Why Courts Should Not Discipline Trump's Lawyers

After the first Trump administration, there were multiple coordinated efforts to discipline lawyers in highly charged political cases. For example, a California bar court recommended that John Eastman be disbarred. Eastman helped craft the legal argument that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the right to delay or decline to certify the election results, and the disciplinary case concluded that he lied publicly, in his memos to his client and Pence, and to courts. This Article draws on Eastman's case to argue that disciplinary charges in politically charged cases are often unconstitutional and even when they are not, they are unwise and counterproductive because they chill useful advocacy and threaten democratic values.