The Gang Gets Back Together to Save John Eastman

Eastman Wants Vindication

As Donald Trump tried to overturn the election in 2020, John Eastman was everywhere — filing lawsuits challenging the results in public and, behind the scenes, drafting legal memos laying out how the president could sow maximum chaos and create an opening to toss out swing states’ votes. It all culminated in Jan. 6, at which Eastman spoke. His audience later stormed the Capitol, attempting to block the certification of the election.

For his role in it all, Eastman was disbarred in California. “Eastman’s actions were
carried out with deceit or dishonesty, as he was aware that his plan was unlawful and lacked any factual or legal support,” a judge on California’s state bar court wrote in 2024.

It may seem odd, in this time of retribution and Jan. 6 revisionism, that Eastman remains disbarred. But the California State Bar’s decision is one Trump has no ability to reverse.

So, Eastman has looked elsewhere, taking the unusual step of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate his law license. In that effort, he got quite a bit of help this week in the form of two amici briefs, asking the Court to consider his case.

The first, compiled by the America First Policy Institute, was signed by a rogues’ gallery of other Jan. 6 lawyers, including Cleta Mitchell, Sidney Powell, Jena Ellis, Christina Bobb and, of course, Ed Martin.

“This case presents an important question for this Court concerning the growing practice of ‘barfare’ — the use of professional discipline as a political weapon against lawyers who represent controversial clients and advance challenging, novel legal arguments, particularly with respect to election integrity,” the lawyers write. It’s a topic — the ability to make wacky arguments in the name of “election integrity” — in which many of the signees have some personal interest.

Of course, Eastman’s arguments weren’t just wacky. They were premised on conspiracy theories, attempts to cite the appearance of a dispute over the election results where no true dispute existed in order to throw out millions of Americans’ votes.

The second brief comes from two senators, Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT). Both figures loomed large in the Jan. 6 planning conducted by Eastman and another Jan. 6 ideas man, Ken Chesebro: they hoped Cruz and Lee would aide their alternate elector scheme once it reached Congress.

Should the Supreme Court choose to take this case up, it will provide a look at how, five years later, the justices are thinking about the nonsense claims and conspiracy theories Eastman tried to bring before judges and, ultimately, Congress.

The easier route for the Court, however, would be to refuse to consider it, leaving Eastman disbarred.

The Trump-Russia Diesel Deal’s Latest Dark Twist

Another election, another effort by Russia to help Trump. This time, however, it’s all out in the open, and the terms of the deal are becoming clear.

• Over the weekend, of course, the U.S. government struck and touted a deal with Putin’s Russia to lift sanctions on diesel exports, a move that the Trump administration claimed would lower prices. Trump claimed that after a “highly successful” conversation between him and Putin, Russia would supply about 2.25 million barrels of diesel fuel to U.S. and ​global markets. The U.S., for context, exports about 1.5 million barrels of diesel per day and uses 2.94 million barrels for the transport sector alone.
• Experts don’t expect the deal to actually have much of an impact on fuel prices in the U.S., though it will provide an infusion of funds for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• Trump, meanwhile, has become incensed that Ukraine continues to strike Russian oil refineries.
• Now a dark new detail that appears to be part of the same story is beginning to emerge: Ukraine is urgently warning that its use of Starlink, an Elon Musk-owned satellite service on which it heavily relies for reconnaissance and intecepting drones, was suddenly restricted.
• Musk pointed the finger directly at Trump, saying on X that “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately POTUS.”
• Republicans in Congress have expressed displeasure with both the diesel deal and the Starlink freeze, though have yet to take action to turn the screws on the administration. Congess is out of session through the midterms.

Tabs

• Details continue to emerge about a ham-handed pressure campaign the DOJ is waging against California after giving it a list of people on a password-protected thumb drive — the password to which was handwritten on a piece of paper — that it claims are noncitizens. Similar claims by the DOJ to have discovered noncitizens registered to vote have fallen apart again and again, and, needless to say, thumb drives with handwritten passwords are not how the DOJ tends to do things. “We do not consider the device a secure medium,” the Los Angeles County registrar said late last night. He continued: “Federal and state laws are clear on how voter eligibility is established — and any action to remove a voter from eligibility must be based on verifiable information, not assertions of unconfirmed data matching.”
• New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia, it turns out, did take the bar exam before going to China, but did not pass, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Men of the Hour

It’s JD Vance, who, during a visit to Texas, claimed James Talarico was gay and a pervert. “I never want to see that guy’s web browser history,” he said. Attempting to make the race a referendum on sexuality, as my colleague Kate observed to me, is an odd strategy when boosting the divorced and notoriously philandering Ken Paxton — who, the Wall Street Journal reported this week, spent New Years in 2024 partying in Dubai with a woman who wasn’t his wife (and, also, two fugitives from justice in the U.S.).