But of all of them, the lawyers were most closely associated with Mr. McCartney, whom Mr. Eastman represented for more than 50 years. His father, who had changed his name from Leopold Epstein, set up a successful legal practice representing high-profile musicians, artists and writers, among them the bandleader Tommy Dorsey and the songwriters Harold Arlen and Hal David. Carter noted one email in particular that contained what he found was likely evidence of a crime and ordered it disclosed under the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. But the committee argued Eastman's use of university email destroyed any attorney-client privilege to keep the documents confidential. The well-known lawyer had known the former Beatles vocalist for over 50 years. Trump lawyer John Eastman referred for prosecution by Jan. 6 committee ", Video (4:48) John Eastman Defends Trying To Overturn 2020 Election, Dean of the Chapman University School of Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Eastman&oldid=1139934632, Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States, National Organization for Marriage people, Controversies of the 2020 United States presidential election, Pages using cite court with unknown parameters, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 17 February 2023, at 16:12. Eastman has received widespread attention for his role as attorney to then president Donald Trump during which he suggested that vice president Mike Pence could refuse the results of some states' election results during the 2020 United States presidential election. Who is John Eastman, the Trump lawyer at the center of the Jan. 6 [25], Following law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court of the United States; he then was an attorney with the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, specializing in civil and constitutional litigation. In March 1971, the judge ruled in Mr. McCartneys favor, appointing a receiver for the Beatles business interests until the dissolution of their partnership could be negotiated, which came several years later. (Courtesy of the Eastmans) A GROUP calling itself The 65 Project has targeted nearly 100 lawyers, including me, state attorneys general and . He wrote this new "untainted popular vote" would "help provide some cover" for the legislature to create a slate of Trump electors for certification. John L. Eastman, a lawyer for musicians and artists whose representation of famous clients like Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and Willem de Kooning made him a force in the entertainment world, and who played a key part in a power struggle over the control of the Beatles business in the last days of the band, died on Aug. 10 in East Hampton, N.Y. Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis faces imminent formal complaint in Before he urged Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally hand the 2020 election to Donald Trump, right-wing lawyer John Eastman, who represented Trump after the election, floated a somewhat. [72] On January 5, 2021, Eastman met with Pence in the Oval Office to argue, incorrectly, that the vice president has the constitutional authority to alter or otherwise change electoral votes. [84], According to testimony given to the January 6 Committee by former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, Eastman emailed Giuliani several days after the storming of the Capitol, asking to be placed on the list of those to be given a presidential pardon before Trump's term in office ended. After CNBC asked Thomas about the group, its public pages were either made private or deleted. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) Article A fed-up Herschmann claims he insisted that Eastman only talk about an orderly transition in the future, and encouraged Eastman to find a great fing criminal defense lawyeryoure going to need it.. Eastman still persisted with his election fraud claims long after that date, through at least Jan. 6, 2021. "[67], On December 24, 2020, in an email exchange with New York appellate attorney Kenneth Chesebro and Trump campaign officials, Eastman wrote he was aware of a "heated fight" within the Supreme Court about whether to hear a case. Later in the day, when the rioters were expelled from the Capitol and Pence was again presiding over Congress, Eastman told Jacob in another e-mail that Pence should still refuse to certify the election results:[83] Now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations as well as to allow the full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that occurred here, Eastman wrote. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Eastman wrote a controversial op-ed in August 2020 that falsely suggested the then-presumed Democratic nominee for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was not an American citizen and thus not legally eligible for the position. Trump lawyers who fought election results saw Supreme Court Justice [51] However, Axios noted that other constitutional scholars do not accept Eastman's view, labeling it "baseless". Federal authorities had not identified the man as an antifa activist. [31], In 1990 Eastman was unopposed in the primary to become the Republican challenger of long-time 34th District incumbent Esteban Torres in California's San Gabriel Valley. Eastman responded that he was speaking two miles away from the Capitol building. Trump in recent weeks has told confidants that he sees no reason to defend the lawyer who tried to help him overturn the 2020 . John Eastman: The Lawyer Behind the Memo on How Trump Could Stay in Eastman replied by blaming Pence and Jacob for refusing to block certification of Trump's loss in the election, writing, "The siege is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened." On or about December 1, 2020, Attorney General Barr, who headed the United States Department of Justice, which had monitored state elections for fraud and illegality, publicly stated that to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.'. [18][19] On March 28, 2022, federal judge David O. Carter found Eastman, along with Trump, was more likely than not to have "dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021". If Dr. Eastman and President Trumps plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution., Eastmans interest in the election didnt seem to evaporate after the January 6 riot. During his time in law school, Eastman worked on the University of Chicago Law Review. For California attorneys, adherence to the U.S. and California Constitutions is their highest legal duty. Eastman first emerged as a Trump-affiliated lawyer in December 2020, when he filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to let Trump intervene in a longshot lawsuit to toss out election results in four swing states won by Joe Biden, which ultimately failed. The Daily Beast reports that the plaintiffs are seeking to pierce attorney-client privilege under the crime-fraud . John Eastman Retires From Chapman University - Forbes Scholars say there's no VP eligibility debate", "The White Supremacist "Scholars" Pushing the Kamala Harris Birther Lie", "Newsweek apologizes for op-ed questioning Harris eligibility", "Ahead of Jan. 6, Willard hotel in downtown D.C. was a Trump team 'command center' for effort to deny Biden the presidency", "During Jan. 6 riot, Trump attorney told Pence team the vice president's inaction caused attack on Capitol", "Trump lawyer John Eastman said 'courage and the spine' would help Pence send election to the House in comments before January 6", "Trump Lawyer Blamed Pence for Violence as Rioters Stormed Capitol - John Eastman, the author of a memo that some in both parties liken to a blueprint for a coup, sent a hostile email to the vice president's chief counsel as the mob attacked", "Washington Post: Trump lawyer John Eastman blamed Pence for January 6 violence by refusing to block 2020 election certification", "The most shocking new revelation about John Eastman - He and Trump were not just pressing forward despite the mob; they apparently were trying to leverage it", "Memo shows Trump lawyer's six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election", "UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN DIVISION JOHN C. EASTMAN Plaintiff, vs. BENNIE G. THOMPSON, et al., Defendants. John Eastman on Thursday, April 29, 2021. "There is nothing more sacrosanct to our American democracy than free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power." Have a tip we should know? [117], On October 4, 2021, a bipartisan group of attorneys, including two former federal judges and two former justices of the California Supreme Court, filed a complaint with the State Bar of California asking for an investigation of Eastman relating to "his representation of former President Donald J. Trump in efforts to discredit and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Former Chapman University professor John Eastman is among the individuals whom the Jan. 6 committee has recommended face federal criminal charges for their roles in the attack on the Capitol on . [6][7][8], Eastman was a key participant in the subsequent attempts to overturn the election;[9][10][11][12] during President Donald Trump's last efforts before the certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory, Eastman incorrectly told Vice President Mike Pence in an Oval Office meeting, on January 5, 2021, that Pence had the constitutional authority to block the certification.