The California Supreme Court stripped the law license of an Orange County attorney who is accused of backing the Republican Party’s alleged effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, in which President Donald Trump was unseated and Joe Biden declared the winner.
The state’s highest court issued an order on April 15 affirming John Eastman’s disbarment and requiring his name to be stricken from the state roll of attorneys.
Eastman was admitted to practice law in the state of California in 1997. He plans to seek review of the decision in the U.S. Supreme Court, according to his attorney Randall Miller.
“The ruling departs from long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the attorney discipline context,” Miller said in a statement.
While Eastman was a close adviser to Trump in 2021, he allegedly laid out a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject Biden's electoral votes as a way to keep Trump as president.
In January, Trump granted Eastman a pardon, which came as part of a broader wave of clemency for Trump’s embattled allies, such as Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Five Proud Boys members were accused of plotting to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power while four Oath Keepers members were accused of disrupting a U.S. Congressional session.
The pardon of Eastman was part of clemency for 67 others, including attorney Sidney Powell, former North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows, attorney and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and attorney Jenna Ellis.
The State Bar Court Review Department affirmed the State Bar Court Hearing Department’s findings in July 2025.
Chapman began working as a law professor at Chapman University in Orange County in 1999 and was the Dale E. Fowler School of Law dean from 2007 to 2010.