John Eastman, a former attorney for President Donald Trump who helped engineer a last-ditch strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, was disbarred in California on Wednesday over his efforts more than five years ago.
The California Supreme Court said in a filing that Eastman could no longer practice law in the state, upholding a State Bar Court recommendation, and ordered him to pay $5,000 in sanctions.
An attorney for Eastman, Randall A. Miller, said in a statement that Eastman will seek review of the case before the U.S. Supreme Court to “repudiate this threat to the rule of law.”
“The California Supreme Court has allowed to stand a State Bar Court recommendation that we contend departs from long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the attorney discipline context,” Miller wrote. “We disagree with that outcome and believe it raises pivotal constitutional concerns regarding the limits of state regulation of attorney speech.”
Eastman was the architect of a scheme to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
Evidence laid out in 2022 by the House’s Jan. 6 committee showed that Eastman acknowledged the plan was not legal but pushed for Pence to reject electors from contested states, which would have effectively overturned the election results. Days after the Jan. 6 riot, Eastman asked another former Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to be included in a list of people Trump would pardon, the committee found. Eastman was not pardoned at that time.
However, Trump last year issued a swath of sweeping pardons for people alleged to have been involved in the fake electors scheme, who included Eastman and Giuliani. Those pardons, applicable only federally, were largely symbolic, as Eastman and the more than 70 other people listed did not face federal charges.
Giuliani has been disbarred in New York and Washington, D.C., over his involvement in election interference schemes.
The disbarment proceedings for Eastman began in 2023, after the counsel for the State Bar of California asked a court to revoke his law license following an ethics investigation by the state bar. He faced 11 disciplinary charges over allegations that he pushed a dubious legal theory to help overturn the election. A judge in 2024 found him culpable for 10 of the 11 charges and recommended that he be disbarred.
Sidney Powell, a former Trump attorney who pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case and was also included in Trump’s symbolic pardons, called Eastman’s disbarment “disgusting and so wrong” in a post on X.
Eastman has faced legal challenges in other states as a result of his actions after the 2020 election.
He was accused, alongside Trump and 17 other co-defendants, of violating Georgia’s racketeering laws. He pleaded not guilty, as did Trump. The case ended last year when the state prosecutor dropped the charges against Trump, Eastman and other co-defendants.
