Trump’s ‘Coup Memo’ Author Facing Disbarment in California

John Eastman, a former Trumpland legal adviser, is in hot water with California state bar regulators, who announced on Thursday that they would seek to strip the 62-year-old of his law license. An 11-count complaint alleging that Eastman committed ethical violations in an attempt to obstruct Congress and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was introduced by the State Bar of California’s Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona. A little-known but well-respected lawyer before falling in with Trump, Eastman also achieved notoriety after it was revealed he’d authored two so-called “coup memos.” These blueprints laid out a fringe legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to unilaterally reject the result of the 2020 presidential election. A statement from the California bar also noted that Eastman was facing charges related to his “false and misleading statements regarding purported election fraud,” some of which “contributed to provoking a crowd” into launching an assault on the Capitol. In a response posted to his Substack on Thursday, Eastman called the bar’s notice “filled with distortions, half truths, and outright falsehoods,” and said he would respond to each charge “in due course.”