If SCOTUS Values Free Speech, It Will Stop California’s Persecution Of John Eastman

The Federalist ^ | April 23, 2026 | Ben Weingarten

[E. Pluribus Unum]

In the eyes of the bar and California court, Eastman’s thoughtcrime, punishable with professional destruction, was ‘lawyering for MAGA.’

Are conservatives entitled to vigorous legal defense in America? Or should they be condemned to second-class status in civil society and court, rendered bereft of advice and counsel because capable lawyers abandon the field, fearing ruin should they represent the right?

In a tyrannical travesty of “justice,” California appears to be trying to usher in the latter, dystopic world by disbarring constitutional scholar John Eastman. The Golden State’s Supreme Court blessed this position when, on April 15, it denied the conservative lawyer’s petition for review of the state bar’s yearslong disciplinary jihad against him and ordered him stripped of his license to practice law.

What was the nefarious behavior that this former Supreme Court clerk, university law school dean, and public interest litigator allegedly engaged in? Effectively, in the eyes of the bar and California’s highest court, his thoughtcrime, punishable with professional destruction, was “lawyering for MAGA.”

Eastman faithfully represented President Donald Trump and his campaign in connection with his 2020 election challenge and vigorously advocated for the president’s positions in the court of law and public opinion. The attorney compiled substantial evidence that the election was marked with fraud and irregularities, and that non-legislative officials had effectively made new election law, further delegitimizing the contest. He evaluated alternatives on behalf of the president for remedying those deficiencies through a careful study of legal history, theory, and precedent. And he presented them to the president’s team, drafted court filings in defense of the president’s positions, and argued for the president’s positions in media and before the president’s supporters.

California’s Claims

California, apparently working hand-in-glove with a prominent lawfare co-conspirator, transformed these actions into a sinister plot to steal the 2020 election. The caper appears to have been...

---

TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS:

[griswold3]

This!!!

[AndyJackson]

...and article 14 right due process and equal protection [this is important because all states signed on] including article 6 right to counsel. You do not have right to counsel if your counsel can be pro/per-secuted for defending you.

[proxy_user]

Every single judge is a lawyer - if there is one right they will defend, it is the right of lawyers to practice law.

[FLT-bird]

The Civil Rights Division needs to get involved here. This is precisely what it was set up for - to go after rogue judges, state agencies etc which violated people’s civil rights. That’s exactly what California has done in revoking the law license of John Eastman for simply practicing law. He provided competent legal representation and argued his case for his client, the President of the United States. California is just lashing out in a fit of pique here. The 3 judge panel which revoked his law license was too cowardly to even provide a reason for doing so.

Of course, everybody knows the reason is simply that they disagree with him politically.

[Alberta's Child]

Those are better grounds for protecting a lawyer like Eastman than the First Amendment.

If states are constrained from regulating professions on “free speech” grounds, then the whole practice of licensing professionals at all pretty much goes out the window. Even quack doctors and incompetent engineers would be able to hide behind the First Amendment while they endanger the lives of the public.

[gibsonguy]

Ca is a net negative. Wall it off and be done with it. FR can and should relocate.

[Regulator]

Y’all are hilarious.

Tab through this group:

https://supreme.courts.ca.gov/about-court/justices-court

This is the gang that refused to overturn the Kangaroo ABA “court” decision on Eastman.

There are ZERO White Anglo Saxon Protestants on the California State “Supreme” court. The “Chief Justice” is the daughter of Mexican farm workers who might have been “undocumented” as they call it now; we used to just call them illegal aliens. She really has no claim to US citizenship, much less sitting at the top of a judicial system created by us.

The other judges are, with the exception of Carol Corrigan, various degrees of legal hacks picked for their race: three out of seven are black, in a state that is maybe 6% black now.

It’s a court that “doesn’t look like us” as they used to say.

A court that Joe Stalin would love.

And always returns the same result: the one that their political masters require.

Didja think it would be any other way here?

[libertylover]

Are conservatives entitled to vigorous legal defense in America?

To many Democrats, the answer is NO!