John Eastman Found Culpable for Misconduct by Judge, Teeing Up Disbarment

A judge for the California State Bar Court found John Eastman, the author of Donald Trump’s so-called “coup memo,” culpable for moral and legal violations, a preliminary step that could see the attorney be suspended or disbarred. After 32 days of testimony, according to Bloomberg Law, the judge said she’d made a “preliminary finding” of culpability, and that the court would move forward to hear both rebuttal and aggravation testimony, and eventually mete out punishment. Eastman, 63, faces 11 disciplinary charges in the State Bar Court stemming from his work with Trump to interfere with the certification of the 2020 election. Eastman has denied wrongdoing. He is separately facing criminal charges alongside Trump in Georgia as part of a case alleging he took part in an illegal plot to keep the former president in power after the 2020 presidential election. In August, he became the first of 19 co-defendants originally charges in the case’s sweeping indictment to surrender at the Fulton County Jail.