, for example.”

“What I think he made very clear is not only does he agree with me that the Vice President has authority under the 12th Amendment, but that even on the points where we are in disagreement, and very nuanced areas of disagreement, that mine was certainly a plausible position well-supported by history, by constitutional texts and valid interpretation,” Eastman said.

A vice president needs a minimum set of facts to decide on the validity of electoral votes, Eastman recounted Yoo saying during a pre-trial deposition. Eastman then said that Yoo couldn’t opine on whether this threshold was met because he didn’t know the facts available to him—Eastman—at the time.

Roland also blocked questions that experts can normally respond to during Yoo’s trial testimony, including hypothetical questions about the vice president’s authority, Eastman said.

‘Completely Unwarranted’

Testifying for the prosecution, lawyer and Stanford Law fellow Matthew Seligman said in August that Eastman lacked the historical and legal basis to support claims that the vice president can reject electoral votes.

Eastman said he was “stunned” by Seligman’s report.

“The one thing he overlooked by not looking at the records of the federal convention is the absolute agreement by the founders, the drafters of the Constitution that they did not want Congress having a role in determining the president,” Eastman said. “Once you recognize that, it really calls into question the rest of his opinions.”

“This is expensive and time consuming, and I think completely unwarranted,” Eastman said of the disciplinary trial.

“As I’ve published and stated in public on a number of occasions, I think this is part of a broader lawfare effort to target people that represented Trump, but more broadly, that represent causes that the government or the party in power doesn’t like. And I think it’s a very dangerous trend.”

The Office of Chief Trial Counsel represents the bar. Miller Law Associates represents Eastman.

The case is In Re Eastman, Cal. State Bar, SBC-23-O-30029, 9/29/23.