The sorry saga of John Eastman Esq., one of Donald Trump’s many former attorneys, is swiftly transitioning from “cautionary tale” into a decidedly more absurd phase. Eastman is currently navigating through life under a suspended law license—a fact that, at least theoretically, makes him ineligible to dazzle clients and judges with his esteemed legal acumen.
His professional infirmity owes itself to a judge’s decision last week to recommend that Eastman be disbarred from the practice of law in the state of California. Eastman is appealing that ruling to the California Supreme Court, but in the meantime, his license to practice law is forfeit, per the judge’s order. The reasons for that recommendation were meticulously detailed in a 128-page ruling by Judge Yvette Roland, who is responsible for overseeing the state bar’s disciplinary proceedings relating to Eastman’s alleged professional misconduct.
Those charges of misconduct stem from Eastman’s purported attempts to obstruct the 2020 electoral vote count and assist Trump in his failed effort to remain in power after losing that year’s election. These alleged actions led to Eastman’s indictment last August in Fulton County, Georgia, on multiple criminal charges relating to the attempted theft of that election. Eastman is also widely assumed to be an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Trump relating to the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, currently pending in the Washington D.C. federal district court.
As a result of these criminal charges, Eastman has purportedly incurred substantial legal fees amounting, thus far, to approximately a million dollars. But deprived of his license to practice law, Eastman now claims he is unable to raise the money to pay those bills.
So this week, as Katelyn Polantz reports for CNN, he petitioned the California court to lift his suspension pending appellate review of the judge’s decision. This is supposedly to allow him to make money both to defend against the current charges leveled against him, and to continue his representations of current clients, including Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, in matters relating to the cancellation by municipalities of 2021 political rallies that the Republican representatives had planned to hold in the Golden State.
Eastman is essentially arguing that he should be permitted to practice law to pay the cost of defending himself against the alleged crimes and professional malfeasance which prompted the court’s recommendation for his disbarment in the first place. It’s not clear that Eastman perceives the staggering irony in this request, but it’s highly unlikely that the California court charged with ruling on Eastman’s motion will miss it .
As Polantz reports for CNN, in their motion, Eastman’s attorneys paint his financial situation as dire:
“If the Order placing Dr. Eastman on inactive enrollment were not stayed, Dr. Eastman would lose his ability to make a living as an attorney at a time when other matters arising out of his representation of the former President of the United States … have already caused him to incur more than $1 million in legal fees,” his attorneys wrote in his request this week to the judge in California.
Again, the reason Eastman is in such bad financial straits is because he’s facing trial for giving not just bad but potentially seditionist and criminal legal advice. It was advice allegedly intended to subvert and undermine the law. Most importantly, Eastman’s bad legal advice allegedly operated as the plausible legal underpinning for the entire conspiracy; his current financial crisis only exists because that effort failed.
Why would a court permit him to continue practicing just to satisfy the costs to him and others that he apparently disregarded in offering such advice? To allow that outcome would be as cynical a treatment of Eastman’s conduct as the conduct itself.
To grant this insouciant request, the court would have to consider the judge’s thorough and damning assessment of Eastman’s conduct as somehow contingent or provisional, pending its resolution on appeal. But the entire thrust of Roland’s decision is premised on Eastman’s alleged moral turpitude in committing the very acts for which he now finds himself in legal and professional jeopardy. That moral turpitude stands as judged until it is confirmed or overruled. In the interim, Eastman’s an adjudicated threat to the profession and the public.
In fact, the court specifically cited Eastman’s lack of any remorse or regret for his actions whatsoever as a major factor in recommending he be disbarred, finding that allowing him to continue practicing law would be a threat to the public. Roland specifically noted that Eastman’s “wrongdoing is substantially aggravated by his multiple offenses, lack of candor and indifference.” Thus, “[g]iven the serious and extensive nature of Eastman’s unethical actions, the most severe available professional sanction is warranted to protect the public and preserve the public confidence in the legal system.”
Further, Roland wrote, “This lack of remorse and accountability presents a significant risk that Eastman may engage in further unethical conduct compounding the threat to the public.”
The fact that Eastman apparently sees no inherent contradiction in his plea to be absolved of the court’s termination of his status to practice law—so he can cover the legal costs of his own defense in Georgia and elsewhere—would seem to be evidence that the court’s considered assessment of his character was correct.
As Polantz reports, in support of his motion, Eastman appended letters authored by some current clients who insist that they still want his representation. Gaetz authored one such such letter, and actually incorporated a backhanded swipe at Roland’s recommendation to disbar Eastman in the first place.
“I write today to urge you to enable him to continue to represent me in that matter, so as not to compound one First Amendment violation with another. I have a right to the counsel of my choice, and I know there is no other competent, qualified attorney whom I can trust in this matter,” Gaetz wrote in a letter to the State Bar of California.
A word to the wise: It’s never a good idea to insult the ruling of a judge who sits on the same court you are seeking relief from. It’s probably even worse of an idea to suggest that they committed a constitutional “violation.”
Eastman’s attitude is one that has, in large part, infected many in the Republican Party since it declared its obeisance to the capricious whims of Trump. In that sense, Eastman’s apparent inability to comprehend the magnitude and reality of his alleged wrongdoing is emblematic of the threat that this MAGA election denialism represents to American institutions.
It’s abundantly clear that Eastman hasn’t gotten that message. Appearing this week on a right-wing podcast, “The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson,” he framed the situation as a simple disagreement over an election. He also remained unrepentant and oblivious to the real harm his actions have caused to others, lamenting a recent subpoena he’d received from Capitol Police members in their lawsuit against Trump.
“That’s part of the game,” Eastman told Robinson. “If they keep us tied up, spending our resources on defense against these things, then those are resources and time and talent that cannot be deployed in furthering elections for people who are sensible and want to get our country back on track.”
The fantasy that permeates Eastman’s conspiratorial rhetoric here is pathetic, but it’s also dangerous. Combined with the perception of a politically biased judiciary, thanks to today’s Supreme Court and the pipeline of right-wing judges that feeds it, it’s cancerous for any society designed to be grounded in principles of fairness. It fosters the idea that justice is necessarily dependent upon one’s political loyalties, rather than the unbiased application of the law.
This isn’t some idle concern. It’s a serious challenge for succeeding generations that are going to have to reconcile this arrogant and heedless embrace of lawlessness inspired by Trump against the rules that govern the society they plan to inhabit. Trump will have long departed the political stage by then, but the stench will linger, inspiring imitators perhaps not as effective, but no less aberrant than the original.