LOS ANGELES — Orange County attorney John Eastman is at the center of an ethics investigation into whether he violated laws while advising President Donald Trump on how he could overturn his election defeat in 2020, the State Bar of California said Tuesday.
Eastman, a former law professor and retired dean at Chapman University, emerged as a key legal adviser to Trump in the weeks after it was apparent he had lost the election to Joe Biden. Eastman wrote two legal memos that advised Vice President Mike Pence he could determine the results in several states were disputed and therefore their electoral votes would go uncounted. Doing so would have reversed Trump’s loss.
The State Bar’s chief trial counsel, George Cardona, announced Tuesday that Eastman has been the center of an investigation since September.
