March 28, 2024 10:26 AM UTC

It's Official: Colorado Republicans Need A New Lawyer

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• by: Colorado Pols

As CNN reported late yesterday, the California State Bar Court has ruled that John Eastman, former University of Colorado “conservative scholar” and attorney for the Colorado Republican Party in their unsuccessful attempt to exclude unaffiliated voters from their primaries–and most importantly for today, the architect of ex-President Donald Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election–will, after an exhaustive process, lose his license to practice law.

Eastman will lose his ability to practice law within days, because the court’s decision involuntarily revokes his license, according to the opinion.

Judge Yvette Roland’s opinion comes after a lengthy trial about Eastman’s actions as he led some of the efforts for Donald Trump to challenge his 2020 election loss. The opinion serves as a recommendation to the California Supreme Court, which will ultimately decide whether to endorse or reject the punishment. Eastman will have the opportunity to appeal Roland’s ruling.

Still, the judge’s opinion marks a major step in the consequences for lawyers who propelled false theories of election fraud on Trump’s behalf.

“Eastman failed to uphold his primary duty of honesty and breached his ethical obligations by presenting falsehoods to bolster his legal arguments,” Roland wrote.

NPR has more from Judge Yvette Roland’s scathing judgment:

“Eastman’s wrongdoing constitutes exceptionally serious ethical violations warranting severe professional discipline,” wrote California State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland in her decision. “Eastman made multiple patently false and misleading statements in court filings, in public remarks heard by countless Americans and to others regarding the conduct of the 2020 presidential election and Vice President Pence’s authority to refuse to count or delay counting properly certified slates of electoral votes on January 6, 2021.”

Judge Roland also criticized Eastman’s defiant response to the allegations against him.

“His lack of insight into the wrongfulness of his misconduct is deeply troubling,” wrote Judge Roland. [Pols emphasis] “While Eastman is entitled to defend himself, his conduct goes beyond this, revealing a complete failure to understand the wrongfulness of his actions.”

Although the recommendation that Eastman’s license to practice law be revoked still must be confirmed by the California Supreme Court, Eastman doesn’t get to continue practicing law awaiting that or any appeal period, with his license automatically placed on an “involuntary inactive” status. It’s worth noting how, consistent with every case involving the “Big Lie,” Eastman’s complete lack of contrition completely backfired in court. The falsehoods that sustain the “Big Lie” and generate sympathy for conspirators like Eastman outside court are irrelevant before a judge who knows better.

Eastman’s impending disbarment leaves a trail of embarrassment in his wake across Colorado, starting with the “conservative affirmative action” program that brought Eastman to the University of Colorado’s payroll just before he took the job of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential elections. Eastman’s disgrace led to calls for CU to close the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization. The decision by the Colorado Republican Party to hire Eastman in their unsuccessful legal challenges to Colorado’s semi-open primary laws was a middle finger to Eastman’s critics and an embrace of the election denial that made Eastman a household name.

Improbably to say the least, Trump’s re-election campaign is charging ahead, even as the co-conspirators from Trump’s last failed campaign end their careers in disgrace and plead guilty to felony charges. Eastman losing his law license is an ominous sign for another attorney who helped with the 2020 coup attempt, Jenna Ellis, facing a second complaint after her felony guilty plea in Georgia with Colorado attorney regulators that could end in her own disbarment. Eastman himself still has his impending criminal trial in Georgia, and as one of the top conspirators he may not escape without some quality time in Georgia’s famously unpleasant pokey.

To paraphrase Trump, it’s so much winning that everyone except Trump should be very, very tired of winning.