Lawfare comes for John Eastman

John Eastman is a patriot, a constitutional scholar, a lawyer, a husband, and a father. He is our friend, colleague, and fellow board member of the Claremont Institute, and he has spent his life defending the principles upon which this great nation was founded. After a 10-week travesty of a trial, a California Bar Court judge, seeking to criminalize disagreements in constitutional interpretation, recommended that John should lose his license to practice law in California.

The term “lawfare” has become part of the American vernacular in the past few years. It means the manipulation and corruption of the legal system to gain political advantage and attack and destroy one’s political opponents. The most famous example of lawfare is, of course, the shocking abuse of the U.S. Department of Justice, the attorney general’s office in the state of New York, and the district attorney’s office in Fulton County, Georgia, in an attempt to destroy the current Republican candidate for the presidency, Donald J. Trump. But the assault on Trump is just the most widely publicized example of this evil practice, which is destroying the rule of law in America.

Eastman’s case is a warning to us all about the increasing criminalization of any challenge to the progressive orthodoxy.

Anyone who dares to oppose the reigning progressive regime, at any level and in any way, is a potential target of this lawfare. Especially targeted are those who dared to raise any question about the legality of the 2020 election. Prominent among these is John Eastman.

In his case, an activist group, States United Democracy Center, joined other activists in filing an ethics complaint with the California State Bar Association. As David Brock, one of the leaders in this lawfare, explains, the aim of these activists is “not only [to] bring the grievances in the bar complaints but shame [their targets] and make them toxic in their communities and in their firms.” Specifically, they aim not just to disbar but to destroy the 111 attorneys who were involved in legally challenging the 2020 election results.

The Bar Association, which is overwhelmingly progressive, then becomes complicit in the lawfare. The legal travesty John suffered during his judicial proceedings is vivid in the transcripts of the trial and has been described in detail by Rachel Alexander of the Arizona Sun Times, which provided comprehensive day-to-day coverage of the trial. The entire proceeding was a mockery of the impartial judging of professional conduct that should be expected in such a tribunal. It was partisan grandstanding with a judgment that seemed preordained from the first week.

John will appeal, of course, and we expect him to prevail. But his case is a warning to us all about the increasing criminalization of any challenge to the progressive orthodoxy, whether the subject is elections, climate, race, gender, the economy, public health, or the Constitution. Concerned citizens of all stripes, whatever their opinions on John’s representation of and advice to President Trump in 2020 and 2021, should regard this trend with alarm.

We stand by John, applaud his fortitude in standing up against these shameful and un-American attacks, and pray that his courage is contagious.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.