Eastman Preliminarily Found Culpable in California Bar Trial (1)

A California State Bar Court judge on Thursday preliminarily found Trump attorney John Eastman culpable in the 11-count trial on moral and legal violations for allegedly conspiring to invalidate the 2020 presidential election.

After 32 days of testimony, Judge Yvette Roland made “a preliminary finding of culpability,” saying the case will “move forward with not only rebuttal testimony but aggravation.”

Earlier Thursday, Eastman asserted his First Amendment right to speak out as a private citizen and not as counsel to Donald Trump in remarks he made to the rally ahead of the Jan. 6 raid on the US Capitol.

The former Chapman University law professor when asked by Roland said the evidence during the trial “only confirmed” his views “illegality opened the door to fraud,” and that the vice president and not Congress had the authority to resolve disputes over electors.

Eastman maintains that ballots were illegally counted and actions taken by local election authorities without legislative authorization that invalidated the election.

He testified that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to delay counting electoral ballots as president of the Senate to allow states to resolve any disputes. That was disputed by Pence chief counsel Gregory F. Jacob and White House lawyer Eric Herschmann regarding vice presidential authority to reject electoral votes.

Closing arguments in the trial, in which the bar seeks to lift Eastman’s license, are scheduled for Friday, with election officials also set to testify.

Faulty Analysis

Eastman didn’t rely on useful or reliable methodology “for inferring the causal effect of anything” in comparing signature rejection rates on absentee ballots in Georgia, rebuttal witness Stanford University political science professor Justin Grimmer said Thursday.

Grimmer—a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution whose academic research primarily involves Congress, representation, and political methodology—testified in June that the analysis used in Eastman’s court filings relied on “ridiculous” assumptions and errors that didn’t account for a change in the law for how absentee ballot envelopes were designed.

Voters were returning ballots sooner than in previous years, Grimmer said. Some 90% of the lower rejection rates can be accounted for to the decrease in ballots arriving after the deadline and rejections for the “oath envelope” voters sign.

Georgia is among the swing states with Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan in which the Trump campaign challenged voting procedures as illegal.

Grimmer co-authored a National Academy of Sciences research article that reviewed statistical claims used to cast doubt on the 2020 election outcome. The researchers concluded that “none of them is even remotely convincing. The common logic behind these claims is that, if the election were fairly conducted, some feature of the observed 2020 election result would be unlikely or impossible. In each case, we find that the purportedly anomalous fact is either not a fact or not anomalous.”

Aggravating Proof

Election professionals are expected to provide aggravating evidence in support of the the bar. They include Jonathan Marks, Pennsylvania deputy secretary for elections and commissions, and Bo Dul, Arizona state elections director.

During the aggravation phase the bar “intends to submit evidence of harm flowing from false claims that 2020 presidential election was ‘stolen’ and effected by outcome-determinative fraud, including harassment of specific election officials and undermined public trust in election results and the legitimacy of democratic institutions.”

Eastman will get to rebut evidence Friday before the case is submitted. Post-trial briefing is due Nov. 22. Roland has 90 days to issue an appealable decision. The California Supreme Court makes the ultimate decision over lawyer admission and discipline, including disbarment, suspension, or other forms of punishment.

The Office of Chief Trial Counsel represents the bar. Miller Law Associates APC represents Eastman.

The case is In Re Eastman, Cal. State Bar, No. SBC-23-O-30029, hearing 11/2/23.