Disbarment Hearing to Be Livestreamed for Lawyer Who Coached Trump on Tossing Vote

The State Bar Association of California this week will hold a livestreamed disbarment hearing for conservative attorney John Eastman for his role in former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost.

The hearing, scheduled to be streamed Tuesday on the State Bar of California’s website, is expected to draw a significant audience. It will likely last several days.

Eastman plans to call several witnesses, he has said, including Trump.

Eastman said in a recent statement that he is “deeply disappointed” that the California Bar has chosen to “politicize” the process with the streamed hearing.

“It’s a full-fledged trial. They’re pulling out all the stops," he told one-time Trump White House aide Steve Bannon on Bannon's podcast Saturday.

"The Bar is calling me as its first witness on Tuesday, and the judge has ordered that it is going to be livestreamed, so it will be quite a media circus, I suspect," he added.

Eastman has insisted the charges against him are “baseless,” and he is confident that he will be exonerated.

The California Bar filed disciplinary charges against Eastman early this year, alleging that he made false and misleading statements about the 2020 election and that he engaged in a course of conduct to obstruct the certification of the election results.

Eastman left his job as a law professor at Chapman University in Orange County, California, early in 2021, following campus outrage after he spoke at the Jan. 6 rally that year calling the election fraudulent before Trump supporters breached the Capitol.

Under Eastman’s legal theory about upending election results — which he pitched to Trump after he lost the presidential election — states with Republican legislative majorities that President Joe Biden won could opt to appoint alternate slates of electors.

The dispute over the electors would then be resolved by then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was to preside over Congress as it finalized the results of the 2020 election on Jan 6, 2021. (Pence refused to go along with the scheme.)

According to testimony provided to the congressional Jan. 6 select committee, Eastman maintained his theory that Pence could virtually ignore the electoral college results as presented to Congress — and either declare Trump the actual winner, postpone the finalization of the results or call for recounts and new elections.

But such a scheme was lambasted as an "egregious and unprecedented attack on our democracy by the California Bar when it levied its discliplinary charges against Eastman

“For California attorneys, adherence to the U.S. and California Constitutions is their highest legal duty,” George Cardona, the State Bar’s chief trial counsel, said then.

“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.”

If Eastman is disbarred, he will be prohibited from practicing law in California.

He could also face disbarment proceedings in other states.

A number of Trump supporters who followed Eastman's plan and claimed to be legitimate electors to replace actual electors ahead of the vote certification in Congress are also now under investigation.