FILE — Attorney John Eastman, the architect of a legal strategy aimed at keeping former President Donald Trump in power, talks to reporters after a hearing in Los Angeles, June 20, 2023 (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File).
Doubly indicted and facing disbarment, California attorney John Eastman reportedly lent his expertise to another Republican Party candidate who lost an election — though the lawyer himself quickly disputed this claim.
In the 2024 general election, incumbent Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, bested her GOP rival, bank executive Eric Hovde, by a small but substantial margin of some 28,000-plus votes with 99% of results in — just shy of a one percentage point victory.
On Tuesday, exactly one week after losing the election, Hovde admitted his “loss” in a lengthy video posted on X (formerly Twitter).
The failed candidate noted that the narrow defeat would legally allow him to request a recount under Badger State law but expressed some measure of doubt as to whether he would actually request one. At the same time, Hovde also cast doubt on the integrity of the election.
“Many people have reached out to me with concerns about the voting inconsistencies we experienced on Election Day,” the caption to the video reads.
Hovde goes on to complain about Baldwin securing her margin of victory by a series of ballots cast by residents of Milwaukee — which he says broke for her by a margin of “nearly 90%.”
“Statistically, this seems improbable,” Hovde tells the camera. “Because it didn’t match the pattern from same-day voting in Milwaukee, where I received 22% of the votes. Since last Wednesday, numerous parties have reached out to me about voting inconsistencies such as: certain voting precincts in Milwaukee having turnout of over 150% of registered voters; and in some cases over 200%.”
Many people have reached out to me with concerns about the voting inconsistencies we experienced on Election Day. Here are my thoughts: pic.twitter.com/zDvaeHaizw
— Eric Hovde (@EricHovde) November 12, 2024
In Wisconsin, voters can register and vote on the same day — including election day. Because of same-day registration, many precincts exceed 100% of registered voters.
Hovde sidestepped this feature of his state’s electoral system — seemingly as part of an effort to lend credence to his aforementioned claims of “voting inconsistencies.” Later on, however, Hovde mentioned a “surge” of same-day registrations — within the context of Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote totals compared to those received by President Joe Biden in 2020.
The aspersions cast on the election were ridiculed, criticized and dismissed by Baldwin, other Wisconsin Republicans, and local media.
There is, to date, no evidence anything untoward occurred during Wisconsin’s election this year. Counties are still reviewing ballots and canvassing must be complete by Nov. 19 before the state will formally certify the results by Dec. 1.
Hovde has held out the option of a recount without committing one way or another. The upshot of his doubt-sewing video is unclear.
Also on Tuesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Eastman was “advising Hovde on his decisions,” citing a “Republican official.”
Eastman, for his part, denied the claim in comments to Matt Smith, a reporter with Milwaukee-based ABC affiliate WISN.
“That assertion is false, as I am not advising Mr. Hovde or anyone connected with him, or anyone else for that matter, about election issues in Wisconsin,” Eastman said in a statement.
Eastman, of course, is currently ineligible to practice law, according to his profile with The State Bar of California.
A former law professor, Eastman was indicted once in Georgia, and then again in Arizona, for pushing the bogus legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 election outcome on Jan. 6 by accepting “alternate slates of electors.”
In January 2023, a disciplinary case was filed against Eastman over his role in Donald Trump’s election subversion efforts.
In March, after a judge said the “scale and egregiousness of Eastman’s unethical actions” eclipsed those of a Watergate-era attorney for Richard Nixon, his law license was suspended.
While State Bar Court Judge Yvette D. Roland recommended Eastman’s disbarment, the full process has yet to play out.
Efforts to regain the ability to practice law have, so far, failed.
In early April, Eastman filed a 50-page motion with the California State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel asking to stay the judge’s order recommending his disbarment — pleading with the court to allow him to ply his trade so he could make money and represent his clients.
Bar authorities fired back several days later — saying the pleading had been “stunningly deficient” to unpause the ban.
By early May, Roland issued a terse order rejecting the bid for leniency by citing the “gravity of Eastman’s transgressions, particularly those involving moral turpitude, and the increased likelihood of future misconduct due to his refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing.”
A spokesperson for the State Bar of California said they had no comment on the Hovde claim but reiterated that “Mr. Eastman remains ineligible to practice law in California.”
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