Trump Lawyer John Eastman One Step Closer to Being Disbarred for His Actions Leading up to Jan. 6 After Devastating Ruling from Judge

Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP

A judge ruled on Thursday that John Eastman, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump and an indicted co-conspirator in his Georgia election fraud trial, was culpable on 11 counts in his California bar trial.

California State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland said after 32 days of testimony, Eastman’s bar trial would move forward to the rebuttal phase, at which point Eastman could present evidence in his defense. After that, the bar presents its own further evidence in the aggravation phase to prove Eastman committed moral and legal violations while acting as Trump’s attorney.

Eastman testified to Roland that evidence presented in the trial “only confirmed” to him that there was illegal activity in Georgia that resulted in outcome-determinative election fraud in 2020. He also said he believed former Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to overturn election results.

However, Justin Grimmer, a political science professor at Stanford University who served as a rebuttal witness, testified that Eastman relied on faulty data and information to build his case that there was fraud, even calling his assumptions “ridiculous.” Grimmer was a co-author of a National Academy of Science article on 2020 election fraud arguments that concluded that “none of them is even remotely convincing. The common logic behind these claims is that, if the election were fairly conducted, some feature of the observed 2020 election result would be unlikely or impossible. In each case, we find that the purportedly anomalous fact is either not a fact or not anomalous.”

Eastman will have the chance to rebut the evidence against him on Friday; the bar intends to provide further evidence that Eastman’s actions caused “harm” that was the result of “false claims that 2020 presidential election was ‘stolen’ and effected by outcome-determinative fraud, including harassment of specific election officials and undermined public trust in election results and the legitimacy of democratic institutions.”

Eastman has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in Fulton County, Georgia.