Former President Trump’s ex-attorney John Eastman downplayed a California judge calling for his disbarment last week, arguing he’s still likely to succeed on appeal and revealing he has been subpoenaed in a separate suit related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The judge recommended that Eastman, who was at the center of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, be disbarred due to his “false and misleading statements” about purported election fraud and his role in “provoking” the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Eastman said in an interview on conservative network Frank Speech on Thursday that “there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge yet” before the state Supreme Court hears his case.
“If the law was faithfully followed, this case should have never been brought in the first place,” he said.
“We had a disagreement on the facts of the 2020 election. We had a disagreement on the constitutional interpretation on issues that have never been settled,” Eastman continued. “That has never been the basis of disciplinary action.”
State Bar Judge Yvette Roland found Eastman culpable in 10 of 11 charges against him.
“In view of the circumstances surrounding Eastman’s misconduct and balancing the aggravation and mitigation, the court recommends that Eastman be disbarred,” she wrote in a 128-page decision.
While his case is under appeal, Eastman is suspended from practicing law in California.
In the interview Thursday, he argued the disbarment is political in nature and “aimed at destroying our adversarial system of justice.”
He also said he has been subpoenaed as part of a civil suit brought by a group of Capitol Police officers against Trump. The officers claim Trump is responsible for Jan. 6, and they hope to elicit financial penalties for the violence they suffered in the riots.
“I just got a subpoena served on us last week by the Capitol Police officers seeking everything, all of my communications with the president and anybody else,” he said. “They’ve completely blown through attorney-client privilege.”
Eastman also remains an important figure in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case against Trump related to the Capitol attack. Eastman denounced the prosecution as also politically motivated, echoing criticism from Trump himself.
“We don’t seem to have any notion of actually pursuing the truth in these criminal matters. It’s all gotchas on your political opponents,” he said. “Anything that they think will advance their agenda to get Trump.”
“That’s part of the game,” he continued. “To keep us tied up, spending our resources on defense against these things, then those are resources and talent that can’t be deployed in furthering elections for people who are sensible and want to get our country back on track.”