Topline
A California judge recommended Wednesday that right-wing attorney John Eastman be disbarred and sanctioned $10,000, becoming the latest attorney allied with former President Donald Trump to face penalties and legal costs in the years since they aided his failed effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Eastman was sanctioned $10,000 in addition to the court recommending he lose his law license
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Key Facts
John Eastman ($10,000): A California state judge recommended Thursday that Eastman be disbarred for his post-election efforts after the attorney helped Trump try to block Congress from certifying the election results, also sanctioning him $10,000 in total—$5,000 for filing court pleadings “seeking to mislead the courts,” and another $5,000 “for making numerous false and misleading statements” about the election and “his collaborative efforts with President Trump to impede the counting of electoral votes.”
Michigan Sanctions ($152,450): Far-right attorney Sidney Powell and her co-counsel were sanctioned in Michigan for a lawsuit brought in that state alleging election fraud—which U.S. District Judge Linda Parker deemed “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process”—though while Parker initially ordered them to pay more than $175,000, an appeals court decreased the sanctions to $132,81.62 payable to the city of Detroit and $19,639.75 to the state (the Supreme Court then upheld that ruling in February).
Giuliani’s Defamation Case ($148.3 Million): attorney Rudy Giuliani was ordered to pay $148.2 million to Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss after he spread false claims linking them to election fraud, including $16.9 million and $16.2 million for defaming Freeman and Moss, respectively, $20 million for each plaintiff for emotional distress and $75 million in punitive damages—leading the lawyer to file for bankruptcy in December.
Giuliani had already separately been ordered to pay more than $133,000 in attorneys fees in the case because he failed to turn over evidence—with the judge first forcing him to pay $89,173 personally, plus an additional unspecified amount in fees, and separately ordering his company to pay $43,684, with Giuliani personally on the hook for the fees if his business doesn’t pay.
Fulton County Bond ($750,000): Powell, Giuliani, Eastman and other lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis, Jeffrey Clark, Ray Smith and Robert Cheeley were among the 19 defendants indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, for trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election results; most of the attorney defendants were released on $100,000 bond, while Giuliani had to pay $150,000 and Smith and Cheeley were released with a lower $50,000 bond.
Fulton County Plea Deals ($18,700): Powell, Chesebro and Ellis have accepted plea deals in the Fulton County case rather than go to trial; Powell has to pay a $6,000 fine plus $2,700 in restitution, while Chesebro and Ellis each had to pay $5,000 in restitution, in addition to other non-monetary penalties like community service and writing public apology letters.
Legal Fees (More Than $3 Million): It’s unclear how much attorneys have had to pay for their own legal fees, but the numbers appear staggering: Ellis has raised $219,634 as of Tuesday through her legal defense fund on GiveSendGo, an amount the fundraiser notes is “significantly exceeded” by her actual legal costs, and Eastman and Clark have raised $627,832 and $76,075, respectively, on their respective GiveSendGo fundraisers (both below their respective goals of $750,000 and $500,000).
Giuliani’s bankruptcy filing details $3.7 million in total outstanding legal fees and debts to law firms, including $1.4 million in unpaid legal fees his ex-attorney Robert Costello has sued Giuliani to recover—which includes for election-related cases—and the former mayor has started a political action committee and sought Trump’s help in trying to pay his legal costs, with the former president hosting a $100,000 per plate fundraiser for Giuliani’s legal defense fund in September that Giuliani’s son said raised more than $1 million.
Tangent
Trump-allied lawyers have also faced numerous non-monetary consequences in the aftermath of the 2020 election. In addition to Eastman, Giuliani has had his law license suspended, and he and Clark still face the threat of full disbarment. Hearings over Clark’s potential disbarment have been taking place this week, with a decision expected soon. A new complaint has also been filed in Michigan seeking penalties against Powell and her co-counsel for bringing their lawsuit, alleging they committed professional misconduct, after Powell already escaped a similar complaint against her in Texas. Ellis was also censured in Colorado, but not disbarred, though the state’s attorney discipline board has filed new charges against her since her guilty plea. The criminal charges faced in Georgia by the attorneys who haven’t taken plea deals also carry the threat of prison time if they’re convicted, with defendants facing between five and 20 years in prison on the racketeering charges against them alone.
What To Watch For
Eastman intends to appeal the court’s ruling on his disbarment, and the dispute is likely to go to the California Supreme Court, though his license will be suspended in the meantime. Georgia election workers Freeman and Moss filed a second defamation lawsuit against Giuliani in December after the attorney continued to make false claims about them that perpetuated the false conspiracy theory and maintained Giuliani did nothing wrong. That lawsuit does not seek monetary damages and only asks for Giuliani to be banned from making similar statements, but the plaintiffs also asked the court in its original case to speed up its order for Giuliani to pay the $148 million in damages, given the attorney’s well-known financial issues. The attorney filed for bankruptcy days later, and his bankruptcy proceedings remain ongoing.
Chief Critic
Eastman’s lawyer defended his client’s post-election efforts in a statement Wednesday that Eastman “maintains that his handling of the legal issues” over whether the 2020 election could be overturned was based on reasonable legal precedent and that Eastman was following “the same process taken by lawyers every day and everywhere.” He also opposed Eastman not being able to practice law to pay his legal fees while he faces the charges in Georgia, saying, “That is not justice and serves no legitimate purpose to protect the public.” Powell called the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up the Michigan dispute “very disappoint[ing]” in a statement to Forbes in February, saying it sets a “dangerous precedent to stand that puts at risk every lawyer who represents an unpopular cause or client” and “is causing a pervasive ‘chilling’ effect on our First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.” Giuliani has protested the judgment against him in Freeman and Moss’ case, saying after the verdict that “the absurdity of the amount is indicative of the absurdity and unfairness of the entire proceeding.”
Contra
The Supreme Court also rejected sanctioning Powell and her co-counsel in February, as the high court affirmed lower court rulings that denied Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ effort to sanction the attorneys for a post-election lawsuit Powell brought in that state.
What We Don’t Know
How much more money attorneys will pay for their post-election efforts—but it could be a lot. Giuliani and Powell still face defamation lawsuits from voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is seeking $1.3 billion in damages from both lawyers, while Smartmatic is asking for $2.7 billion in Giuliani’s lawsuit, in which he’s named as a co-defendant with Fox News and several of its anchors. Smartmatic’s lawsuit against Powell does not specify an amount in damages, but notes her allegedly defamatory actions have cost the company at least $1.2 million. Giuliani, Eastman and other lawyers who still face charges in Georgia could also have to pay high fees if they’re convicted, with the racketeering charges alone carrying a maximum fine of $25,000.
Surprising Fact
The payments that lawyers have shelled out is only a fraction of the total costs Trump allies are facing for going along with his plan to overturn the 2020 election and election fraud lies. Fox News had to pay a $787 million settlement with Dominion for pushing false conspiracy theories on the network that linked the company’s voting machines to fraud, in addition to the pending suit from Smartmatic the network still faces. The Associated Press reported in May that rioters who stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, have had to pay nearly $900,000 so far in fines and restitution. The amounts of Giuliani’s defamation verdict, the rioter fines and Fox News’ settlement alone adds up to nearly $1 billion, the Washington Post noted in December, which is enough to give every single U.S. resident $2.79 if divided up. If the bills adding up to that amount were stacked on top of each other, the Post notes, it would extend 1.6 miles into space.
Key Background
Attorneys like Giuliani, Eastman, Powell and Chesebro played a central role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Trump campaign and its allies mounted a wide-ranging legal effort challenging the election results in court, which Giuliani spearheaded. Nearly every single case they brought failed, however, and Trump and his allies pursued other activities to challenge the election results that have now become the subject of criminal charges. Giuliani helped Trump pressure state officials and legislators to reject their states’ election results, for instance, while Chesebro and Eastman were involved with efforts to block Congress from certifying the vote count on Jan. 6, 2021. Chesebro served as the architect of the “fake electors” scheme, in which GOP officials submitted false slates of electors to Congress claiming Trump won their state. The attorneys who haven’t taken plea deals in Georgia have all pleaded not guilty to the charges against them, and Giuliani and Eastman have continued to remain defiant and insist on the false election fraud allegations. “We did nothing wrong,” Eastman told CBS News in November, criticizing the “criminalization of political opposition and the threat to shutting down speech of opposing political views,” while Giuliani claimed after the defamation verdict against him that “what I said [about the election workers] was absolutely true.” (The Georgia Secretary of State’s office found following an investigation that any claims linking Freeman and Moss to fraud were “false and unsubstantiated.”)
Further Reading
Rudy Giuliani’s Finances: What To Know About attorney’s Money Troubles After Defamation Trial Jury Forces Him To Pay $148 Million (Forbes)
Giuliani Must Pay $148 Million In Damages For Defaming Georgia Election Workers (Forbes)
Rudy Giuliani’s Mounting Legal Trouble: Here Are All The Issues Trump attorney Faces Amid Hunter Biden Lawsuit (Forbes)
Giuliani, Powell, And Trump’s Other Attorneys Criminally Charged — After Years Of Efforts To Punish Them For 2020 Election Roles (Forbes)
Ex-Trump Lawyers Crowdfund $800,000 To Pay Legal Bills—Including $200,000 For Jenna Ellis (Forbes)
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