The State Bar of California (SBC) began a trial on Tuesday seeking to disbar conservative legal scholar John Eastman over his role advising former President Donald Trump and state legislatures on challenging the 2020 election results. The proceedings arose out of a complaint against him made by the States United Democracy Center (SUDC). SUDC is run by a former Obama appointee, Norm Eisen, and its advisory board includes former Arizona governor and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
The SBC charged Eastman with 11 ethics violations in January. Eastman filed a 100-page response containing thousands of attachments, and published a rebuttal on his Substack account. He said the SBC’s complaint “is filled with distortions, half truths, and outright falsehoods.”
Bar disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland began the proceedings handling various pretrial motions, followed by opening statements and the first witness, Eastman. Roland refused to allow several of Eastman’s witnesses to testify, including former appellate court judge Janice Rogers Brown. She refused to allow Joseph Fried, an auditor who wrote the book Debunked: An Auditor Reviews the 2020 Election — and the Lessons Learned, saying he had no expertise in the area. Jay Valentine, who built eBay’s fraud protection engine, was also rejected by Roland.
In his opening statement, SBC counsel Duncan Carling accused the Claremont Institute director of trying to stop the certification of the election, including by providing advice to Trump after the election stating that Vice President Mike Pence could reject electoral votes from states suspected of election fraud. Carling said the advice “was baseless, completely unsupported by historic precedent or law and contrary to our values as a nation.” While Eastman admitted he gave that advice, he also gave Trump other options he could take, such as accepting the votes.
Read the rest of the article at The Arizona Sun Times