When

by John Eastman

process before the California Bar Court began in June was professional downfall

are

greatest imminent threat. Hoping to keep his license, Donald Trump’s former adviser spent days answering questions, defiantly defending his role in the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election.

When his trial resumes Thursday

Tuesday morning

After a two-month hiatus, Eastman will enter the courtroom in downtown Los Angeles as a more at-risk figure. Earlier this month, he appeared, unnamed and unindicted, as co-conspirator #2 in the federal indictment against Trump revealed by special counsel Jack Smith.

Then came the sprawling racketeering indictment on Aug. 14 from Fulton County, Georgia, accusing Eastman and 18 others, including Trump and Rudy Giuliani, of election-related schemes.

This changed the picture quite dramatically, Randall Miller, Eastman’s attorney, told the bar court at a hearing last week. We talked about his freedom. We need to be extremely careful at all levels here.

With the possibility that his words could be used criminally against him in the Georgia case, Eastman will likely invoke his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in the bar lawsuit. Miller asked that the hearing be adjourned until Dr. Eastman may be out of harm’s way on the Georgia case, adding that the charges also deterred two of Eastman’s expected bar witnesses.

They are very scared, Miller said, and as a result Eastman would be denied a robust and muscular defense.

Attorney Duncan Carling argued against the delay, saying Eastman made the calculated decision not to request a stay before the trial began, even though it was clear all along that he had the possibility of legal trouble.

Again and again, Eastman had appealed to the 5th when he appeared before the House’s January 6 committee, which recommended that the Justice Department prosecute him. And U.S. District Judge David O. Carter had ruled that Eastman had most likely broken the law in connection with the 2020 election.

We strongly disagree that Dr. Eastman was unaware, Carling said. Everyone knew that these investigations were ongoing and charges might be forthcoming.

Carling said the Georgia case, which involved 19 defendants, is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. We’re talking about possibly years here, Carling said.

The judge supervising the disciplinary proceedings, Yvette Roland, ordered that it go ahead.

The State Bar, the body that regulates lawyers, has charged Eastman with ethical violations for promoting false claims that election fraud put Joe Biden in the White House, and for fueling a fringe legal scheme designed to overturn the election. to make.

On the day before rioters stormed the US Capitol in 2021, Eastman propounded the theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally reject electoral votes in disputed states where fraud was alleged, according to Pence’s former attorney, Gregory Jacob.

Pence dismissed the idea as unconstitutional, and Jacob accused Eastman of serving as a snake in the ear of the President of the United States, adding that it had been grossly irresponsible of you to tempt the president with an academic theory that is legally was not viable.

The Georgia indictment charges Eastman with organizing 16 bogus pro-Trump voters and making false statements to the Georgia Legislature, including alleging that Joe Biden won victory in Georgia on fraudulent ballots.

The indictment cites a court document that Eastman filed on Dec. 11 on Trump’s behalf in Fulton County. 31, 2020, alleging that the election was marred by illegal votes from as many as 2,506 felons, at least 66,247 underage people, and as many as 10,315 or more deaths. According to the indictment, Eastman admitted earlier that day that at least some of the information on file was incorrect.

Eastman’s lawyer has argued that his client was simply doing his duty as a strong advocate for then-President Trump, trying to ensure that the votes were counted correctly, with legal theories put forward in good faith.

Scott Cummings, a UCLA law professor and legal ethics expert who watched the Eastman case unfold, said the bar hearing raised monumental concerns both for the California Bar and the legal profession.

Unprecedented is an overused word, but it’s really an unprecedented situation, Cummings said. I think you have to go back to Watergate to find an analogue, and in many ways this is more extreme.

Lawyers were charged and suspended for wrongdoing in the scandal that destroyed the Nixon administration, spying on political opponents and stealing secrets. But the behavior didn’t attack the rules of the game or the system itself, Cummings said. It wasn’t system-destroying. That’s where this feels qualitatively different.

This may be one of the most important bar disciplinary cases in history, period, Cummings said. A lawyer sworn to uphold the rule of law is accused of attacking the rule of law. If the bar doesn’t hold him accountable for that, it’s hard to understand how the system can function in the future.

In his defense, Eastman argues that he made allegations of widespread electoral fraud that proved unfounded with a subjective belief in their merit.

Barring any unforeseen revelations that change the case, Cummings said it would set a catastrophic precedent if that argument were to prevail, because any attorney coming before the disciplinary court bar will make the same argument, adding: Professional regulation is collapsing and the rule of law is collapsing because then everyone does and it is a slippery slope.

For the California Bar, the Eastman trial also represents an attempt to restore credibility after the embarrassing mishandling of the Tom Girardi case. Girardi, a famous well-connected trial lawyer, managed to avoid decades of discipline despite a snowstorm of complaints he stole from clients while showering state bar staffers with gifts. His driver’s license was only revoked last year.

This is a high-stakes case for the bar against the backdrop of California regulatory enforcement failures that revealed the Girardi scandal, Cummings said.

Eastman, a former clerk of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was Chapman’s dean

‘s

law school from 2007 to 2010, and remained a professor there until 2021. His attorney trial will occasionally continue until mid-September.