stands onstage as Rudy Giuliani speaks in Washington on January 6, 2021. An audience member asked, "Why do you think Mike Pence didn't do it?" Advertisement. Mr. Eastman was the brother of Linda McCartney, Mr. McCartneys first wife, and Lee was her father. But Eastman seemed to initially enter Trumps orbit after a 2019 appearance on Fox News, which led Trump to invite Eastman to the Oval Office, the New York Times reported last year. That was what Dr Eastman was urging. He then earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Government from the Claremont Graduate School. ET: This story has been updated to include more information about the disciplinary charges from the notice filed by the bar. 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. An. Survivors of Italy's migrant shipwreck weep over their dead He was fierce when it came to protecting artists rights, Mr. Joel said in a statement to The New York Times, and I credit him with whatever longevity I have achieved in my career.. 'Coup Memo' Lawyer Loses Bid To Hold Up Records He Warns - HuffPost Eastman had not previously asserted privilege. The pair were linked both personally and . John Eastman: Wikipedia, Children, Biography, Partner, Profession, Net The bar review of John Eastman's conduct in the run-up to and aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection has begun, and how the case unfolds is uncertain. "[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. 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? Law Professor John Eastman on Steve Bannon's War Room Explains Why Despite their enormous success, the Beatles were then on the brink of insolvency. "[118][119] In March 2022, the State Bar of California announced that since September 2021, it had been investigating claims of possible violations of law and ethics rules by Eastman. Jan. 6 committee recommends charges against John Eastman - Los Angeles Trump lawyer John Eastman referred for prosecution by Jan. 6 committee "My dear brother-in-law, John Eastman, has passed . A federal judge in California previously found that Trump and Eastman more likely than not violated two felony statutes in their attempts to overturn the election: obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States. 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. [57], On December 9, 2020, Eastman represented Trump in a motion to intervene in Texas v. Pennsylvania, a case filed directly in the U.S. Supreme Court by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, in which the state of Texas sought to annul the voting processes and, by extension, the electoral college results of at least four other states. Thanks for contacting us. Trump lawyer linked to 'coup memo' tells judge claims of criminal He was 83. Eastman still persisted with his election fraud claims long after that date, through at least Jan. 6, 2021. A fed-up Herschmann claims he insisted that Eastman only talk about an orderly transition in the future, and encouraged Eastman to find a great fing criminal defense lawyeryoure going to need it.. Eastman first emerged as a Trump-affiliated lawyer in December 2020, when he filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to let Trump intervene in a longshot lawsuit to toss out election results in four swing states won by Joe Biden, which ultimately failed. Giuliani will join his colleague John Eastman in the dubious distinction of . The committee has now authorized Jessica Yates, the attorney regulation counsel, to file a formal complaint against Ellis with the presiding disciplinary judge, according to Yates. John Eastman searched and had phone seized by federal agents last - CNN [68][69][70], On January 2, 2021, Eastman joined Trump, the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and others in a conference call with 300 Republican legislators from Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to brief them on allegations of voter fraud, with the objective of the legislators attempting to decertify their states' election results. John Eastman is an American lawyer with an estimated net worth of $5 million. The filing included an excerpt of a January 6 email exchange with Pence aide Greg Jacob in which Eastman stated, "I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation [of the Electoral Count Act] and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations, as well as to allow a full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that has occurred here. [109], Days after it became known Eastman and Thomas had communicated by email, Eastman posted on his new Substack blog one email that he captioned, "OMG, Mrs. Thomas asked me to give an update about election litigation to her group. On that day, Eastman emailed a Pence aide claiming the attack on the Capitol happened because the vice president did not do what was necessary, the Washington Post reported. His reporting on the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell was featured on the Starz and Channel 4 documentary "Who Is Ghislaine Maxwell?" The Thomas email was among those Carter ordered Eastman to release to the January 6 committee. The others had other ideas. A University of Chicago Law School graduate who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Eastman has taught constitutional law for decades. (Reuters) -California attorney regulators said on Thursday they will seek to disbar attorney John Eastman over his involvement in former U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The regulatory group said itll seek the revocation of Eastmans law license after charging him with 11 ethics violations for allegedly making false statements in public, and for misleading courts. Kowalke and NJP lawyer Goriune Dudukgian argued Eastman's lifetime membership in the far-right group made him disloyal and therefore ineligible to hold office in Alaska under the state . Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis faces imminent formal complaint in Eastman's brief included an array of unfounded claims and asserted "It is not necessary for [Trump] to prove that fraud occurred," and asserted it was enough to show that elections "materially deviated" from the intent of state lawmakers, adding, "By failing to follow the rule of law, these officials put our nation's belief in elected self-government at risk. How An Anti-Abortion Law Firm Teamed Up With A Disgraced Kansas Trump lawyer Eastman should be disbarred, California regulators say In the December 4, 2020 email, Thomas invited Eastman to speak four days later at a gathering of "Frontliners," which she described as a group of "grassroots state leaders." The John Eastman Coup Memo Is Not a Joke | The New Republic John Eastman, the former brother-in-law of Paul McCartney, died at age 83 of pancreatic cancer, the former Beatle announced on social media on Thursday. John Eastman, an entertainment lawyer and brother of Paul McCartney's first wife, Linda, nabbed a Carnegie Hill co-op for $26.5 million, property records show. [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. [105], In a late-night court filing on May 19, 2022, Eastman disclosed he had routinely communicated with Trump directly or via "six conduits" regarding legal strategy leading up to January 6, detailing "two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation." Scholars say there's no VP eligibility debate", "The White Supremacist "Scholars" Pushing the Kamala Harris Birther Lie", "Newsweek apologizes for op-ed questioning Harris eligibility", "Ahead of Jan. 6, Willard hotel in downtown D.C. was a Trump team 'command center' for effort to deny Biden the presidency", "During Jan. 6 riot, Trump attorney told Pence team the vice president's inaction caused attack on Capitol", "Trump lawyer John Eastman said 'courage and the spine' would help Pence send election to the House in comments before January 6", "Trump Lawyer Blamed Pence for Violence as Rioters Stormed Capitol - John Eastman, the author of a memo that some in both parties liken to a blueprint for a coup, sent a hostile email to the vice president's chief counsel as the mob attacked", "Washington Post: Trump lawyer John Eastman blamed Pence for January 6 violence by refusing to block 2020 election certification", "The most shocking new revelation about John Eastman - He and Trump were not just pressing forward despite the mob; they apparently were trying to leverage it", "Memo shows Trump lawyer's six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election", "UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN DIVISION JOHN C. EASTMAN Plaintiff, vs. BENNIE G. THOMPSON, et al., Defendants. Trump lawyer John Eastman takes Fifth at Georgia grand jury And one day later, Eastman called White House attorney Eric Herschmann to discuss legal efforts in Georgia, Herschmann told the January 6 committee in testimony released this week. [25], Following law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court of the United States; he then was an attorney with the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, specializing in civil and constitutional litigation. 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. "[123], On January 9, 2021, the chairman of Chapman's board of trustees and two other members (including former Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez) called on the university's president and provost and the law school's dean "to promptly take action against Eastman for his role in the events of Jan. Chapman School of Law professor John Eastman testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 16, 2017. The two-page memo from attorney John Eastman first was reported in the new book "Peril" by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa; CNN also obtained a copy of the plan, which hinged on Electoral College . Federal authorities had not identified the man as an antifa activist. [71][72] That same day, together with Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn, he appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast The War Room and promoted the idea that state lawmakers needed to reconsider the election results. His father, who had changed his name from Leopold Epstein, set up a successful legal practice representing high-profile musicians, artists and writers, among them the bandleader Tommy Dorsey and the songwriters Harold Arlen and Hal David. The lawyer spoke at Trumps rally that day at the Ellipse. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Its not clear when Eastman formally became Trumps attorney, but he revealed in a legal filing last month that he sometimes communicated directly with Trump, and the former president sent the attorney at least two hand-written notes.. 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. Lee Eastman died in 1991, and Linda McCartney died in 1998. Eastman responded that "Mike Pence is an establishment guy" who fears that Trump is "destroying the inside-the-Beltway Republican Party. "[101] Eastman's assertion of privilege for 101 emails was rejected by Judge David O. Carter in March 2022, who ordered the emails to be produced to the committee. According to the warrant, the phone was to be taken to a forensic lab of the Department of Justices Office of Inspector General. 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. [27], Eastman has represented the North Carolina legislature and the State of Arizona in unsuccessfully petitioning the Supreme Court in cases involving same-sex marriage,[28] abortion,[29] and immigration. [13][14] Pence did not accept Eastman's argument. On Thursday, McCartney, 80, posted to Instagram to share that Eastman, who was the brother of McCartney's late wife Linda McCartney, has died. His editing was reverted due to conflict-of-interest rules of Wikipedia, and on January 9 he appealed on the article's talk page, where some changes were approved but others were denied.[132]. California bar unveils disciplinary charges against Trump lawyer John 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. The next year, after briefly working in the office of the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, he and his father set up Eastman & Eastman. Then he became influential with Donald Trump and counseled him on how to retain power after losing the election. Trump lawyer Herschmann testified that on the morning of Jan. 6 he received a call from. 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. As the House January 6 panel unpacks the results of its months-long probe, lawmakers are expected to spend part of their Thursday hearing examining the role of John Eastman, a once-obscure legal scholar who vaulted into former President Donald Trumps inner circle ahead of the Capitol riot by pushing dubious legal strategies to keep Trump in office. John Eastman, the mediocre lawyer who apparently participated in a treasonous effort to veto the 2020 U.S. Presidential popular vote and electoral count, resides in Santa Fe, which annoys many . [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." The 11 charges arise from allegations that Eastman engaged in a course of conduct to plan, promote, and assist then-President Trump in executing a strategy, unsupported by facts or law, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states, the bar wrote in a press release. [106], On June 7, Carter ruled that Eastman must disclose an additional 159 sensitive documents to the committee. 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. [6][7][8], Eastman was a key participant in the subsequent attempts to overturn the election;[9][10][11][12] during President Donald Trump's last efforts before the certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory, Eastman incorrectly told Vice President Mike Pence in an Oval Office meeting, on January 5, 2021, that Pence had the constitutional authority to block the certification. As the president's actual attorneys backed away from his coup, Eastman rushed in to . John Eastman graduated from Stanford University in 1961 and from the New York University School of Law in 1964. [125][127], The University of Colorado cancelled Eastman's Spring 2021 courses due to low enrollment. [39][40] He is chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage. "John was a great man," McCartney wrote in an Instagram post announcing Eastman's death. "[53] Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe was similarly dismissive, telling The New York Times "I hadnt wanted to comment on [Eastmans idea] because it's such an idiotic theory. [31], In 1990 Eastman was unopposed in the primary to become the Republican challenger of long-time 34th District incumbent Esteban Torres in California's San Gabriel Valley. Eastman emailed Giuliani, saying "I've decided that I should be on the pardon list if that is still in the works." [35] On April 1, a Superior Court judge denied Eastman's choice for ballot designation as "Assistant Attorney General", fearing that use of this title, temporarily granted by South Dakota for his work on a lawsuit, would be misperceived as a California title. Ten documents related to three December 2020 meetings by a secretive group strategizing about how to overturn the election, which included what Carter characterized as a "high-profile" leader. [23], In 1989, prior to attending law school, Eastman served as the director of Congressional and public affairs at the United States Commission on Civil Rights. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Eastman wrote a controversial op-ed in August 2020 that falsely suggested the then-presumed Democratic nominee for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was not an American citizen and thus not legally eligible for the position. citizen. Chesebro responded: "the odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be 'wild' chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way." The case was settled; the terms were not disclosed, but Mr. McCartney has been registering the American ownership of those rights under MPL. [30], He testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2014 arguing that President Barack Obama's unilateral suspension of deportation for undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional. Donald Trump appears to have committed multiple felonies as he sought to return himself to power on 6 January, a judge said in a Monday ruling that ordered the Trump lawyer John Eastman to. (Chesebro apparently referred to Trump's tweet five days earlier inviting supporters to a "wild" January 6 protest.) I still cannot understand why Paul acted as he did, George Harrison said in an affidavit. 26, 2023, at 5:38 p.m. Chesebro continued, "We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt." 6." Mr. McCartney half-complied: He appeared in a suit, but no tie. They developed a specialty in working with pop musicians whose business had suffered under previous representatives. The right-wing attorney who authored " coup memos " for Donald Trump and supporters on how to scuttle the presidential election lost a court battle Friday to hold back his documents from the House select committee investigating last year's Jan. 6 insurrection. 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. [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". John Eastman, the Trump-allied lawyer who wrote memos urging then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results, said in a court filing Monday that federal agents seized his. In 2017, Mr. Eastman steered a lawsuit by Mr. McCartney against Sony/ATV, the music publisher (now known as Sony Music Publishing), to regain his share of the United States copyrights in Beatles songs that he wrote with Mr. Lennon, citing an amendment to federal law that allows creators to recapture those rights after set periods. Some of the records sought by the January 6 panel could offer new insight into Eastmans work. Tuesday, March 1, 2022 Categories: News Releases The State Bar of California's Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona announced today that since September 2021, his office has been conducting an investigation of John Charles Eastman (State Bar No. 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. For the member of the Wisconsin State Senate, see, Legal strategies to reject electoral votes, Actions during the January 6th attack on the Capitol, United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 2010 California Attorney General election, challenge the results of the 2020 United States presidential election, Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege, List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 10), "Who is 'Coup Memo' author John Eastman and what role did he play in pushing Trump's plan to derail democracy? The 61-year-old lawyer's rsum features some of the top credentials of the conservative legal movement: clerkships with former Judge Michael Luttig and Justice Clarence Thomas, the chairmanship. Its unclear if Eastman had information on the high court's usually-secretive deliberations. Eastman subsequently implored Vice President Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act to delay certification of the election,[16] via Pence's legal counsel Greg Jacob, who responded by calling Eastman a "serpent in the ear of the president of the United States". How Lawyers John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark Breathed Life Into Trump's [110][111][107], On June 22, 2022, several FBI agents approached him as he was leaving a New Mexico restaurant and, pursuant to a warrant, seized his phone. [26], Eastman served as an attorney for the State of South Dakota, representing it in a denied petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in a constitutional challenge to federal spending. 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. John Eastman, Brother-in-Law of Paul McCartney, Dies at 83 - TheWrap Axios also criticized Eastman for dismissing the eligibility concerns of 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz, born in Calgary, Canada, in a 2016 National Review op-ed, claiming they were "silly". Carter found that one Eastman email exchange showed Trump had sworn under oath that the number of alleged voting fraud cases his attorneys cited in a Georgia federal suit was accurate, though he knew it was not. Lawyer John Eastman had claimed the situation had turned him into a "pseudo . John Eastman, 83, Entertainment Lawyer | The East Hampton Star [52], Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School, told the BBC, "Under section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen. [2][3] He is a former professor and dean at the Chapman University School of Law. - No, John Eastman, you can't edit your own article here", "Born in the USA-Rethinking Birthright Citizenship in the Wake of 9/11. The Supreme Court has held this since the 1890s. Emailus. ", Video (4:48) John Eastman Defends Trying To Overturn 2020 Election, Dean of the Chapman University School of Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Eastman&oldid=1139934632, Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States, National Organization for Marriage people, Controversies of the 2020 United States presidential election, Pages using cite court with unknown parameters, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 17 February 2023, at 16:12. The strategy hinged partly on a dubious plan to get swing-state Republicans to sign off on alternate electors falsely deeming Trumpnot Bidento be the winner of their states: In a set of December 2020 emails to one Pennsylvania GOP lawmaker, Eastman suggested legislators could assert the right to appoint an alternate slate of electors or subtract mail-in ballots from Trump and Bidens totals at a prorated amount.. Eastman . 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. A state bar courthas to rule on the charges Eastman faces and then recommend a discipline if they rule against him. Jacob wrote to Eastman, "Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege."