I am pleased to report that “Round Two” in defeating the lawfare assault against me before the California State Bar is now underway.
We have filed our opening brief challenging the outrageous recommendation that I be disbarred from the practice of law following what I believe to be the longest and most expensive Bar hearing process in California history.
I consider our opening brief to be a tour de force. We didn’t mince words about the unfairness of the Bar’s prosecution of me and the incredible bias shown by the judge handling the matter:
“In sum, this prosecution should never have taken place. It is, rather, a manifestation of George Orwell’s dystopic depiction of authoritarianism – statements by the Government, no matter how demonstrably false or suspect, must be accepted as true.”
I’ll explain more about the incredible job my legal team has done with this appeal, but I do have to pause to explain the tremendous toll it has taken on my finances. The Bar trial encompassed 34 days of courtroom proceedings over 11 weeks. Months and months of legal work by me and my team went into preparing for the proceedings, and substantial additional work has been done to appeal the ridiculous ruling against me.
I’ve spent about $1.5 million on this and other cases I’m facing because of lawfare radicals, and my legal defense fund is exhausted. I’m looking at needing more than that to defend myself going forward.
I can’t carry this on my own, so I ask you to please make an immediate financial gift to my legal defense fund so I have the resources needed to fight the radicals.
The burden in such a Bar Court process seeking review of a judge’s recommendations is on the party seeking review – me in this case. I am confident that we have met our burden…in spades!
Our entire presentation is powerful and persuasive, but in particular the arguments that the Bar Court’s recommendation of disbarment violated both Due Process and my First Amendment rights to Freedom of Speech and the Right to Petition the Government for Redress of Grievances.
These are at the core of our Constitutional protections and are foundational to the duty a lawyer owes to zealously represent his or her client. That is exactly what I did and there is absolutely no ethical or professional rule that I violated in doing so.
Regarding free speech, my legal team made many compelling points including:
“[R]estrictions on the free speech rights of attorneys have been upheld only in circumstances far removed from the speech of Dr. Eastman at issue here…Statements of opinion are fully protected. Statements that are merely “rhetorical hyperbole” are likewise fully protected. Even statements that are false – and as noted, Dr. Eastman vigorously disputes that any were, at least not in any material way – are protected by the First Amendment…”
Our opening brief encompassed 85 pages of information supported by substantial citations to case law and example after example pulled from the record. Our due process arguments were voluminous and generally fell into two categories:
“The proceedings below, as well as certain Bar Court rules as applied in the circumstances of this case, violated fundamental precepts of due process, including the necessity of an impartial arbiter and the ability to call witnesses in defense of the charges that were leveled.”
This filing is the first opportunity I have had in a legal setting to state with clarity the stark reality that the judge – referred to in the briefing as “Hearing Department” – was extensively and irretrievable biased against me and showed obvious signs of partisan political motivation:
- The judge is a partisan Democrat who made donations to Democrats including donations made while adjudicating my case! One of her donations even made its way to a federal SuperPAC whose purpose is to “save the great American experiment in democracy” from “extremist Republicans” and especially my client, Donald J. Trump.
- “The [judge] in this case is a political partisan, and this was abundantly clear in the course of the proceedings. The consistent favoritism paid to Democrats and disapprobation paid to Republicans resulted in vastly disparate treatment of witnesses from either party.”
- The particular judge who presided over the proceedings below has continued to be a donor to partisan candidates and causes even after taking the bench; and the record of the proceedings includes numerous examples of manifest hostility of the sort that has led other courts to find Due Process violations.”
- A judge violates the fundamental principles of due process when she “abandons her role as a neutral fact finder.” A judge who becomes a “partisan adjudicator seeking to intimidate” rather than a “neutral fact-finder interested in hearing the evidence” crosses the line into impermissible conduct.”
One of the greatest errors made by the judge deal with her rulings on evidence:
“The record is replete with arbitrary and selective admission and exclusion of evidence, consistently, if not without exception, favoring [prosecutors] and severely prejudicing Dr. Eastman’s defense.”
Said my legal team in the opening brief:
“The conduct of the [judge] in this case greatly exceeded these thresholds and eviscerated Dr. Eastman’s ability to mount an adequate defense. The application of blatant double standards to evidence, the unjustified exclusion of nearly all of Dr. Eastman’s expert witnesses, the significant and insupportable curtailment of the testimony of the one expert who remained, the harassing of Dr. Eastman’s witnesses, the [judge’s] reliance on extrajudicial sources of evidence, and its blatant partisan bias were all too transparent examples of the Hearing Department’s overriding prejudice.”
As I said, the brief devotes page after page citing examples of the bias and legal errors made by the judge and specifically rebuts each and every Count in the case against me.
I could not be prouder of my legal team for their thorough, powerful and compelling opening presentation of the facts and the law in this “Round Two” with the California State Bar where I will fight tooth and nail to overturn the outrageous disbarment recommendation made by an extraordinarily biased, partisan judge.
There remains much more work to do in this appeal, which is just one of several cases I have been forced to deal with thanks to the partisan lawfare assault being waged against me in three states and at the federal level.
We just won a huge victory in Georgia, getting two counts dismissed against me, and against President Trump as well. We’ve just filed what could be dispositive motions in the Arizona case. And we are closely monitoring developments at the federal level with Jack Smith.
All of this work, as excellent as it has been, is extremely expensive. I’ve already expended some $1.5 million and am facing even more than that going forward. My legal defense fund has been depleted – and then some. I need the help of patriotic Americans like you to prevail.
Your gift of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, or $1,000 or more will help replenish my defense fund and allow my legal defense team to continue to aggressively push back against the lawfare left, partisan prosecutors and (in the case of the California Bar trial) biased judges.
Thank you for whatever you can do to help.
Sincerely,
John Eastman
Constitutional Scholar
Former Attorney for President Donald Trump