John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who helped lead former President Donald Trump's legal efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election, is facing disciplinary action in . Eastman first emerged as a Trump-affiliated lawyer in December 2020, when he filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to let Trump intervene in a longshot lawsuit to toss out election results in. Paul McCartney took to social media to pay respects to his brother-in-law John Eastman, who passed away from pancreatic cancer on Tuesday at age 83. February 14, 2022. The Notice of Disciplinary Charges alleges that Mr. Eastman violated this duty in furtherance of an attempt to usurp the will of the American people and overturn election results for the highest office in the land an egregious and unprecedented attack on our democracy for which he must be held accountable.. August 25, 2022 John Eastman, a prominent entertainment lawyer whose clients included the musicians Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, the Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning, and. [23], In 1989, prior to attending law school, Eastman served as the director of Congressional and public affairs at the United States Commission on Civil Rights. The State Bar of Californias Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona intends to seek Eastmans disbarment for alleged violations of Business and Professions Code section 6106, which punishes making false and misleading statements that constitute acts of moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption., There is nothing more sacrosanct to our American democracy than free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power, Cardona said in a statement. A fed-up Herschmann claims he insisted that Eastman only talk about an orderly transition in the future, and encouraged Eastman to find a great fing criminal defense lawyeryoure going to need it.. [126] Eastman published a statement the next day saying that those who publicly condemned him "have created such a hostile environment for me that I no longer wish to be a member of the Chapman faculty, and am therefore retiring from my position, effective immediately." [27], Eastman has represented the North Carolina legislature and the State of Arizona in unsuccessfully petitioning the Supreme Court in cases involving same-sex marriage,[28] abortion,[29] and immigration. [13][14] Pence did not accept Eastman's argument. The conflict between Mr. Klein and the Eastmans, and the disagreement within the group over those men, would consume the Beatles for years to come, even after their official breakup in 1970. Eastman has received widespread attention for his role as attorney to then president Donald Trump during which he suggested that vice president Mike Pence could refuse the results of some states' election results during the 2020 United States presidential election. "[98][99][100] Douglas Letter, general counsel to the House, said about Eastman asking Pence to delay Biden's certification, "It was so minor it could have changed the entire course of our democracy. According to the warrant, the phone was to be taken to a forensic lab of the Department of Justices Office of Inspector General. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) Article [75][76][77], On January 6, Eastman spoke alongside Giuliani at the "Save America" rally that preceded the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol and asserted without evidence that balloting machines contained "secret folders" that altered voting results. The finding came in the context of civil litigation involving discovery by the Jan. 6th Committee. A professor at Chapman University Law School in Southern California until mid-January 2021, and once a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Eastman was a former . [15], On January 6, 2021, Eastman presented a speech at the White House Trump rally that preceded the 2021 United States Capitol attack. He later joined Chapman to teach constitutional law. John Eastman, an ally of Donald Trump who authored a memo outlining how to . Eastman also sent to Republican senator Mike Lee a six-point plan of action for Pence to throw out the electors from seven states to keep Trump in power, which Lee rejected. Eastman first emerged as a Trump-affiliated lawyer in December 2020, when he filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to let Trump intervene in a longshot lawsuit to toss out election results in four swing states won by Joe Biden, which ultimately failed. Separately, in one December 2020 email, Eastman alluded to a heated fight over whether the Supreme Court should take up an election challenge, the New York Times reported Wednesday. [emailprotected], Law&Crime's managing editor Adam Klasfeld has spent more than a decade on the legal beat. Carter noted one email in particular that contained what he found was likely evidence of a crime and ordered it disclosed under the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. John Eastman on Thursday, April 29, 2021. Even after the insurrection, Eastman was still trying to overturn the election Even after Jan. 6, Eastman was still talking about the 2020 election not yet being certain. 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EASTMAN Plaintiff, vs. BENNIE G. THOMPSON, et al., Defendants. Carter found that one Eastman email exchange showed Trump had sworn under oath that the number of alleged voting fraud cases his attorneys cited in a Georgia federal suit was accurate, though he knew it was not. His mother had inherited a fortune from the Lindner department store in Cleveland. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his son Lee, a partner in their longstanding Manhattan family law firm, Eastman & Eastman. Eastman responded that "Mike Pence is an establishment guy" who fears that Trump is "destroying the inside-the-Beltway Republican Party. [122]. Eastman responded that he was speaking two miles away from the Capitol building. 26, 2023, at 5:38 p.m. John Eastman, the Trump-allied lawyer who wrote memos urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results, said in a court filing Monday that federal agents seized his. More than 60 courts rejected election fraud claims by Trump and his allies. That lawyer, John Eastman, is a member in good standing of the conservative legal establishment. Despite their enormous success, the Beatles were then on the brink of insolvency. Trump, himself a one-time believer in the birther theory, reacted to the op-ed by telling reporters Eastman is a brilliant lawyer.. The Daily Beast reports that the plaintiffs are seeking to pierce attorney-client privilege under the crime-fraud . The 11 charges arise from allegations that Eastman engaged in a course of conduct to plan, promote, and assist then-President Trump in executing a strategy, unsupported by facts or law, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states, the bar wrote in a press release. The Beatles' Sir Paul McCartney recently took to his Instagram to mourn the death of his brother-in-law, John Eastman, who was also his lawyer. As part of their preparations for the case, Mr. Eastman suggested that his brother-in-law wear a suit and tie to court. The January 6 committee subpoenaed Eastman in November. As the House January 6 panel unpacks the results of its months-long probe, lawmakers are expected to spend part of their Thursday hearing examining the role of John Eastman, a once-obscure legal scholar who vaulted into former President Donald Trumps inner circle ahead of the Capitol riot by pushing dubious legal strategies to keep Trump in office. [4] He ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for California's 34th congressional district in 1990, and for the office of California Attorney General in 2010. He was a dean and professor at the Chapman University School of Law. [45][46][47] He sits on the board of advisors of St. Monica Academy[48] and the advisory board of the St. Thomas More Law Society of Orange County. Mr. Eastman and his father, who was also named Lee, worked with a long roster of big-name clients over the years, including Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Bowie, Elton John and the estates of Tennessee Williams and the painter Francis Bacon. Last week, Carter ruled 440 records were privileged but ordered Eastman to hand over another 159. On Thursday, McCartney, 80, posted to Instagram to share that Eastman, who was the brother of McCartney's late wife Linda McCartney, has died. Later in the day, when the rioters were expelled from the Capitol and Pence was again presiding over Congress, Eastman told Jacob in another e-mail that Pence should still refuse to certify the election results:[83] Now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations as well as to allow the full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that occurred here, Eastman wrote. The Bar's committee chair said, "For California attorneys, adherence to the U.S. and California Constitutions is their highest legal duty,"[123] adding Eastman, "violated this duty in furtherance of an attempt to usurp the will of the American people and overturn election results for the highest office in the land an egregious and unprecedented attack on our democracy for which he must be held accountable. [57] Eastman circulated a two-page outline and memo to the Trump legal team several days later, followed by a more extensive memo later. [41][42] He is a director of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which brings election lawsuits. Trump acknowledged Eastman's help during his speech Jan. 6, 2021. The court had already rejected a major election challenge, Texas v. Pennsylvania, 13 days earlier, and the participants in Eastman's email exchange were discussing whether to file papers in the hopes that four U.S. Supreme Court justices would agree to hear a Wisconsin case. Lee Eastman died in 1991, and Linda McCartney died in 1998. He was fierce when it came to protecting artists rights, Mr. Joel said in a statement to The New York Times, and I credit him with whatever longevity I have achieved in my career.. Eastman is accused of making false and misleading statements regarding alleged election fraud including claims he made at a rally at the Ellipse outside the White House that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The briefing included Giuliani; John Eastman, the attorney behind the theory that Vice President Mike Pence could reject the Electoral College results; White House trade adviser Peter Navarro . [112][113] Federal judge Robert Brack rejected Eastman's request on July 15. [87][88][89] The FBI had announced two weeks earlier there was no evidence of antifa involvement in the siege. In 2017, Mr. Eastman steered a lawsuit by Mr. McCartney against Sony/ATV, the music publisher (now known as Sony Music Publishing), to regain his share of the United States copyrights in Beatles songs that he wrote with Mr. Lennon, citing an amendment to federal law that allows creators to recapture those rights after set periods. [92][93], Eastman asserted his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination on December 1, 2021, in a letter in which he refused to testify to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. John Eastman, the former Donald Trump lawyer and possible future Trump co-defendant, has added the potential loss of his California law license to his list of troubles. John Eastman, the former brother-in-law of Paul McCartney, died at age 83 of pancreatic cancer, the former Beatle announced on social media on Thursday. Trump in recent weeks has told confidants that he sees no reason to defend the lawyer who tried to help him overturn the 2020 . For California attorneys, adherence to the U.S. and California Constitutions is their highest legal duty. Lawyer John Eastman had claimed the situation had turned him into a "pseudo . Former Chapman University professor John Eastman is among the individuals whom the Jan. 6 committee has recommended face federal criminal charges for their roles in the attack on the Capitol on . Bannon: I'm going to start with John Eastman. John Eastman, left, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, appears with Rudolph W. Giuliani at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection. Early in their work with Mr. McCartney, the Eastmans helped him set up what would become MPL Communications, his entertainment company. The judge ordered the emails released to Eastman's legal team to identify which they asserted were privileged, before allowing a third party to scrutinize them. [2][3] He is a former professor and dean at the Chapman University School of Law. 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The case was settled; the terms were not disclosed, but Mr. McCartney has been registering the American ownership of those rights under MPL. "There is nothing more sacrosanct to our American democracy than free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power." Carter concluded it showed the Trump legal team had decided to "evade judicial review to overturn a democratic election" and "forged ahead with a political campaign to disrupt the electoral count. Thanks for contacting us. The next year, after briefly working in the office of the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, he and his father set up Eastman & Eastman. [115], Judge Carter ruled in October 2022 that Eastman must turn over an additional 33 documents to the January 6 committee, including eight he determined were ineligible for attorney-client privilege because they related to possible criminal activity. At Wikipedia, don't even ask. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images). Their connection was both professional and personal. Stop the Presses!" Any lawyer engaged to provide his or her legal assessment in a dynamic, consequential, and often emotional arena should be deeply troubled by the notion that a licensing authority (bar) can take their license if they do not like the lawyers advice, or find the advocacy distasteful, Millers statement said. He has also appeared on conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt's Fox News program The Hugh Hewitt Show, commenting on law. The Thomas email was among those Carter ordered Eastman to release to the January 6 committee. Former lawyer of former President Donald Trump, John Eastman, appears on screen during the fourth hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. The State Bar of California unveiled new disciplinary charges against John Eastman for his involvement in former President Donald Trump's efforts to block th. ", "John Eastman, who pushed a plan to reject Electoral College results, asked for a pardon shortly after Jan. 6", "Eastman sought White House pardon after Jan. 6", "Ex-Law Professor Says His Words at 'Save America' Rally Did Not Incite U.S. Capitol Siege", "Trump lawyer John Eastman: Rally, insurrection not connected", "Rallies ahead of Capitol riot were planned by established Washington insiders", "F.B.I. He is the host of Law&Crime podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld.". The group's front page carried a banner stating, "the enemy of Americais the radical fascist left." [73] According to Eastman, he told the vice president that he might have the authority to reject electoral college votes, and he asked the vice president to delay the certification. "[61] On December 13, 2020, 159 Chapman University faculty members (including two from the law school) published a statement condemning Eastman for the filing. [95], In an effort to withhold 19,000 emails subpoenaed by the committee, in January 2022 an attorney for Eastman told a federal judge that they were protected by attorney-client privilege because Eastman had been representing Trump while participating in the January 2 conference call with state legislators; the January 3 Oval Office meeting with Trump and Pence; and while working as a member of the Trump team at the Willard Hotel command center. [128] The university also revoked some of Eastman's public-facing duties but permitted him to conduct scholarship.