John Eastman: Judge denies ex-Trump election lawyer’s request to reinstate law license as he fights disbarment

CNN
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A lawyer disciplinary judge in California has rejected a request from former Trump election lawyer John Eastman to reinstate his law license following his recent recommendation that he be disbarred, making him unable to practice law for now.

Eastman, who devised a multi-step plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election and was part of the effort to appoint fake electors in several states, wants to continue practicing law so he can represent clients and pay his own way. legal accounts. bills as he fights criminal charges stemming from 2020 election efforts.

Judge Yvette Roland, who oversees state bar proceedings in California, recommended in March that Eastman be disbarred for his election subversion efforts. His license was immediately revoked while the ethics process continues.

The California Supreme Court will ultimately decide whether to endorse or reject Roland’s recommendation to remove Eastman.

Still, Roland de Março’s opinion marked an important step in the consequences for lawyers who pushed false theories of election fraud in the name of former President Donald Trump.

“Eastman failed to fulfill his primary duty of honesty and violated his ethical obligations by presenting falsehoods to bolster his legal arguments,” Roland wrote in his opinion, recommending that he be disbarred. “In short, Eastman exhibited gross negligence by making false statements about the 2020 election without conducting any meaningful investigation or verification of the information on which he relied.”

In his plea to Roland to reinstate his law license while he fights the disbarment, Eastman said he needed to be able to represent Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene in a fight over political speech and pay his own legal bills.

But Roland, in rejecting Eastman’s request on Wednesday, wrote in his decision that he “fails to demonstrate that he no longer poses a threat to the public.”

Roland wrote that he “found that exclusion was the appropriate sanction for Eastman’s misconduct, in part to safeguard the public. The court’s ruling determined that Eastman made misleading and misleading claims in legal documents, public forums, and other contexts relating to the 2020 presidential election and the extent of Vice President Michael R. Pence’s authority to overturn the election process.”

Politico first reported Roland’s decision.

Eastman is charged alongside Trump and others in the Georgia election subversion case. He pleaded not guilty in that case.

He was also indicted last month in Arizona in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 election, along with more than a dozen other Trump allies, including Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani.