The attorney who advised Donald Trump on his options challenging the outcome of the 2020 election, Dr. John Eastman, has been denied the right to call expert witnesses questioning the reliability of voting machines in the State Bar Court of California, where he faces disbarment in a clearly partisan hearing.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, have been allowed to call witnesses praising the supposed reliability of voting machines, causing Eastman’s lawyers to protest the judicial bias. The news comes less than a week after the explosive Halderman Report was released, detailing how voting machines are inherently dangerous and present endless, easily exploitable security flaws.
Randy Miller, representing Dr. Eastman, argued Judge Yvette Roland’s moves represented “distinct prejudice,” allowing only “half the story” to be told. The State Bar Council said their evidence should be admitted while Eastman’s should not “because ours is from the government.”
The State Bar’s main charge against Eastman is that advising then-President Trump that then-Vice President Mike Pence could, as President of the Senate, delay certifying questionable votes while state legislatures reconsidered them was an act of “moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption.” Election fraud deniers insist Pence had no such authority, but Eastman has provided substantial evidence that his interpretation of the President of the Senate’s powers was valid.
Greg Jacob, a lawyer for Pence called to testify against Eastman, admitted in court that “[t]here is a section in the Constitution that is at best ambiguous whether the Vice President can reject electoral slates.” This admission of ambiguity should help Eastman undermine the State Bar’s charge that his interpretation of Pence’s powers was not just wrong, as prosecutors contend, but that Eastman had to know it was wrong.
