[22], Eastman graduated from the Dallas-area Lewisville High School and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Dallas. Bar discipline is an instrument ill-suited to . [114] Federal investigators obtained a subsequent warrant to search the phone on July 12. Eastman had not previously asserted privilege. The Bar's investigation, announced Tuesday, March 1, focuses on whether Eastman "engaged in conduct in violation of California law and ethics rules governing attorneys following and in . In 35-page notice of the disciplinary charges, the bars supervising attorney Duncan Carling wrote that Eastman had every opportunity to learn that his election fraud claims were baseless, including from top Trump officials. The state bar of California charged Eastman, a former personal lawyer to Trump, with 11 counts of ethics violations, including misleading courts and making false public statements about voter. An entertainment attorney for high-profile clients, he was central to a battle over control of the Beatles business empire in the last days of the band. The lawyer spoke at Trumps rally that day at the Ellipse. The Beatles' Sir Paul McCartney recently took to his Instagram to mourn the death of his brother-in-law, John Eastman, who was also his lawyer. The request came a few days after a heated exchange between Herschmann and Eastman that ended with Herschmann suggesting that Eastman hire a criminal defense lawyer. There is nothing to it. Mr. McCartney had hired the Eastmans, father and son, to be his representatives and tried to persuade his three bandmates to put them in charge of the groups affairs. Thanks for contacting us. Trump lawyer John Eastman takes Fifth at Georgia grand jury Key Points A lawyer who pushed to overturn the 2020 election loss of then-President Donald Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Pompeo calls $31 trillion national debt indecent at CPAC, Trump recites Pledge of Allegiance in collaboration on new song with J6 Prison Choir, Bidens laughable, late-to-the-game crackdown on massive COVID fraud, 2024 presidential hopeful Nikki Haley heckled by Trump supporters at CPAC, made similar statements outside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. John Charles Eastman (born 1960) is an American lawyer who is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the conservative think tank Claremont Institute. John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who helped lead former President Donald Trump's legal efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election, is facing disciplinary action in . Just days after the Capitol riot, over 100 Chapman University faculty members signed an open letter arguing Eastman does not belong on our campus, and Chapman President Daniele Struppa denounced Eastman but rebuffed calls to fire him. Eastman responded that he was speaking two miles away from the Capitol building. Washington A federal judge on Tuesday ordered John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who devised the legal strategy to keep former President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election . [51] However, Axios noted that other constitutional scholars do not accept Eastman's view, labeling it "baseless". Eastman wrote: "the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices spines." A University of Chicago Law School graduate who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Eastman has taught constitutional law for decades. John Eastman graduated from Stanford University in 1961 and from the New York University School of Law in 1964. We've received your submission. Later in the day, when the rioters were expelled from the Capitol and Pence was again presiding over Congress, Eastman told Jacob in another e-mail that Pence should still refuse to certify the election results:[83] Now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations as well as to allow the full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that occurred here, Eastman wrote. [121] On January 26, 2023, Eastman was charged with multiple disciplinary counts by the State Bar of California. His mother had inherited a fortune from the Lindner department store in Cleveland. Aside from Mr. McCartney, they were best known for working with Mr. Joel in the late 1980s and early 90s, when he sued his former manager and lawyer. John Eastman, a law professor at the Fowler School of Law at Chapman University who had drawn increasing scrutiny over his controversial involvement with some of Donald Trump's more. Trump lawyer John Eastman, left, is seen in a video during a hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on Thursday. Eastman Trumps personal lawyer when he was in office penned a six-step legal plan claiming then-Vice President Mike Pence didnt have to accept the election results in certain swing states, which Pence rejected. John Eastman on Thursday, April 29, 2021. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images). John Eastman, a Republican lawyer who allegedly played a leading role in the overall coup scheme, reportedly pleaded the Fifth with both the Jan. 6 committee and a Georgia special grand jury . Any discipline such as suspension or disbarring then has to be approved by the California Supreme Court. Eastman disclosed the. Eastmans lawyer Randall Miller said in a statement that his client disputes every aspect of the Bars allegations, claiming Eastman shouldnt be penalize for simply offering legal advice to Trump. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his son Lee, a partner in their longstanding Manhattan family law firm, Eastman & Eastman. [38], Eastman is chairman of the Federalist Society's practice group on federalism and separation of powers. "[107], On June 15, 2022, the Washington Post reported that the January 6 committee had recently acquired emails between Eastman and Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas,[108] and the New York Times reported that the committee had obtained the EastmanChesebro email exchange from December 24, 2020. [57], In early December 2020, Trump contacted Eastman, asking him to challenge the results of the 2020 United States presidential election before the Supreme Court. No law professor played a bigger role in Donald Trump's plot to overturn the election than John Eastman. [128] The university also revoked some of Eastman's public-facing duties but permitted him to conduct scholarship. He was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. He said he would continue with his Spring 2021 position as Visiting Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy at the University of Colorado and intended to then devote full-time effort to his position as director of the Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. ET: This story has been updated to include more information about the disciplinary charges from the notice filed by the bar. John Eastman, left, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, appears with Rudolph W. Giuliani at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection. [116] One of the eight emails showed Eastman agreeing with Chesebro that bringing a legal argument to Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas would be "our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress." John L. Eastman, McCartneys Lawyer in Beatles Strife, Dies at 83, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/arts/music/john-l-eastman-dead.html. citizen. In the email, Eastman described a plan by which the Pennsylvania legislature could act to reverse Biden's victory in the state and declare Trump the winner. During his time in law school, Eastman worked on the University of Chicago Law Review. Trump lawyer John Eastman, left, is seen in a video during a hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on Thursday. But John Lennon and the other Beatles had selected another New Yorker to manage the group: Allen Klein, who had worked with Sam Cooke and the Rolling Stones. Eastman is the author of the so-called coup memo, a six-point plan to overturn the election results. Even after the insurrection, Eastman was still trying to overturn the election Even after Jan. 6, Eastman was still talking about the 2020 election not yet being certain. Rather, the op-ed focused on the "long-standing, somewhat arcane legal debate about the precise meaning of the phrase 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' in the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment", also known as the jus sanguinis or jus soli debate. Some legal experts said his continued efforts might increase his criminal legal exposure, though if he were charged he might assert his persistent efforts showed he truly believed the election was stolen. Several news outlets reported Wednesday the committee got emails between Eastman and Ginni Thomas, a right-wing activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who pushed to overturn Bidens winbut the emails contents arent known. Separately, in one December 2020 email, Eastman alluded to a heated fight over whether the Supreme Court should take up an election challenge, the New York Times reported Wednesday. John Eastman and his wife Elizabeth C'de Baca Eastman. [79][80][81][82], During the Capitol storming, when Pence was forced into hiding, Eastman exchanged e-mails with Greg Jacob, Pence's chief counsel. Anyone can read what you share. "[61] On December 13, 2020, 159 Chapman University faculty members (including two from the law school) published a statement condemning Eastman for the filing. It Wasn't Pretty", "Fact check: No, Pence can't overturn the election results", "AP FACT CHECK: Trump's false claims, fuel on a day of chaos", "FACT CHECK: What Pence And Congress Can And Can't Do About The Election", "Chapman University will not fire law professor who spoke at pro-Trump Capitol rally", "Chapman University President Condemns Controversial Law Professor Who Aided Trump", "CU Boulder won't fire conservative scholar who spread "repugnant" conspiracy theories at D.C. rally", "Faculty call for firing of Chapman University professor who spoke at pro-Trump rally", "What if there had been no adults in the room on January 6? [124][125] Four days later, Chapman announced that Eastman had agreed to retire from the university, and the university's president, Daniele C. Struppa, said that Eastman and the university had "agreed not to engage in legal actions of any kind, including any claim of defamation that may currently exist, as both parties move forward". And Eastman wasn't the only one of Trump's legal henchman who knew the plan wasn't legally viable. John Lindner Eastman was born on July 10, 1939, in Manhattan, and grew up in Scarsdale, N.Y., the eldest of four children of Lee and Louise Lindner Eastman. The Thomas email was among those Carter ordered Eastman to release to the January 6 committee. FBI seized the phone of former President Donald Trump's election attorney John Eastman last week, according to a new court filing from the conservative lawyer. Many fans offered condolences after reading Paul's heartfelt . [62], On December 22, 2020, Ivan Raiklin, an attorney and associate of Michael Flynn, tweeted to Trump a two-page memo entitled "Operation Pence Card," which Trump retweeted two days later. "[54] One day after publishing Eastman's op-ed, Newsweek published an opinion piece by legal scholar Eugene Volokh, titled "Yes, Kamala Harris is Eligible to be Vice President", in which Volokh argues that Harris is a "natural-born citizen" under the U.S. Constitution and is therefore eligible to be vice president.