John Eastman Lawyer Defends Client In Bar Complaint: 'He's Not Rasputin'

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John Eastman is bad and he should feel bad.
That is the considered judgment of the State Bar of California, which yesterday filed a disciplinary action against Trump's Coups 4 Dummies lawyer, including eleven charges of misconduct, seven of which involved moral turpitude. Man, you try to overthrow the government one time, and they come down on you like a ton of bricks!
"There is nothing more sacrosanct to our American democracy than free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power," Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona said, calling Eastman's efforts to overturn President Biden's electoral victory "an egregious and unprecedented attack on our democracy--for which he must be held accountable."
The Notice of Disciplinary Charges is a compendium of the former Chapman Law School Dean's greatest hits: from the suggestion that state legislatures could claw back electors, to the memos advocating that Vice President Pence unilaterally reject electors, to the incendiary speech on the Ellipse, to the emails to Pence's lawyer as the Capitol was under siege imploring him to "consider one more relatively minor violation" of the Electoral Count Act -- it's all here, and all prefaced by the words "No reasonable lawyer would ..."
Eastman has taken it all in stride. By which we mean he is absolutely losing his shit. On Substack, he bemoans the complaint's "distortions, half truths, and outright falsehoods" and solicits funds for his defense -- as of this writing, his GiveSendGo is already at $266,000!
At a hastily convened press conference held today over Zoom, he was defended by his own lawyer Randall Miller, as well as various conservative luminaries.
Miller, who described his client as "not Rasputin" got the ball rolling by denouncing the investigation as "Balderdash." Eastman then took the microphone to denounce the "pernicious factcheck development," making sure to mention cancel culture and the CRT agenda.
He was followed by former Attorney General Ed Meese, who said Eastman was a very nice young man (more or less). Retired DC Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown caveated that she knew nothing about the disciplinary action, but was sure her buddy John would never advocate anything illegal.
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court judge Michael Gabelman was hired by the Republican legislature to investigate supposed fraud in the state, then fired, and held in contempt of court for refusing to answer questions about it. He was followed by MAGA regular Kurt Olsen, who was recently sanctioned by a federal judge for filing one of Kari Lake's garbage complaints. Needless to say, they thought what Eastman did to overturn the election was GREAT.
For the closing act, Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo took the microphone to announce an upcoming law review article in which he will endorse Eastman's cockamamie theory that "the vice president is the one who resolves disputes, rather than congress." You can always trust that guy to put the torture in tortured analysis.
Eastman ended the call with another round of table thumping and a plea for cash. No doubt the Bar Counsel will be very impressed.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.