General Discussion

Last summer, for example, Kenneth Chesebro, the attorney who was widely credited as the “architect” of the infamous “fake elector” scheme, was disbarred in New York. A year earlier, Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in New York and Washington, D.C. In 2023, Jenna Ellis admitted that she made post-election misrepresentations and had her Colorado license suspended for three years.

Jeffrey Clark, a key figure in Trump’s crusade to remain in the White House after losing, is also facing possible disbarment in the nation’s capital.

And then, of course, there’s John Eastman, who’s a prominent member of the same ignominious club. The Associated Press reported:

A California attorney who aided President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results has lost his license to practice in the state.

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered John Eastman disbarred and his name stricken from the state roll of attorneys. … A judge for the State Bar Court of California in 2024 recommended that he lose his California law license. Eastman argued he was being punished for simply giving legal advice.

.....Eastman was not, however, merely a behind-the-scenes author of a ridiculous memo. The Republican lawyer also effectively played the role of a lobbyist, advocating on behalf of a plot, pleading with officials to go along with the plot, and even appearing at a pre-riot Jan. 6 rally to espouse his outlandish ideas to Trump’s radicalized followers.

As part of these efforts, Eastman also delivered remote testimony to a Georgia state Senate panel on Dec. 3, 2020, and peddled a variety of demonstrably false claims about the election results. The lawyer even told state lawmakers at the time that “the election can’t be validly certified.” (His advice was ignored.)

Years later, after Trump returned to power, the president pardoned dozens of people who participated in his post-2020 plot, including Eastman, but the clemency only applied to federal crimes, and had no bearing on the disbarment process.

The president who avoided accountability, in other words, couldn’t prevent one of his allied lawyers from facing consequences.