Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer John Eastman faced sharp questioning by California state bar prosecutors on Tuesday at the start of a disciplinary trial over action he took to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The State Bar of California is seeking to strip Eastman of his law license for his involvement in Trump’s attempts to undo Democrat Joe Biden’s election win.
Eastman, a former law professor at Chapman University in California, drafted legal memos suggesting then-Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to accept electoral votes from several swing states when Congress convened to certify the 2020 vote count. Pence rebuffed his arguments, saying he did not have legal authority.
Eastman’s strategy was “completely unsupported by historical precedent or law, and contrary to our values as a nation,” state bar prosecutor Duncan Carling said at the disciplinary trial.
Testifying for more than two hours, Eastman defended his post-election efforts, including affidavits he filed in Georgia courts that claimed thousands of people voted improperly.
The state bar played video of Eastman telling Georgia state lawmakers they had a “duty” to either hold a special election or appoint an alternate slate of electors.
“You were urging the legislators in the subcommittee to certify a different slate of electors,” Carling said.
“I don’t believe that’s an accurate characterization,” Eastman said, adding that if the lawmakers found there was electoral fraud, “they needed to act.”
Asked if he had encouraged lawmakers in Wisconsin to decertify their slate of electors, Eastman said he was “not encouraging or discouraging. I was responding to a request for a legal opinion.”
Eastman faces 11 counts of attorney ethics violations, including misleading courts and making false public statements about voter fraud in the 2020 election. The disciplinary trial, which started Tuesday before Judge Yvette Roland in California State Bar Court, is expected to last two weeks.
Eastman’s attorney Randall Miller said during Tuesday’s proceeding that Eastman’s legal theories were viable, tenable and put forward in good faith.
“He was not there to steal the election or invent ways to make President Trump the winner if in fact he lost,” Miller said. He later added: “Lawyers get to argue debatable issues, which is what Dr. Eastman did.”
Eastman also represented Trump in a failed, long-shot lawsuit at the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to invalidate votes in four states where Trump had falsely claimed evidence of widespread voter fraud.
He repeated election fraud claims at a rally outside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, after which Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and delayed the congressional certification of the election.