Attorney Who Masterminded Trump’s Attempt to Overturn Election Disbarred

Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP

John Eastman, the attorney who masterminded the legal strategy behind President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has been officially disbarred in California.

In the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the revelations of the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, Eastman and other attorneys who were involved representing Trump or his interests found themselves also facing criminal charges and threatened sanctions from the bar associations that issued their law licenses.

With Trump issuing sweeping pardons for those involved in Jan. 6 and the efforts to overturn the election, discipline from the bar associations remains one of the few avenues for accountability.

Eastman was the infamous author of a memo detailing a strategy that he advised Trump to pursue in order to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which would entail having Vice President Mike Pence refuse to accept the Electoral College votes from the states. He was also active in lobbying state legislators to block Joe Biden’s Electoral College votes, drafting the lawsuits that were filed around the country promulgating baseless claims of election fraud, speaking at the rally at the Ellipse immediately before the riot, and was still urging Pence to consider acquiescing to their scheme while the riot was ongoing.

According to evidence and sworn testimony from numerous witnesses at the hearings held by the House Select Committee to Investigate Jan. 6, multiple aides to both Trump and Pence informed the president that this would be illegal and unconstitutional.

Eastman was among the defendants indicted along with the president in Fulton County, Georgia, accused of being co-conspirators in a scheme to overturn the election.

In 2024, the California State Bar recommended that Eastman lose his law license for “advocating, participating in and pursuing a strategy to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election that lacked evidentiary or legal support” and his “unwillingness to acknowledge ethical lapses regarding his actions, demonstrating an apparent inability to accept responsibility.” A California appellate disciplinary panel upheld Eastman’s disbarment, and he appealed to the state’s Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court issued its ruling, upholding the lower court’s ruling disbarring him.

“The court orders that John Charles Eastman (Respondent), State Bar Number 193726, is disbarred from the practice of law in California and that Respondent’s name is stricken from the roll of attorneys,” says the docket entry.

Eastman was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine. He is also a member of the Washington, D.C. bar, but his license is currently suspended there on an interim basis while proceedings continue.

Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney reported on Eastman’s disbarment, and spoke to Matthew Seligman, a constitutional law attorney and one of the lead witnesses against Eastman at his disbarment trial.

Seligman said that the California Supreme Court ruling upholding the disbarment was “a just end to a story of injustice.”

“Dr. Eastman tried to use his legal training to subvert the will of the American people in one of the gravest assaults on the American election system in our nation’s history,” Seligman added. “As the Court concluded, after that misconduct, Dr. Eastman cannot be trusted with the responsibility of serving clients as an attorney.”

According to Cheney, Eastman intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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