Tag Archives: Chapman University School of Law

The Double Standard Is Still With Us

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On Monday, Townhall posted an article about John Eastman being disbarred by the California Supreme Court. In 2024, a judge on California’s State Bar Court ordered John Eastman’s disbarment, but the decision was appealed. In the meantime, John Eastman was suspended from practicing law.

The article reports:

The California Supreme Court officially disbarred President Donald Trump’s former attorney, John Eastman, last week over his work assisting Trump to dispute the 2020 election results. Eastman merely provided options for Trump to consider in a legal memo — some of which would have resulted in Joe Biden winning the election — and drafted and filed a brief for him in the election challenge Texas v. Pennsylvania. In contrast, none of the attorneys involved in the 2000 election challenge representing Al Gore over “hanging chads” in Florida were disciplined.

John Eastman’s background is impressive. He is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public-interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute. He is a former professor and former professor and former dean at Chapman University School of Law. He is also a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. At one point he was a frequent guest on the Hugh Hewitt radio show discussing the law and current issues. He is a very clear thinking lawyer. He is a man I would love to see on the Supreme Court. He should not have been disbarred, and I am sure the decision will be appealed.

The article concludes:

Other leftist attorneys around the country are also getting free passes from state bars. Marc Elias, working with Perkins Coie, paid Fusion GPS to produce the Steele dossier and concealed the payment structure in FEC filings. The FEC fined the DNC and Clinton campaign for misreporting the payments as legal services. Special Counsel John Durham prosecuted Michael Sussmann for lying to the FBI about whether he was representing the Clinton campaign. Sussmann was later acquitted. Andrew Weissmann aggressively prosecuted Arthur Andersen, destroying the company, but the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the conviction. Critics accused Weissman of Brady violations — failing to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense and eliciting false testimony from a key government witness. Other witnesses testified that they felt pressured by the prosecution.

The disbarment of Eastman has set a terrible precedent. The law has been used to punish people merely for practicing their profession. Fortunately, the adults on the U.S. Supreme Court are likely to take his appeal. Although they only accept about 80 cases a year, they favor high-profile cases. This issue personally relates to them as lawyers, and Eastman is widely considered the top constitutional scholar on the right.

We have a lot of work to do to clean up our justice system.

The Harassment Continues

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On Tuesday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article about Attorney John Eastman. Attorney Eastman has an impressive record as an attorney. He is the founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the conservative think tank Claremont Institute. He is a former professor and dean at the Chapman University School of Law. He is also a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

His phone was recently seized by the FBI as he was leaving a restaurant. He was not shown a warrant for the seizure until after his phone was taken.

On Monday, The Washington Times reported:

Eastman said the agents who approached him identified themselves as from the FBI but appeared to be serving a warrant on behalf of the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which he contends has no jurisdiction to investigate him since he has never worked for the department. He said the cell phone that was seized contains emails that have been the subject of a months-long dispute between him and the House panel.

“That litigation has received extensive media attention, so it is hard to imagine that the Department of Justice, which apparently submitted the application for the warrant at issue here, was not aware of it,” wrote his lawyers, Charles Burnham and Joseph Gribble. 

There is little doubt that Attorney Eastman’s phone was seized because of his work on behalf of President Trump to investigate election fraud.

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

The AP covers the story here. Orin Kerr takes up the legality of the search and seizure in a Twitter thread here. We remain to be illuminated on the criminal law for which the FBI claims it has probable cause against Eastman. Late in the thread he notes that the warrant does not extend beyond the seizure of John’s phone (i.e., it covers seizure only).

Eastman’s close encounter with the FBI last week was obviously coordinated with the close encounters of Trump Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark and Nevada GOP chairman Michael McDonald. The FBI appears to have taken up the role of the ruling party’s enforcement arm.

We are rapidly approaching banana-republic status if we have not reached it already.