John Eastman Loses His Law License In California Over 2020 Election Scheme

John Eastman, the veteran conservative attorney who devised a radical, last-ditch strategy to help Donald Trump subvert the 2020 election, can no longer practice law in California.

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down Eastman’s final bid to salvage his law license, upholding the decision by lower-court judges to order Eastman’s disbarment over his role in the 2020 scheme. The court ordered that his name be “stricken from the roll of attorneys.”

The decision ends a three-year disciplinary process punctuated by a lengthy and high-stakes trial that reviewed Eastman’s emergence as a key architect of Trump’s effort to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to singlehandedly block Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

A judge on California’s State Bar Court ordered Eastman’s disbarment in 2024, but the decision was tied up in appeals ever since. In the interim, however, Eastman was suspended from practicing law.

Though the decision only applies to Eastman’s license to practice law in California, disbarment decisions are typically adopted by authorities in other jurisdictions in “reciprocal” rulings. Eastman is also a member of the bar in Washington, D.C., though his license has been suspended there as well.

Eastman remains one of the highest-profile figures in Trump’s orbit to face enduring consequences for his involvement in Trump’s 2020 effort. The former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was identified by former special counsel Jack Smith as a co-conspirator in Trump’s alleged criminal plot to remain in power. He was also criminally charged in Arizona and Georgia, alongside a long list of Trump allies, in cases that were derailed by procedural and prosecutorial defects. Attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro, allies of Eastman in the effort, were similarly disbarred.

Matthew Seligman, a constitutional law attorney who was a lead witness against Eastman at his disbarment trial, called the state supreme court’s ruling “a just end to a story of injustice.”

“Dr. Eastman tried to use his legal training to subvert the will of the American people in one of the gravest assaults on the American election system in our nation’s history,” Seligman said. “As the Court concluded, after that misconduct, Dr. Eastman cannot be trusted with the responsibility of serving clients as an attorney.”

Jeffrey Clark, a former Trump administration official, is fighting potential disbarment in Washington, D.C., as well. Clark quickly weighed in on Eastman’s California disbarment, calling it a “travesty” and encouraging Eastman to ask the U.S. Supreme Court for relief.

Eastman was brought into Trump’s fold in the fall of 2020, as Trump pursued increasingly strained legal and political efforts to cling to power despite losing the election. Eastman helped craft litigation aimed at overturning the results in Georgia and other states, and pressed state lawmakers to assert the authority to change the results.

After courtroom efforts failed, Eastman helped Trump craft a plan to use the Jan. 6, 2021, session of Congress — when lawmakers were required to meet and certify Biden’s victory in the 2020 election — to convince Pence to use his power to halt the proceedings. Trump latched onto the theory and spent weeks pressuring Pence to act, and Eastman spent the days before Jan. 6 huddling with Pence aides to convince them to adopt the strategy.

Pence ultimately refused, effectively sealing Biden’s victory.

Outrage among Trump’s supporters — assembled in Washington at the president’s behest — led to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. During the violence, Eastman continued to pressure Pence to consider calling off the proceedings, leading to adramatic and infamous exchange with Pence’s top aides, as they sheltered from the mob inside the Capitol.

“Thanks to your bullshit we are now under siege,” Pence’s chief counsel at the time, Greg Jacob, said in an email to Eastman.