“If Dr. Eastman and his client were correct that the 2020 election was stolen — a view they firmly held at the time and continue to hold — then the threat to our system of government is extraordinarily high,” his lawyers wrote in his closing brief.

The state bar maintained that Eastman’s remarks at the Ellipse, on stage with Giuliani, helped fuel the mayhem that followed soon after at the Capitol. Eastman argued that he was not calling for violence.

“The State Bar offered no circumstantial evidence, let alone direct evidence, that Dr. Eastman intended that any individual would view or hear his statements and then commit acts of violence or lawlessness,” Eastman’s lawyers argued. “The plain text of Dr. Eastman’s statements at the Ellipse demonstrates they were clearly not even remotely a call for violence or could even be generously interpreted as calling for violence.”

Eastman, a former clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, served as the dean of Chapman’s law school from 2007 to 2010. He remained a professor there until 2021, when an outcry against his election-relation activity forced his departure.

According to his GiveSendGo page, Eastman has raised $636,602, with a goal of $750,000. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Eastman said that he expects his legal bills — from the bar trial to the Georgia indictment to other election-related trouble — will cost him $3 million to $3.5 million. He said recently that he had no regrets.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

He said the bar trial was “extraordinary and unprecedented” but gave him a chance to present wider evidence of election fraud than had been previously aired. “It was eye-opening for a lot of people about the amount of illegality that we exposed during that trial,” Eastman said.

Eastman portrays himself as a battling patriot who has been subjected to “false narratives and calumnies.” He said he is the victim of “lawfare,” an attempt to silence unpopular views with legal machinery.

“We are in a rather significant fight, and for whatever reason, I am the lead point of the spear in that fight, and I am taking it on, as I think my duty as a citizen requires,” he said. “We’ll do what it takes.”

Despite his legal problems, Eastman has continued to speak publicly about the election. He recently got a warm welcome at a luncheon meeting of the East Valley Republican Women Patriots at the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage in Southern California's Riverside County.

“They had over 400 people show up,” he said. There was “overwhelming support and (a) standing ovation.”

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