John Eastman, awaiting potential indictment, asks judge to postpone his disbarment proceedings

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.

Eastman is asking that the proceedings be postponed yet again until the resolution of Smith’s newly filed criminal case — in which Trump is, at least so far, the only defendant. If the disciplinary judge, Yvette Roland, denies that request, Eastman is asking her for a three-month delay to see whether he has been charged by then.

Eastman, identified in the special counsel’s indictment only as “co-conspirator 2,” plays a significant role in the charges that Smith brought last week. The indictment says Eastman used deceptive arguments, premised on false claims of election fraud, to help lead an effort to pressure then-vice President Mike Pence to prevent Joe Biden’s election.

“The indictment heightens the potential for [Eastman] to be charged as a criminal defendant,” Eastman’s attorneys wrote. “When there are parallel criminal and civil proceedings, the defendant faces the difficult choice of asserting his Fifth Amendment right at the risk of losing a non-criminal trial (here, a disciplinary proceeding), or waiving his constitutional right against self-incrimination. Courts have recognized the need to stay civil proceedings to avoid prejudicing the defendant's rights.”