John Eastman’s six-point memo outlined a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certified election results from key swing states and throw the election back to the state legislatures to decide.
Now a bipartisan group of officials, former judges and legal experts are asking the California Bar Association to investigate Eastman.
The complaint was “also signed by two former justices of the California Supreme Court,” reported the Washington Post, and was filed by a group called the States United Democracy Center, a non-partisan organization co-chaired by Gov. Christie Todd Whitman (R-NJ) and impeachment lawyer Norm Eisen, who also worked in the Obama administration.
The investigation of Eastman is important “because the harm that was done by false claims of election fraud continues to reverberate and is deeply damaging to the nation,” said Eisen.
“The available evidence supports a strong case that the State Bar should investigate whether, in the course of representing Mr. Trump, Mr. Eastman violated his ethical obligations as an attorney by filing frivolous claims, making false statements and engaging in deceptive conduct,” the letter says. “There is also a strong basis to investigate whether Mr. Eastman assisted in unlawful actions by his client, Mr. Trump,” to overturn the election.
Eastman thinks he’ll be “vindicated,” saying that all he was doing in his two-page memo was advocating the right to petition “the government for redress of grievances.”
The memo tells Pence to intervene in the certification of the electoral votes. There was no airing of grievances suggested in the memo or for Pence to address speaking to the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
“One of the grievances was that nothing was being done about acknowledged illegality in the conduct of an election — asserting a constitutional right is not a disbarrable offense,” Eastman claimed in a statement.
There still isn’t any evidence of widespread voter fraud, despite multiple lawsuits, recounts, and partisan audits.
“Evidence indicates that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman initially sought to use the memoranda to force Mr. Pence to set aside ballots,” the complaint against him also says. “If Mr. Eastman ever abandoned that argument, it was only because it had become clear that Mr. Pence would not yield on that issue. Mr. Eastman’s own account implicitly confirms that view, stating that the President’s demand was narrowed to delaying the count only ‘after all was said and done.'”
Eastman is claiming that his speech to the Jan. 6 rally is protected under his free speech rights.
“Is it now disbarrable offense to engage in political speech, first amendment protected?” Eastman said. “These guys are going way out on a limb and it’s going to be very interesting to see the detail of the complaint, and how many causes of action I have for defamation.”