Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Good

A California judge on Wednesday recommended the disbarment of John Eastman, calling to revoke the law license of one of former President Donald Trump’s top allies in his failed last-ditch gambit to subvert the 2020 election.

Judge Yvette Roland, who presided over months of testimony and argument about the basis of Eastman’s fringe legal theories, ruled that the veteran conservative attorney violated ethics rules — and even potentially criminal law — when he advanced Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results based on weak or discredited claims of fraud.

Though Eastman may appeal Roland’s decision, including to the state Supreme Court, the ruling forces his law license into “inactive” status while any review is pending, meaning he can no longer practice law in California.

“Given 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,” Roland ruled.

  Politico
Perhaps too late for that, but this is the correct ruling.
At every turn, Roland said, Eastman ignored evidence that was unfavorable to his case and accepted at face value claims of fraud or misconduct aimed at sowing doubt about the election results.

“He turned a blind eye to any information that would not support his position of election fraud,” Roland wrote.

In all, Roland found Eastman culpable for 10 of 11 charges that state bar investigators brought against him, including misleading courts, lack of candor and, most notably, plotting with Trump to derail the transfer of power.

[...]

Roland said her disbarment recommendation was in part based on Eastman’s refusal to express regret and his attacks on the proceedings against him as politically motivated.

Eastman testified for hours during his disbarment trial, claiming that he relied on a cadre of statisticians and data analysts to conclude that the 2020 election was rife with misconduct and that state legislatures in a handful of swing states should step in to replace Joe Biden’s electors with Trump’s. But Roland said those analysts’ claims were easily refuted by expert testimony, and Eastman should have known better than to rely on them.
The only thing he relied on about them was that he'd use them as an excuse, because he knew very well they were bogus.
In addition, Roland concluded that Eastman stretched and contorted even his own outlier theories to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly block Joe Biden’s victory, even when no state legislatures had signed onto the effort.

Eastman’s pending disbarment compounds the legal trouble he’s facing in other states. He’s been charged alongside Trump and other allies in Fulton County, Georgia, as a member of an alleged racketeering conspiracy aimed at corrupting the results of the 2020 election in the state. He was also identified, but not named, in Trump’s federal indictment in Washington, D.C., as one of six unindicted co-conspirators assisting Trump’s bid to seize a second term.
Jeffrey Clark should be next, and Trump should be in jail.

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