John Eastman, awaiting potential indictment, asks judge to postpone his disbarment proceedings
The lawyer who advised Donald Trump in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 is known as “co-conspirator 2″ in the special counsel’s newest case.
Attorney John Eastman, an architect of Donald Trump’s last-ditch efforts to subvert the 2020 election, is asking a California judge to postpone disbarment proceedings lodged against him, saying he’s increasingly concerned he’s about to be criminally charged by special counsel Jack Smith.
“[R]ecent developments in the investigation have renewed and intensified [Eastman’s] concerns that the federal government might bring charges against him,” his attorneys Randall Miller and Zachary Mayer wrote in an Aug. 4 filing posted to the court’s public docket on Monday.
Miller said the growing concern about criminal charges might prompt Eastman to assert his Fifth Amendment rights during disbarment proceedings. The Fifth Amendment generally allows people to refuse to provide testimony that could be used against them. But invoking the Fifth Amendment in the disbarment proceedings would jeopardize Eastman’s ability to defend his law license, his lawyers wrote.
“[Eastman] requests that the Court exercise its discretion to stay the State Bar’s disciplinary proceeding against him pending resolution of a parallel criminal investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Jack Smith and any trial or other proceedings that may result from that investigation,” Miller and Mayer wrote.
Bar discipline authorities have charged Eastman with multiple violations of professional rules and ethics — as well as the law — in his effort to upend the certified results of the 2020 election. Eastman’s bar discipline trial began in June — and he had even testified for several hours without asserting his Fifth Amendment rights. But it was postponed to late August after the proceedings ran longer than the initially anticipated two weeks.
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John Eastman, awaiting potential indictment, asks judge to postpone his disbarment proceedings https://t.co/1993A8wFzV
— POLITICO (@politico) August 7, 2023
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