Left Attorney John Eastman, the architect of a legal strategy aimed at keeping former President Donald Trump in power, gets out of an SUV to talk to reporters after a hearing in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Eastman faces 11 disciplinary charges in the State Bar Court of California stemming from his development of a dubious legal strategy aimed at having Vice President Mike Pence interfere with the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong). Right: Eastman speaks at the so-called “Stop the Steal” rally in support of Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021 (Screengrab via YouTube)
California attorney John Eastman, a key architect of former president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, would like his bar complaint proceedings paused – because he thinks he’s about to be criminally charged, his lawyers say.
That charge, the embattled conservative lawyer contends, would likely come by way of special counsel Jack Smith.
The kibosh request, and the concomitant prediction, were made in a filing submitted on Monday with the State Bar of California by defense attorneys Randall Miller and Zachary Mayer.
The motion asks for the court to consider an abatement “pending resolution of the ongoing federal criminal investigation into an alleged conspiracy involving the efforts by” the former president “and six unnamed co-conspirators to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
That request, if granted, would see the bar disciplinary hearings put on hold for an indeterminate length of time.
In January, the Golden State bar hit Eastman with just shy of a dozen disciplinary charges for “false and misleading statements” alleging fraud in the 2020 election.
“There is nothing more sacrosanct to our American democracy than free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power,” State Bar of California Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona said in a statement. “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.”
The quasi-governmental organization is seeking Eastman’s disbarment as punishment for allegedly violating its internal Business and Professions Code section 6106, which prohibits false and misleading statements that constitute acts of “moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption.”
Eastman, in his capacity as an attorney, authored the controversial and so-called “coup memo,” a six-point plan to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
“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 said in a press release earlier this year.
More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Coup memo’ author and pro-Trump lawyer facing disbarment for false statements about the election is now trying to limit who can vote in primaries
“Had Vice President Pence followed [Eastman’s] baseless advice … the country would have plunged into a ‘profound constitutional crisis,’” the state bar later argued in a pretrial brief. “[Eastman] and Trump’s plan violated our Nation’s most fundamental commitments to the rule of law and the orderly transition of power. And it rested upon transparently false claims of election fraud that continue to harm our democracy to this day.”
The disciplinary hearings against Eastman began in June and they are currently paused at the moment.
The defendant himself has testified for multiple hours during the proceedings – which were put on hold until late August because they were running much longer than anticipated.
Eastman’s Monday motion also asks, alternatively, for a stay that only lasts three months.
Eastman and his attorneys suggest in their motion that such a pause would be long enough to conduct an “updated assessment of the scope of the ongoing investigation, including the recent federal grand jury indictment against Trump, as well as the likelihood that formal charges will be brought against [Eastman].”
The filing continues: “A stay is warranted in the interests of justice, as recent developments in the investigation have renewed and intensified [Eastman’s] concerns that the federal government might bring charges against him and that he will therefore need to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in this proceeding.”
Eastman is widely believed to be unindicted “co-conspirator 2″ in Trump’s indictment on various conspiracy charges.
“The indictment heightens the potential for [Eastman] to be charged as a criminal defendant,” the Monday motion goes on. “When there are parallel criminal and civil proceedings, the defendant faces the difficult choice of asserting his Fifth Amendment right at the risk of losing a non-criminal trial (here, a disciplinary proceeding), or waiving his constitutional right against self-incrimination. Courts have recognized the need to stay civil proceedings to avoid prejudicing the defendant’s rights.”
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