Trump Attorney Eastman Defends Jan. 6 Actions, Memos

Conservative law professor John Eastman used unreliable information to substantiate his unproven claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, California State Bar prosecutors argued Thursday.

The bar charged Eastman with 11 counts of ethical and legal violations for his role post-election that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, raid on the US Capitol. A video of Eastman’s remarks to a crowd on Jan. 6, including statements there was fraud and that dead people voted, was introduced as evidence in the State Bar Court hearing.

Eastman testified he continues to believe there isn’t sufficient evidence to show the Dominion Voting Systems Inc. machines are or aren’t suspect because there was no forensic audit of the machines. He also reiterated his belief that the Electoral Count Act, under which presidential votes are tabulated in Congress, is unconstitutional.

The Office of Chief Trial Counsel introduced as evidence a Jan. 11, 2021, email to presidential adviser Rudy Giuliani in which Eastman said he was having to defend himself to two universities, Chapman University where he was a law professor and University of Colorado Boulder where he was a visiting professor of conservative thought.

“I’ve decided that I should be on the pardon list, if that’s still in the works,” Eastman wrote. “Will taint me, but given the outright lies and false witness being spewed, having that protection is probably the prudent course.”

“Very simply, a number of people at the University of Colorado were suggesting that my speech caused the riots at the Capitol,” Eastman told State Bar Court Judge Yvette D. Roland. “My speech did not call for violence of any kind, did not call for illegal conduct of any kind. And what happened at the Capitol more than two hours later did not meet the constitutional standard for imminent. And so I was confident that there was an issue there but that the people were still claiming that it was, falsely, a contributing factor to that. And I thought that being on a pardon list would avoid having to deal with that issue.”

Eastman was on the stand answering questions from state bar prosecutor Duncan Carling as the last witness the bar called in the hearing, the outcome of which could be Roland recommending to the California Supreme Court he be disbarred. The state rested its case 10 days in to the trial that began in June, with breaks in July and early August.

Roland rejected defense arguments that requiring the one-time Chapman University law dean testify violated his Fifth Amendment rights. The judge also refused to stay the case despite Eastman’s criminal case in Georgia, where he was indicted along with Trump and 17 others.

Voting Security

Eastman said individuals whose information he used in making his arguments about voting irregularities included Russell Ramsland, a Dallas-area businessman who also was called as a witness for Giuliani’s Washington Bar ethics hearing. Eastman said he thought it “was rather significant” the state of Texas relied on Ramsland in making voting machine purchasing decisions. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in a ruling upholding sanctions against attorneys who sued over the election to upend the results in Michigan, said Ramsland’s assumptions about Dominion ballot marking were “baseless.”

Eastman said the statement by Christopher Krebs, then director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, that the 2020 president election was the most secure election in US history “is almost laughable” if used beyond the question of evidence of foreign interference.

When asked on direct examination by Carling about Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which resulted in Fox paying a $787.5 million settlement, Eastman said: “What I do recall reading is wondering why Fox had not put up more of a defense and why they reached the settlement they did.”

“Whether the statements [Fox made] about the Dominion machines are true or not, I don’t have any basis for understanding that. I’m not the technical expert on that. I do think there is counter evidence that appears not to have been presented in this case,” Eastman said.

Memos

Eastman authored two memos to Donald Trump campaign officials outlining potential scenarios where slates of electors could be rejected, including unproven allegations of election misconduct and fraud.

Eastman’s defense counsel Randall Miller objected to Carling’s characterization that Eastman, during meetings in the days before the raid on the Capitol, had made recommendations about delaying the certification. Eastman, Miller said, testified “that what he did in the memos and otherwise stated in meetings were not recommendations. They were options open for discussion.”

“The extent to which Dr. Eastman assessed the reliability of the information that he was getting in December of 2020 and January 2021 is a central issue in this case,” Carling said. “And the extent to which he has, subsequent to that, continue to adjust his assessment of that reliability based on new information is relevant to whether he did an adequate job of that at that time, or whether his claim that he did is credible.”

Miller argued the court rulings were unavailable two and a half years before the election and Jan. 6. What Eastman “thinks today or whether he has a basis to reconsider statements or actions of his two and half years or more are not relevant,” Miller said.

The bar rested its case in chief, with Eastman beginning to introduce defense witnesses. Additional trial days are scheduled Sept. 12-15.

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

The case is In Re Eastman, Cal. State Bar, No. SBC-23-O-30029, hearing 9/7/23.