Lawfare update: Well-funded campaign set to punish attorneys who backed Trump

by WorldTribune Staff, January 31, 2023

Leftists continue to go full throttle after the lawyers who worked on President Donald Trump’s 2020 election lawsuits, reports say.

Last year, the Left filed a bar complaint against John Eastman, one of the top conservative legal minds in the country who dared to represent Trump in his 2020 election challenge efforts. Last week, the State Bar of California announced it is seeking to disbar Eastman.

President Donald Trump with John Eastman

In representing Trump, Eastman had “determined that, in light of the acknowledged illegality and serious allegations of fraud, one possible option was for the Vice President to accede to requests from numerous state legislators to postpone certification for a brief period to allow the claims of fraud and illegality to be assessed by the state legislatures.”

Related: Dark money group tied to Soros, CCP targets lawyers who backed Trump, March 10, 2022

For that, Eastman was accused of trying to overturn the election or cause an insurrection.

Other Trump lawyers targeted by the Left include:

• Rudy Giuliani: For leading Trump’s post-election efforts, Giuliani had his law license suspended and many on the Left continue to call for him to be fully disbarred. He was also been sued for defamation by voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic and has been identified as a target in the criminal investigation into the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia.

• Sidney Powell: While not directly representing Trump in court,, Powell did advise him after the election. Powell also faces possible disbarment by the State Bar of Texas, with a trial set for April, along with defamation lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic, a reported federal investigation into her organization’s fundraising arm and sanctions in a case she and her co-counsel brought in Michigan alleging election fraud.

• Jeffrey Clark: The former DOJ attorney who aided Trump’s post-election efforts from within the agency, Clark faces charges from the D.C. Bar, which filed a complaint against him in July 2022 and kicked off legal proceedings that could result in him being disbarred.

• Cleta Mitchell: Accused of participating in Trump’s phone call in which he allegedly urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the state’s election results, Mitchell resigned from her law firm Foley & Lardner in January 2021, saying she left the firm due to a “massive pressure campaign” against her from the Left to oust her over her associations with Trump.

Attorney Lin Wood, a frequent target of leftists, wrote the following on Telegram on Jan. 30:

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!!

This afternoon, “Special Master” Tommy “Kiwani” Cauthorn rubber-stamped the proposed order submitted by the GA B.A.R. Special Persecutor, Robbie “Commie” Remar, and struck my defenses to the frivolous disciplinary complaint brought against me by the GA B.A.R.

So now the “Special Master” deems all of the false allegations against me are deemed ADMITTED by default. Punishment and discipline to follow next.

ALL without having to show ANY evidence of wrongdoing on my part. ALL without providing me with a full hearing on the merits. A complete and total violation of due process.

How does a government persecutor find an innocent man guilty??? By not allowing him to defend himself against the false allegations. Of which the government persecutor has NOT one iota of evidence to support.

The GA B.A.R. has NO evidence to carry its burden of proof to show I violated any ethical rule. So they skip the trial on the merits, find me guilty, and proceed to punishment. This is not the legal system in which I practiced law for over 45 years.

This is not the way our Constitution and Bill of Right are enforced. The GA B.A.R. ignored both.

This is tyranny. This is communism. If they can do it to me and get away with it, they will do it to you next.

Forbes noted that other “ethics complaints urging state bars and disciplinary boards to investigate attorneys have been filed and remain pending against multiple Trump lawyers who aided his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including Mitchell, Jenna Ellis and Boris Epshteyn, though court records show another complaint against Trump attorneys in New Mexico was dismissed.”

It was the 65 Project which filed a complaint against Eastman and the States United Democracy Center (SUDC) filed a complaint with the California Bar.

“The 65 Project was formed to file complaints against conservative attorneys, to get them disbarred. It’s worked quite well since few election attorneys now dare to represent Kari Lake and other conservative candidates who lost their races due to massive voter disenfranchisement,” Townhall.com columnist Rachel Alexander noted on Jan. 30. “The SUDC is composed of progressive activists like Janet Napolitano and liberal Republicans.”

The Bar alleges that Eastman advised Trump and Vice President Mike Pence that Pence should not certify the election.

“But that’s completely false,” Alexander noted. “Eastman went over all the possible legal avenues they could take, he never recommended one, and if anything, he was fairly negative about that option.”

The Bar claimed that “no reasonable attorney with expertise in constitutional or election law would have concluded that the Vice President was legally authorized to take the actions respondent proposed.”

Eastman’s attorney, Randall Miller, in response to the Bar’s initial investigation, cited numerous examples in U.S. history where the vice president deliberately chose to count or not count electoral votes. In 1801, Vice President Thomas Jefferson insisted on counting electoral votes from Georgia despite them having been improperly certified. In 1961, Richard Nixon insisted on counting the Kennedy electors rather than the Nixon electors, even though the Nixon electors had been the ones certified to cast their votes.

Eastman cited several legal scholars, some going back to the 1800s, who concluded the Twelfth Amendment gives the vice president that discretionary option. The Bar and others tried to use statements made by two people critical of this position, but Eastman pointed out that wasn’t taking into account their complete statements. Former Fourth Circuit Judge J. Michael Luttig stated on Jan. 4, 2021, that “John is a brilliant constitutional scholar. Whatever John is telling the President has some basis in the law.”


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