The Dictatorship
Jan. 6 mastermind John Eastman has rightly been disbarred
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the disbarment of John Eastmana former attorney for President Donald Trump and former dean of Chapman University Fowler School of Law, for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost to Joe Biden.
Eastman was the Trump attorney who wrote out a Jan. 6, 2021, plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to wrongly reject some of the electoral votes Biden won to keep Trump in the White House.
Contrary to what his supporters have said, Eastman wasn’t disbarred for protected political speech but for sanctionable professional misconduct.
Eastman’s attorney, Randall Miller, said the decision “raises pivotal constitutional concerns.” But his argument is unpersuasive.
He’s not being prohibited from practicing law because of the client he represented, for unpopular political advocacy, aggressive lawyering or espousing a particular ideology or legal view. He was tossed for what California’s State Bar Court Hearing Department deemed “egregious and deceitful conduct.” When Eastman tried to overturn valid election results, he engaged in the type of conduct that threatens not only the integrity of the legal profession, but also the rule of law itself. Indeed, the State Bar of California found that Eastman’s false claims about the presidential election misled the “courts, public officials, and the American public.”
Eastman’s attorney, Randall Miller, said the decision “raises pivotal constitutional concerns” and that Eastman plans to seek the U.S. Supreme Court’s help. But his predictable argument that Eastman’s disbarment raises serious First Amendment concerns is unpersuasive. The First Amendment is not absolute. It does not give lawyers a license to violate professional obligations.
Here’s how Eastman landed on the receiving end of the legal profession’s most serious sanction. After extensive proceedings, the State Bar Court Hearing Department found Eastman liable for 10 of the 11 charges against him. Eastman was found culpable for promoting claims of election fraud that he failed to adequately investigate (perhaps because they were almost certainly baseless). He was similarly found culpable of misleading courts and public officials, attempting to create “alternative slates of electors to those that certified the 2020 presidential election” (meaning he advocated the use of “fake” electors) and pushing an unconstitutional legal strategy: namely the vice president unilaterally rejecting some states’ slate of electors.
Eastman, like all other lawyers, was an officer of the court. That role carries obligations that go beyond advocacy, including duties of candor, honesty and respect for the rule of law. Eastman didn’t just cross those lines — he leaped over them. The State Bar’s conclusion was blunt: His actions constituted “egregious and deceitful conduct” incompatible with the obligations of an attorney.
States can regulate the licensing of certain professionals, including lawyers, to protect the public. Love us, or hate us, lawyers are important in our society. As the Supreme Court has recognized“[t]he interest of the States in regulating lawyers is especially great, since lawyers are essential to the primary governmental function of administering justice, and have historically been ‘officers of the courts.’” Simply put, lawyers have power in our society to protect clients’ interest, shape policy arguments, influence courts and, even in some cases, national events.
As a result, when lawyers speak in our professional capacity, especially in written and verbal statements in court, our speech can be regulated in ways that other people’s speech cannot. We can be disciplined for false or misleading statements, even when those statements address matters of public concern. Many of Eastman’s statements show exactly why and how these punishments exist. Eastman crossed the line from advocacy to deception. As a judge of the State Bar Court found, Eastman made “multiple false and misleading statements in his professional capacity as attorney for President Trump in court filings and other written statements, as well as in conversations with others and in public remarks.” Any attorneys who engage in similar behavior should also expect to be voted off the island.
As we approach the 2026 midterm elections, Eastman’s disbarment should serve as a deterrent.
As we approach the 2026 midterm elections, Eastman’s disbarment should serve as a deterrent to any lawyers who contemplate knowingly making false statements or misleading judges, government officials, voters and the public. Lawyers will almost certainly play a central role in pre- and post-election disputes. We can and should zealously advocate for our clients. But we should not advance baseless claims with no factual or legal support. Eastman’s disbarment sends a clear message to lawyers: Don’t abandon your legal and ethical obligations.
Eastman’s disbarment is a successful example of lawyers policing lawyers to protect not just the legal profession, but also the public at large. This episode should not serve to chill zealous or creative legal advocacy. Neither should it make lawyers who want to engage in political advocacy pause and think before they speak. Eastman’s disbarment is not about politics or ideology. It is not about the First Amendment and the freedom of speech. It is about upholding the rule of law.
Jessica Levinson is a Loyola Law School professor and MS NOW columnist.
A dozen state attorneys general sued Monday to block Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, citing the harm the megamerger could pose to competition in Hollywood.
The deal would consolidate two powerhouse movie studios, several popular streaming services and the national news networks CBS and BLN into a single company under the purview of the billionaire Trump-aligned Ellison family.
That consolidation, greenlit by the Justice Department’s antitrust division last month, would negatively reshape the production landscape in Hollywood by depriving studios of the blockbuster series they rely on to generate revenue, the state law enforcement officials maintain.
The concerns in the lawsuit echo the “unequivocal opposition” to the merger voiced by thousands of industry professionals in an open letter in April.
In the lawsuit, the states argue the merger would “extinguish competition between Paramount and Warner Bros. and inflict substantial harm on movie theatres, basic cable distributors, and, ultimately, audiences nationwide,” and that it “combines two
of the nation’s five major film distributors, leaving only four to control over 85 percent of all wide-release theatrical films in the United States.”
The state-led challenge poses the most significant legal barrier in the country to that new media landscape becoming reality. The United Kingdom’s antitrust regulator is also considering action.
Consolidation in markets “leads to increased unaffordability, a loss of good paying job opportunities and fewer choices for consumers. It gives too few too much power,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a press conference shortly after the lawsuit was filed. “Antitrust enforcement is democracy’s check on oligarchy.”
Paramount said the lawsuit “distorts settled antitrust law and is based on misrepresentation of competition in the entertainment industry today.”
The media giant characterized the merger as a means to create a “stronger competitor against dominant streaming and technology platforms who have harmed the market for theatrical exhibition and jobs in the entertainment industry.”
Movie producer David Ellison’s Skydance Media bought Paramount last year after receiving financial backing from his father Larry Ellison, the billionaire Oracle co-founder and personal friend of President Donald Trump. He then launched a bidding war with Netflix for Warner Bros., which had been put up for auction last year as part of a strategy to manage its $35 billion debt load.
The Ellisons ultimately prevailed over Netflix in February after Warner’s board announced that Paramount Skydance’s offer, which involved $40 billion worth of personal financing from the elder Ellison, was superior to an agreement it had previously struck with Netflix.
The Trump administration’s swift approval of the merger reignited speculation over his personal relationship with Larry Ellison. The deal would put the Ellison family in control of BLN, a news organization the president frequently decries without evidence as “fake news.”
Trump publicly involved himself in the competing Warner Bros. bids last year, saying that it was “imperative” BLN be sold and that its current ownership should not be in charge of the company. The president has since downplayed his personal role in the mergerbut concerns about what the deal could mean for the future of BLN still loom large.
The Trump administration approved the Ellison family’s acquisition of Paramount Globalthe parent company of CBS News, last year after the network agreed to shell out $16 millionto settle a lawsuit Trump brought over a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Trump sought $20 billion in damages over claims that the Harris interview, which aired during the 2024 presidential race, had been deceptively edited, a legal claim that experts said almost certainly would have failed.
With Ellison at the helm, Paramount Skydance also acquired Bari Weiss’ media company, The Free Press, and installed Weiss as editor-in-chief at CBS News. Weiss’ control over programming has since raised questions of objectivity and spurred an exodus of many of the network’s most prominent career journalists.
Erum Salam contributed to this report.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.
The Dictatorship
Judge slams Trump-IRS ‘settlement,’ refers attorneys for possible disciplinary actions
By now, Donald Trump has probably grown accustomed to legal setbacks in court, though his case against the IRS has started to backfire in ways the president didn’t see coming. The Associated Press reported:
A federal judge said Monday that President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was filed for an “improper purpose” as she referred attorneys for disciplinary actions.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams amounts to a stinging rebuke of the Republican president’s lawsuit, characterizing it as an exercise in self-dealing in which he sued an entity that is effectively under his control.
The basic details of Trump’s IRS lawsuit are likely familiar: During his first term, a contractor leaked his tax returns, and six years later, the president has filed suit against the tax agency, saying he’s entitled to $10 billion in taxpayer funds.
In May, he voluntarily withdrew his own litigationand soon afterward, the administration unveiled his reward for having done so: a compensation fund worth $1.766 billionwhich was quickly condemned by members of both parties as a “slush fund” that would be used to benefit the White House’s political allies.
That bipartisan pushback appears to have forced the president to back off his plans for the fund. And at that point, the case appeared to have run its course: Trump filed a rather preposterous $10 billion lawsuit against his own administration; he then abandoned that case before it could be fully adjudicated; and that was that.
Except, it wasn’t quite that simple, and one of the underlying legal problems persisted: The federal judge in the case, responding to a request filed by 35 former federal judges calling on her to reopen the case, raised serious concerns in late May, ordering Trump and his lawyers to address allegations that he committed fraud on the court.
In a four-page orderWilliams said she intended to investigate “grievous allegations” that the hasty deal to resolve the dubious case was “premised on deception.” (This same judge, as recently as late April, expressed skepticism about the propriety of the casesince it appeared the president was, for all intents and purposes, both the plaintiff and the defendant.)
More than a month later, she apparently did not like what she discoveredconcluding that Trump and his lawyers acted “in bad faith” and filed a civil suit “for an improper purpose.”
“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law,” Williams wrote.
The judge also prohibited the parties from even referring to it as a “settlement.”
Just as notably, as CNBC reportedWilliams “referred Trump’s lawyer in the lawsuit, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida bar for consideration on whether Brito should be disciplined in light of the findings in the new order.” The judge also “ordered that a copy of her ruling be mailed to the State Bar of New York, of which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is a member, as well as to the District of Columbia Bar, of which Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward is a member.”
The developments come just two days before Blanche, Trump’s choice to serve as attorney general, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing.
A spokesperson for the Republican’s legal team said in a written statement, “The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to the New York Times, ProPublica and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people. President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”
The statement made no effort to address allegations of professional misconduct or the fact that Trump’s lawyers just received a brutal smackdown in court.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline, as his temporary replacement in the Senate on Monday, two days after the lawmaker’s sudden passing.
With Darline Graham alongside him, McMaster said she “agreed to serve through tears” in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Graham is nine years her brother’s junior and has never held public office. Her parents died before she reached the age of 14, and her brother later became her legal guardian. She is the Commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, where she has worked for nearly seven years; serves on the state’s Workforce Development Board; and is the president-elect of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind.
“Lindsey has always been there for me, and now, I will be there for him,” Graham said in her first public remarks after the senator’s death, calling it a “privilege” to temporarily fill his seat.
President Donald Trump wrote on social media earlier Monday that he recommended the Republican governor appoint Graham to serve the remainder of his term, which expires in January.
“This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!” Trump wrote.
Tim Scott, South Carolina’s senior senator, appeared to agreesaying that she would be “a fantastic pick” to serve out the remainder of the senate term.
“After speaking with Darline, there is no one better who understands Lindsey’s love for family, our state, and our country,” Scott wrote in an X post Monday morning.
Appointing the senator’s sister as a neutral placeholder avoids the appearance of favoritism in the special primary later this summer to decide the new Republican nominee for the seat he held for more than two decades.
Trump, who said he spoke with Graham just hours before his death, called him “one of the greatest people and Senators” he has ever known and “a true American Patriot.”
Graham was elected in 2002 and was seeking a fifth term in November. A special primary election will be held Aug. 11 to decide the new Republican nominee, who will likely go on to succeed him in the reliably red state.
Erum Salam reported from New York.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
Nnamdi Egwuonwu is a reporter for MS NOW.
- How best to honor Lindsey Graham’s legacy? Republicans are divided.
- Coalition of states sue to stop Paramount-Warner megamerger
- Judge slams Trump-IRS ‘settlement,’ refers attorneys for possible disciplinary actions
- Trump and Tim Scott back Lindsey Graham’s sister as his temporary replacement
- Lindsey Graham: Maddening, gracious, and an ally I was glad to have
- Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.13.26: Plan to replace Platner in Maine takes shape
- Democrats divided on whether to make daylight saving time permanent
- $6 million a day: Trump’s disclosures show he is the swamp’s biggest monster
- Trump: Graham took back criticism of ‘Jan. 6 thing’ about ’40 minutes later’
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