Quote:Justice for John Eastman
The fundamental message implicit in the California Bar?s vendetta against Trump?s former lawyer is this: ?We?re the government. We?ve defined what is truth. How dare you question us.??

By Roger Kimball
January 28, 2023

The January 6 Committee may have shut up shop, Liz Cheney may have scuttled back to her constituency in Georgetown and at CNN, but the great Democratic vendetta machine is still fired up and pounding along, looking for people to smash and livelihoods to destroy.?

Those who dared to walk around the Capitol that fateful day are still being apprehended and jailed. Many face multi-year prison sentences for such misdemeanor torts as ?parading? or ?obstructing an official proceeding.? Anyone associated with Donald Trump is fair game, as the names Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, and Jeffrey Clark remind us.?

At the top of that hit list is John Eastman, the distinguished constitutional scholar who made the unforgivable error of offering legal advice to President Trump in the turbulent aftermath of the 2020 election.

I have written about Eastman before, both in this space and elsewhere. He has had his life turned upside down. He was shuffled out of his position as dean of the Chapman Law School and has been treated as a pariah by colleagues in his profession. Anti-Trump protestors regularly congregate at the foot of his driveway?fortunately, a long one?to vilify him and his association with the Bad Orange Man.

Now the State Bar of California has announced that it has filed an official complaint of 11 charges against Eastman, alleging that he endeavored 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.?

Not a single one of those charges is true. Wikipedia and other left-wing megaphones keep repeating the canard that Trump and his advisors attempted to ?overturn? the results of the 2020 election. No, they didn?t. As Eastman explains in meticulous detail in his response to the California Bar?s attack, what he did was review the election law in order to advise Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on the various legitimate strategies they could employ to address the rampant irregularities that had infected the 2020 election.

In other words, he did what lawyers in our adversarial legal system are supposed to do.? He looked at the law and advised his client on what courses of action he could legally take in order to achieve his ends. Had he done otherwise, he would have betrayed the interests of his client.

Remember, Eastman was not operating in a void. The attorneys general of several states had raised serious questions about the integrity of an election in which COVID was used as cover to change voting rules by executive fiat rather than, as the 12th Amendment to the Constitution stipulates, through the legislative processes of the individual states. Those governors and secretaries of state who bypassed their legislatures to change their election laws acted illegally.

Eastman sketched several possible legal courses of action in response. The suggestion that got the most attention concerned a possible course of action for Mike Pence. As vice president, Pence was charged by the Constitution with opening ballots from the electors in order that they be counted. But since several states had questions about the integrity of those ballots, Eastman suggested that Pence propose a brief pause in the counting while the problematic states could be canvassed.

This the State Bar of California regards as something little short of treason. Eastman, the bar?s notice of disciplinary charges alleges, ?violated this duty [to the Constitution] 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.??

Note the rhetoric: ?usurp the will of the American people,? forsooth! ?An egregious and unprecedented attack on our democracy,? etc., etc. Give me a break. What Eastman actually did was act responsibly for his client by researching the law and recommending certain courses of action. But the California Bar, staffed and overseen almost exclusively by Democrats, dismisses all that. They are out for blood and are seeking to have Eastman disbarred.?

It is yet another outrage from the people who brought us the January 6 Kangaroo Court.? On Friday, Eastman was joined at a Zoom press conference by a long list of legal eminences, including former Attorney General Edwin Meese, John Yoo, and Janice Rogers Brown. All testified to Eastman?s competence and integrity and noted the dangerous precedent that the California Bar?s action represented.?

As Margot Cleveland wrote at The Federalist, the California Bar has essentially weaponized its disciplinary process along ideological or political grounds. If the reasoning behind the California Bar were to prevail, Cleveland observed, then Senator Ted Cruz and the attorneys general from 18 states should all be disbarred.

As Eastman noted in his remarks Friday, the fundamental message implicit in the California Bar?s vendetta against him is this: ?We?re the government. We?ve defined what is truth. How dare you question us.?

Eastman closed by emphasizing what should be obvious but which is often forgotten. ?The stakes here are far greater than whether an individual lawyer will lose or retain his bar license,? he said.?

Quote:We are approaching an authoritarian, even totalitarian, mentality where citizens are not allowed to voice their criticism of government; where their views are censored through an unholy alliance between a social media oligopoly and the government itself. COVID response?woe to the doctors who dared to raise red flags. CRT in schools?woe to the parents who object. Election lawyers?woe to the lot of us for seeking and speaking the truth.?

In the hurly-burly of everyday life, there are always scandals and emergencies and crises. Most are ephemeral, soon swallowed up by the ceaseless river of events. But some turn out to be critical turning points that determine the shape of the regime we inhabit. We are at such an inflection point now, I believe, and the case of John Eastman is a gravamen in the great decision that is facing us regarding the future of individual liberty, the fate of our constitutional republic, and the level of intrusiveness and control we are willing to cede to the bureaucrats who would rule us.

They say that in the modern bureaucratic state, ?the process is the punishment.? The state-sponsored, media-abetted attack against John Eastman, in which his very livelihood and personal security are threatened, shows that the process is only part of the envisaged punishment.?

Still, the process proceeds and is very expensive. Eastman has up a legal defense here. I urge you to contribute. I have.

Quote:State Bar of California Begins Trial to Disbar Trump?s Attorney John Eastman Over 2020 Election
June 21, 2023 Rachel Alexander

LOS ANGELES, California ? The State Bar of California (SBC) began a trial on Tuesday seeking to disbar conservative legal scholar John Eastman over his role advising former President Donald Trump and state legislatures on challenging the 2020 election results. The proceedings arose out of a complaint against him made by the States United Democracy Center (SUDC). SUDC is run by a former Obama appointee, Norm Eisen, and its advisory board includes former Arizona governor and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

The SBC charged Eastman with 11 ethics violations in January. Eastman filed a 100-page response containing thousands of attachments, and published a rebuttal on his Substack account. He said the SBC?s complaint ?is filled with distortions, half truths, and outright falsehoods.?

Bar disciplinary Judge Yvette Roland began the proceedings handling various pretrial motions, followed by opening statements and the first witness, Eastman. Roland refused to allow several of Eastman?s witnesses to testify, including former appellate court judge Janice Rogers Brown. She refused to allow Joseph Fried, an auditor who wrote the book Debunked: An Auditor Reviews the 2020 Election ? and the Lessons Learned, saying he had no expertise in the area. Jay Valentine, who built eBay?s fraud protection engine, was also rejected by Roland.

In his opening statement, SBC counsel Duncan Carling accused the Claremont Institute director of trying to stop the certification of the election, including by providing advice to Trump after the election stating that Vice President Mike Pence could reject electoral votes from states suspected of election fraud. Carling said the advice ?was baseless, completely unsupported by historic precedent or law and contrary to our values as a nation.? While Eastman admitted he gave that advice, he also gave Trump other options he could take, such as accepting the votes.

Next, Randy Miller gave an opening statement for the defense. He said the issue comes down to ?tenability,? ?advocacy,? ?protected speech,? and ?the right to petition.? He asserted that it is a legal debate whether the vice president has the authority to reject the electoral votes.

Carling repeatedly tried to get Eastman to admit he believed there was election fraud in the 2020 election, bringing up his past statements, and Eastman did not deny nor backtrack from his statements. Eastman made statements like, ?We had an unconstitutional election.?

In contrast, when Trump attorney Jenna Ellis was investigated by the State Bar of Colorado for statements she?d made about the election being stolen, she entered into an agreement with that bar where she admitted she had made ?misrepresentations.?

Eastman testified that he was concerned officials may have been deliberately taking action to benefit the Biden campaign due to what he saw in Pennsylvania. He said Pennsylvania election officials illegally started an effort to cure ballots during the canvassing of mail-in ballots, and appeared to notify Democrats about it in advance since the Democrats started advertising for workers to do the curing before the curing plan was announced to the public and Republican election officials.

Carling showed the court a video clip of Eastman advising state legislators in states suspected of election fraud that they should decertify the election results, but it did not include the first part of his statement. Eastman told the court that it was taken out of context, since he had previously told the legislators they had various options. His attorney objected to admitting just that portion of the video, but Roland overruled him and allowed it in.

Judge Roland jumped in and rephrased Carling?s questions several times, making them more penetrating. Once when Carling appeared not to remember what question he?d asked, she repeated it for him. She admonished Eastman and Miller multiple times for minor issues, and did not admonish the SBC counsel for anything. She told Miller to stop interrupting her, and criticized Eastman for not answering the questions accurately.

One observer watching the trial tweeted, ?A new attorney was added to the Bar team against John Eastman. Never mind, it?s just the judge!?

Carling frequently asked Eastman about previous remarks he?d made but did not describe them accurately. Eastman responded and corrected him, explaining that Carling was distorting his words. Carling?s distortions made Eastman?s advice look more radical. The judge did not call Carling out for the exaggerations.

Roland lectured him when he claimed attorney-client privilege, declining to answer one of Carling?s questions asking who one of his clients was. She said Eastman could reveal who a client is, since merely naming the client doesn?t violate attorney-client privilege. Eastman retorted that if he revealed which clients he told could choose other electors, that would reveal privileged communication he gave a client. Roland responded and said she would resume assessing the issue on Wednesday.

Carling questioned Eastman extensively regarding Eastman?s concern that loosening signature verification standards resulted in many more early ballots being accepted. Carling implied that his concern was invalid. He also asked him if he agreed with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that only 74 felons voted in the 2020 election. Eastman instead stuck by his previous statements that as many as 2,500 felons may have voted in the state?s 2020 election, citing the work of election investigator Bryan Geels. Carling tried to characterize Eastman?s previous remarks as indicating he was sure there were 2,500, but Eastman called him out on it and clarified that he?s said ?as many as? as well as the fact he had not had a chance himself to thoroughly look into it.

Carling focused heavily on the fact that Eastman cited the work of election investigator Bryan Geels, who initially said that around 66,000 underage people registered to vote in Georgia, but later admitted he made a mistake in calculating it and corrected it to just over 2,000 underage voters. Eastman shot back that Raffensperger mischaracterized the description in the media by claiming that Geelos was referring to underage people who had voted, instead of merely registered to vote.

A lawyer who preferred not to be identified due to fear of retaliation told The Arizona Sun Times that he believes the reason the SBC is going after Eastman so hard is because it has been under criticism for ignoring misbehavior by well-connected attorneys. He said one of them had received over 200 bar complaints but no action was taken against him.

The trial is scheduled to run for two weeks, but it could end earlier. It is being live streamed. If Eastman loses, he can appeal all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas. He has a legal defense fund seeking $500,000 which is at $385,048.

Quote:Legal Defense Fund



John Eastman served as President Trump's lawyer on several legal challenges arising out of the 2020 election, including President Trump's Motion to Intervene in the U.S. Supreme Court in Texas v. Pennsylvania et al., and Trump's own Petition in Trump v. Boockvar asking the Supreme Court to review three unconstitutional Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions.Dr. Eastman also advised the President about constitutional ways to prevent illegal conduct of the election from determining the results, and he spoke before the President at the Save America rally on January 6.?

For his efforts to ensure a free and fair election, he was "retired" from his tenured faculty position at Chapman University's law school, where he had previously served as Dean, and had his classes and speaking responsibilities cancelled at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was serving as the Visiting Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.He has been targeted by hard core leftist activists who have filed a bar complaint against him, seeking to have him disbarred and thereby lose his source of income.He has also been subpoenaed by the hyper-partisan January 6 Committee in the House of Representatives, which is targeting anyone involved in election integrity efforts as well as those engaged in freedom of speech and association to voice their objections to illegality in the conduct of the election.Responding to both of these attacks has required Dr. Eastman to hire outside counsel, at significant cost to himself.

We, as Americans, need to push back against illegal conduct in elections.Elections are the way we give our "consent" to government, and if they are not free and fair, We the People are no longer sovereign and we no longer have a government that derives its "just powers from the consent of the governed," as the Declaration of Independence promises.The stakes for freedom are high, and Dr. Eastman asks for your support.The funds raised will be used to pay for his legal team (responding to January 6 Committee and bar complaints, as well as bringing suits for violations of constitutional rights).


Important Links:

Ken Masugi, John Eastman, The Man Who Deserved To Win, American Greatness (Dec. 13, 2020)

John C. Eastman, Setting the Record Straight on the POTUS Ask, American Mind (Jan. 18, 2021)

John C. Eastman, Trying to Prevent Illegal Conduct From Deciding an Election Is Not Endorsing a 'Coup' American Greatness (Sept. 30, 2021)

Roger Kimball, Claremont Under Fire, American Greatness (Oct. 2, 2021)

James V. DeLong, Standing With John Eastman, American Thinker (Oct. 12, 2021)

John C. Eastman, Constitutional Statesmanship, Claremont Review of Books (Fall 2021)

Raheem J. Kassam, John Eastman's Lawyers Just Destroyed the Jan 6 Committee and Its 'Subpoenas',?TheNationalPulse.com (Dec. 2, 2021)

Roger Kimball,?John Eastman is right to resist the January 6 committee, The Spectator World (Dec. 2, 2021)

Mark Levin, Interview with John Eastman?(Starts at 50:20), IHeart Radio (Dec. 2, 2021)

Steve Bannon, Interview with John Eastman?(Starts at 31:15), Warroom.org (Dec. 2, 2021).

Tucker Carlson, Interview with John Eastman, Fox News (Dec. 6, 2021)

Rob Natelson,The Left?s Attack on Attorney-Client Confidentiality: The Case of Trump Adviser John Eastman, Epoch Times (Mar 19, 2022)

Jeffrey Clark, ?Project 65? Seeks to Kill All the Trump Lawyers ? By Canceling Them: The Progressive Left?s Latest Move to Destroy America, Revolver (Mar 29, 2022)

Robert Hutchinson, Federal Judge's Opinion on Trump Reveals Judiciary's Reliance on Media Propaganda, American Thinker (March 31, 2022)

Claes Ryn, Memorandum: How the 2020 Election Could Have Been Stolen, The American Conservative (Jan. 5, 2021)

Rachel Alexander, The Left Dominates the Legal System, and They're Taking Down GOP Election Attorneys En Masse, Townhall (May 30, 2022)

Mark Pulliam, The Legal Profession Brooks No Dissent, American Greatness (June 4, 2022)

Opening Brief in Eastman v. Thompson

Reply Brief in Eastman v. Thompson

John C. Eastman, Letter to the Editor, Wall Street Journal (June 22, 2022).

George Rasley, We Need More Lawyers Like Prof. John Eastman, Conservative HQ (June 24, 2022)

Tucker Carlson, Interview with John Eastman, Fox News (June 27, 2022)

Victor Davis Hanson, Who Are The Real Insurrectionists?, American Greatness (July 3, 2022)

John Eastman, Response to The 65 Project's SCOTUS Bar Complaint, Substack (Aug. 3, 2022)

Christopher Flannery, John Eastman is an American Hero, American Greatness (Aug. 4, 2022)

William B. Allen, John Eastman is John Eastman's Best Defense, American Greatness (Aug. 31, 2022)

Conrad Black, American Democracy Is in Extremis, Epoch Times (Oct. 3, 2022)

Rob Natelson, Joe Biden's Charge of 'Semi-Fascism', American Greatness (Oct. 6, 2022)

John Ransom, January 6 Committee Harassing Targets, Engaging in 'Fishing Expedition': Lawyers, Epoch Times (Oct. 11, 2022)

Margot Cleveland, California Would Disbar Ted Cruz and 18 Attorneys General If It Could, The Federalist (Jan. 27, 2023)

Roger Kimball, Justice for John Eastman, American Greatness (Jan. 28, 2023)

Rachel Alexander, California Bar Seeks to Disbar Trump Attorney John Eastman for Nothing, Townhall (Jan. 30, 2023)

(06-23-2023, 07:49 AM)Armando?Ramos Wrote: BTW, don't be fooled by that bleached out high school yearbook photo her past employer posted.

Quote:Nearly forty years ago historian Nathan I. Huggins predicted the decline of passing in his short essay ?Passing is Pass?? when he succinctly opined that improved conditions fought for and won by blacks meant that the ?insistence on race identity, race consciousness, race pride, and race beauty has made anachronistic the game of hide-and-seek, traditionally played by whites and blacks in America.?

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/passing-passing-peculiarly-american-racial-tradition-approaches-irrelevance/

(06-23-2023, 07:49 AM)Armando?Ramos Wrote: State Bar court judge Yvette Roland is a past president of the Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles.