John Eastman, testifying at his own disbarment trial, sidestepped a question Wednesday about whether he and others in former President Donald Trump’s orbit discussed the possibility that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — rather than Mike Pence — would preside over the Jan. 6, 2021, session of Congress.
During several hours of sworn testimony in a California disbarment proceeding, Eastman said discussions on that topic were protected by attorney-client privilege. When pressed about which client of his he was referring to, Eastman replied: “President Trump.”
It was a notable exchange in an extraordinary day of testimony from Eastman, who is seeking to defend his license to practice law in California even as he faces criminal charges in Georgia, where he is one of Trump’s 18 codefendants in an alleged conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election. Despite his criminal risk, Eastman fielded dozens of questions for hours on Wednesday, declining to assert his Fifth Amendment rights and only occasionally asserting attorney-client privilege.