A bipartisan group of lawyers in California is pushing the state bar association to revoke the membership for John Eastman, a Donald Trump lawyer who produced a memo giving false legal rationale that would cover then-Vice President Mike Pence if he wanted to refuse to certify the Electoral College vote and reinstall Trump to the presidency for a second term, CNN reports.
The letter, signed by more than two dozen former government officials, elected officials, academics and scholars, urges the bar to disbar Eastman violated the Rules of Professional Conduct “through his actions in late 2020 and in early January 2021 to assist his client Donald J. Trump in attempts to discredit and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
The Eastman memo gave a six-step process by which Pence could act to keep Trump in the presidency, Eastman claimed, by voiding the Electoral College electors assigned by certain strategic states. The rationale has been dismissed by legal and constitutional experts as flimsy and unjustifiable, however, Trump reportedly did consider it at the time it was presented to him.
“Though much of Mr. Eastman’s conduct involved speech on political subjects, it is not protected by the First Amendment. As the discipline and sanctions already meted out to other Trump attorneys demonstrate, a lawyer representing a politician and dealing directly with courts and third persons is not free to ignore reality. Instead, a lawyer must avoid speech that is intentionally false or deceptive,” the letter states in part.