As Arrests Begin in Georgia, Trump’s Lawyers Take Center Stage

The release of a mugshot of one of President Trump’s attorneys, John Eastman, brings into focus a new reality for the professor of constitutional law, not to mention six other lawyers — they are now criminal defendants in the state of Georgia. Mr. Eastman has been charged along with Mayor Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and the one-time White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. All of that group save for Mr. Meadows appeared in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 indictment, albeit in unnamed form, as Mr. Trump’s unindicted co-conspirators. Each could yet be charged by Mr. Smith. Mr. Eastman, who is charged with racketeering as well as various conspiracy charges that include acting to impersonate a public officer, homed in on the bar’s involvement in the case. In a statement, he calls the indictment a “crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.”The former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and dean of the Chapman University School of Law adds that the case “targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients, something attorneys are ethically bound to provide.” Striking a defiant note, he offers his “knowledge of the relevant facts, law, and constitutional provisions” to his fellow co-defendants.The involvement of Messrs. Giuliani and Eastman in Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election could threaten not only their liberty, but their livelihoods. They both face disbarment proceedings, in New York and California, respectively. Mr. Eastman’s, for “moral turpitude,” was delayed while he turned himself in. A bar panel has recommended that Mr. Giuliani’s license be revoked for efforts to “destabilize our democracy.”Finances are also an issue for the attorneys. The New York Times reports that Mr. Giuliani has entreated Mr. Trump for help covering nearly $3 million in debt and that the former president has thus fair paid out only $340,000, though he has committed holding two fundraisers. Mr. Eastman has raised $500,000 to cover his own expenses, but now says those funds are “depleted or committed.”Most vocal on this fiduciary front has been Ms. Ellis, who posted to her nearly one million followers on X: “Why isn’t MAGA, Inc. funding everyone’s defense?” She added, “I was reliably informed Trump isn’t funding any of us who are indicted.” Her crowdsourcing page has raised $115,431 thus far. It accuses the government of “trying to criminalize the practice of law.” Ms. Ellis reposted a comment accusing Mr. Trump of spending “not a dime of his money to fund their defense. Nothing. He has thrown all of them under the bus to prop himself up. That tells me all I need to know about character. Jenna is having to fund a huge legal campaign on her own.” Also doing that is Mr. Clark, who has thus far raised more than $30,000 out of an aspirational $100,000.When it comes to the case’s merits, Mr. Trump, his armada of lawyers, and the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, are all likely to cite, for their own ends, the American Bar Association’s formulation of the lawyer’s duty to “zealously to protect and pursue a client’s legitimate interests, within the bounds of the law.” As with the outer boundary of attorney-client privilege, the duty ends where criminality begins.In a different sense than Mr. Eastman intended, then, the fates of Mr. Trump’s lawyers could indeed turn on a Rubicon, but one that divides creative lawyering from conspiracy, and freedom of speech from criminal behavior. One Harvard-educated lawyer and student of liberal lion Laurence Tribe, Kenneth Chesebro, is alluded to 13 times in Mr. Smith’s indictment and is charged with seven crimes by Ms. Willis. One of Mr. Eastman’s attorneys, Harvey Silverglate, wrote to the Boston Globe that his client “acted in the highest traditions of the legal profession to advise his client, even if some of his theories were at the very boundary of the law,” and that there is “nothing unlawful, much less criminal, about coming up with creative, boundary-pushing legal theories.”

As Arrests Begin in Georgia, Trump’s Lawyers Take Center Stage

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