A Supreme Court Ruling Just Blew Up California’s Case Against a Top Trump Election Lawyer

California stripped John Eastman of his law license for defending Donald Trump after the 2020 election.

Weeks later, the Supreme Court gutted the very legal doctrine California used to justify it.

Now Eastman wants the justices to finish what their own ruling started.

A Disbarment Built On A Theory The Court Just Rejected

John Eastman represented Donald Trump during the 2020 election fight.

For that work, California State Bar Judge Yvette Roland put his law license in her crosshairs.

Roland found him culpable on ten of eleven disciplinary counts in 2024, calling his conduct "exceptionally serious ethical violations."

The California Supreme Court refused to review the case on April 15, ordering Eastman disbarred for good.

Eastman called the outcome "quite disappointing and even more outrageous."

Then in March, the Supreme Court handed down Chiles v. Salazar, an 8-1 opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The case had nothing to do with Eastman.

It involved a Colorado counselor punished for the content of her talk therapy sessions.

But the Court's reasoning landed like a wrecking ball on cases exactly like Eastman's.

Gorsuch's opinion held that a law regulating a licensed professional's speech based on viewpoint triggers strict scrutiny, the toughest standard in constitutional law.

The opinion states plainly that "the spoken word is perhaps the quintessential form of protected speech."

Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing states retain broad power to regulate what licensed professionals say to their clients.

That is the same argument Judge Roland relied on to strip Eastman's license two years earlier.

Eight justices just rejected it in someone else's case.

Even The Bar's Own Winning Lawyers Do Not Trust The Verdict

The California State Bar won its case against Eastman outright.

Then the bar turned around and asked the Supreme Court to take the case anyway.

Winning parties almost never do that.

They do it when they are worried the standard of review used to beat their opponent will not survive contact with a real Supreme Court.

The bar's own petition complained that ambiguities in the lower ruling could complicate using the Eastman case as precedent going forward.

Translation: the prosecutors are hedging their bet in public.

Eastman's team, now led by the American Center for Law and Justice, is preparing to make the same First Amendment argument he raised earlier before California's high court, when he argued the appellate ruling "misapplied controlling First Amendment precedent."

ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow has framed the fight as bigger than one disbarred professor.

Sekulow's team says a loss here would let states punish any attorney whose legal advice a bar disagrees with after the fact.

Eastman is not alone in losing a law license over 2020 election work.

Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in both New York and Washington, D.C. for the same underlying conduct.

Kenneth Chesebro lost his New York license after pleading guilty in Georgia.

Lin Wood surrendered his Georgia license rather than fight it out.

A D.C. review panel wrote that Giuliani's conduct was "unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect."

None of those cases carried a client name like Donald Trump attached to a sitting president's election challenge, and none reached the Supreme Court while Chiles was still fresh on the books.

The Timeline Democrats Do Not Want You Watching

Eastman's formal cert petition is due September 11.

The Supreme Court does not have to take the case.

But the Court also did not have to write Chiles the way it did, rejecting a state's power to strip First Amendment protection from professionals just months before Eastman's petition lands.

Eastman never stole from a client, missed a filing deadline, or got caught practicing under the influence.

He gave legal advice a bar disagreed with, and lost his career over it.

If the justices apply their own words consistently, Judge Roland picked the worst possible year to bet against the First Amendment.

Sekulow's team knows it, the California bar knows it, and that is exactly why the side that beat Eastman is the one now pleading with the Supreme Court to take a closer look.

Sources:

• Jonathan Turley et al., "SCOTUS Should Stop California's Persecution Of John Eastman," The Federalist, April 23, 2026.
• American Center for Law and Justice, "ACLJ Takes First Amendment Case to the Supreme Court To Defend Former Trump Lawyer and Professor John Eastman From Disbarment," ACLJ, July 2026.
• Supreme Court of the United States, Chiles v. Salazar, No. 24-539, March 31, 2026.
• Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, "Supreme Court Decides Chiles v. Salazar," Faegre Drinker Insights, March 31, 2026.
• Nomaan Merchant, "Review panel says Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred for pursuing Trump's false election claims," PBS NewsHour, July 7, 2023.
• NPR Staff, "California judge recommends disbarment of pro-Trump attorney John Eastman," NPR, March 27, 2024.
• Daily Journal Staff, "John Eastman to appeal state Supreme Court's disbarment decision," Daily Journal, April 15, 2026.
• Law & Crime Staff, "Pro-Trump lawyer John Eastman implores court to reject disbarment recommendation," Law & Crime, September 30, 2025.