Oversight Project Urges Supreme Court to Take Up John Eastman’s Challenge to California “Barfare” Disbarment
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 14, 2026
Washington, D.C.–The Oversight Project filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court urging the Justices to grant review in Eastman v. State Bar of California, No. 26-336, and to set aside California’s disbarment of constitutional scholar and attorney Dr. John Eastman. The brief argues that California had no power to punish Eastman for his advocacy before the Supreme Court, a federal district court, and the Vice President. That is especially true now that the President has pardoned the very conduct at issue.
California’s central charge went further still. A State Bar tribunal found, by “clear and convincing evidence” that Eastman committed a federal felony—conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371. Yet no federal grand jury indicted him, no federal court ever sanctioned him or referred him for discipline. The President has since granted Eastman “a full, complete, and unconditional pardon” for advice and advocacy relating to 2020 presidential electors. Proclamation No. 10,989, 90 Fed. Reg. 51,071 (Nov. 14, 2025).
The brief makes four arguments. First, two of the Court’s own precedents decide the case. In re Loney (1890) reserves policing of federal proceedings to the federal sovereign. Ex parte Garland (1867) bars disbarment “by reason of” a pardoned offense. As the brief puts it, “A pardon that California may disregard at its pleasure is no pardon; it is a suggestion.” Second, the Review Department conceded that strict scrutiny applies to Eastman’s political speech but never applied it. Third, California’s vague “moral turpitude” standard gave no fair notice that advising a client on the Electoral Count Act could end a career. Fourth, the decision breaks with a long tradition of protecting zealous advocates, from the 1735 Zenger trial through the disputed elections of 1876, 1960 and 2000.
The brief also exposes the political machinery behind the campaign. The “65 Project” sought to disbar Eastman in the Supreme Court itself in 2022, and its founder, David Brock, told Axios the idea was to “not only bring the grievances in the bar complaints, but shame them and make them toxic in their communities and in their firms.” Meanwhile, Texas’ highest court rejected discipline premised on the same Texas v. Pennsylvania pleadings, and authorities in Utah and Georgia declined to pursue related complaints. “When the same advocacy yields professional extinction in one State and nothing in three others,” the brief states, “the standard is not a standard.”
The Oversight Project asks the Court to grant the petition and vacate the judgment with instructions to dismiss or, at a minimum, to grant, vacate, and remand in light of the pardon. It also urges the Court to call for the views of the Solicitor General and a response from California. The brief was filed by Jeffrey Bossert Clark as Counsel of Record, joined by Oversight Project lawyers Joseph Schmitz and Anthony Charles Licata. In September 2026, the Oversight Project announced its new in-house law firm, the Oversight Project Law Firm, to defend targets of Lawfare—including lawyers facing politically charged disciplinary proceedings.
Jeff Clark, Oversight Project Law Firm Presiding Partner, gave this statement:
“The Oversight Project will not leave our allies to fight alone. John Eastman did what good lawyers have done since the Zenger trial: he zealously advocated for his client, President Trump, in the federal courts and before the Vice President. For that, California’s bar apparatus found him guilty of a federal felony without a grand jury, without a trial jury, without proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and without the United States—and the disbarment still stands as a black mark on American jurisprudence despite a presidential pardon covering the very same conduct. That is Barfare, plain and simple. We built the Oversight Project Law Firm so that the lawyers on our side who are targeted for their advocacy have someone in their corner. Today, that means standing with John Eastman at the Supreme Court. To every ally facing the same treatment from the 65 Project and its fellow travelers: we have your back, and we are just getting started.”
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Read the brief here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-336/429400/20261013171254756_26-336%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf
Read Jeff Clark’s essay on the Oversight Project Law Firm, “The Right Finally Gets a Law Firm of Its Own,” in The American Mind here.