Eastman Defends License, Statements Ahead of Jan. 6 Capitol Riot

John Eastman, hired by the Trump presidential campaign, relied on experts’ analysis and his own research in statements he made questioning the accuracy of the 2020 president election and had no intention to incite rally attendees on Jan. 6, he said Monday.

Testifying remotely in his California State Bar Court trial, Eastman detailed events on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 leading up to the raid on the US Capitol. He tried to step around any conversations with other Trump attorneys that might violate attorney-client privilege even as he testified he had no conversations with Trump the morning prior to the Jan. 6 rally.

“I absolutely had no such intent” to incite rally attendees, Eastman said on direct examination. “My intent here, as to all of my work on behalf of President Trump, whether in the filing of pleadings or in discussing options for the joint session of Congress, or encouraging legislators to conduct hearings, was always to identify problems with the conduct of election and to try to investigate them and identify whether the problems and illegality may have affected the outcome of the election so that the actual will of the voters when all legal votes were cast was what decided the election, not illegality and illegal votes.”

Eastman spoke for 3-4 minutes at the rally on the Ellipse of the National Mall, he said, after organizers requested Rudy Giuliani to speak to fill in gaps of time because Trump’s arrival was delayed.

The bar’s notice of discipline charging Eastman with ethical and legal violations quoted him as saying at the rally: “‘We know there was fraud, traditional fraud that occurred. We know that dead people voted.’” The bar alleges Eastman “knew, or was grossly negligent in not knowing, that, as an attempt to cast doubt on the results of the election, this statement was false and misleading” with “no evidence upon which a reasonable attorney would rely of fraud in any state election, involving deceased voters or otherwise, which could have affected the outcome of the election.”

“My intent was not to promote doubt in the results of the election,” Eastman said. “My intent was to get to the truth of the validity of the election. Those are two dramatically different things as far as intent goes.”

The bar seeks to disbar Eastman, who contends he’s being penalized for taking unpopular positions on behalf of Trump. Eastman is defending his law license while arguing that election irregularities cost Donald Trump the White House.

The state bar rested its case against Eastman, a one-time Chapman University law dean who is charged with violating moral turpitude, ethics rules, and state law regulating lawyer conduct related to memos he wrote to Trump campaign officials and remarks leading to the riot at the Capitol.

He’s testified he urged Vice President Mike Pence to delay counting the electoral votes was needed to allow state legislatures to assess claims of illegality to determine whether the slate of electoral votes accurately reflected who won the election.

Experts, Dead Voters

Two “significant experts” detailed how votes could be changed in voting machines and how the process would work, he said. Eastman testified he witnessed what those experts had predicted occur the night of the Georgia Senate runoff election on Jan. 5.

“These are experts that have very serious concerns, and they’ve been raising them for a number of years on both sides of the political aisle,” Eastman said.

Further, his remarks about dead people voting was accurate, he said, with even the bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel in the charges saying Georgia State Election Board found four such votes, all of which were returned by relatives. Michigan’s Office of the Auditor General determined that 1,616 votes, or 0.03% of the total ballots, were cast by voters who cast votes prior to election day but died before the day. And the Nevada Secretary of State determined that 10 dead voters had ballots cast in their names, according to the charges.

That “confirms my statement that dead people voted, that votes were cast on behalf of deceased individuals,” he said. “Quite frankly, I’m perplexed at how even acknowledging that the statement is true in their own allegations that the OCTC is accusing me of being grossly negligent or knowingly making a false statement.”

Eastman will return Tuesday to testify virtually as his defense counsel Randall Miller concludes direct examination before bar prosecutors question him. State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland has said the trial, which began in June with hearing days held intermittently, won’t go past Nov. 3.

Roland has 90 days at the close of oral arguments to issue an opinion that can be appealed to the State Bar Court Hearing Department. The California Supreme Court, which oversees attorney discipline and admission, will make the final call on whether Eastman keeps his license.

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

The case is In Re Eastman, Cal. State Bar, No. SBC-23-O-30029, hearing 10/23/23.