Former Trump attorney John Eastman disbarred in California over 2020 election interference efforts

Politics NewsFormer Trump attorney John Eastman disbarred in California over 2020 election interference effortsA lawyer for Eastman, who played a key role in devising a plan to overturn the election results, said they will seek review before the U.S. Supreme Court.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Attorney John Eastman played a key role in the so-called fake electors scheme that aimed to overturn the 2020 election results.Al Drago / Getty Images fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 15, 2026, 9:35 PM EDTBy Raquel Coronell UribeJohn Eastman, a former attorney for President Donald Trump who helped engineer a last-ditch strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, was disbarred in California on Wednesday over his efforts more than five years ago.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The California Supreme Court said in a filing that Eastman could no longer practice law in the state, upholding a State Bar Court recommendation, and ordered him to pay $5,000 in sanctions.An attorney for Eastman, Randall A. Miller, said in a statement that Eastman will seek review of the case before the U.S. Supreme Court to “repudiate this threat to the rule of law.”“The California Supreme Court has allowed to stand a State Bar Court recommendation that we contend departs from long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the attorney discipline context,” Miller wrote. “We disagree with that outcome and believe it raises pivotal constitutional concerns regarding the limits of state regulation of attorney speech.”Eastman was the architect of a scheme to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.Evidence laid out in 2022 by the House’s Jan. 6 committee showed that Eastman acknowledged the plan was not legal but pushed for Pence to reject electors from contested states, which would have...