One Blistering Line Takes Down Trump’s Disbarred 2020 Election Lawyer

Donald Trump’s former lawyer has been recommended for disbarment, and according to the presiding judge, it’s for a very good reason.

State Bar Court of California Judge Yvette Roland recommended Wednesday that Eastman’s law license be put on “involuntary inactive” status starting three days after her ruling. Roland also recommended that he pay a $10,000 fine to the State Bar of California Client Security Fund.

“The court rejects Eastman’s contention that this disciplinary proceeding and Eastman’s resultant discipline is motivated by his political views or his representation of President Trump or President Trump’s Campaign,” Roland said in her ruling. “Rather, Eastman’s wrongdoing constitutes exceptionally serious ethical violations warranting severe professional discipline.”

But one other line in particular stood out in the ruling: “The scale and egregiousness of Eastman’s unethical actions far surpasses the misconduct at issue in Segretti.”

Donald Segretti, of course, was the lawyer who worked on Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign and who coined the term “ratfucking.” Segretti first came up with “ratfucking” when he was at the University of Southern California, where he and his friends would sabotage campus elections, including by stuffing ballot boxes, planting spies on opponents’ teams, and spreading disinformation.

Investigations into the Watergate scandal found that Segretti had applied those same strategies to Nixon’s campaign and took a leading role in the political sabotage efforts.

But Eastman’s transgressions are worse, according to Wednesday’s ruling, because he took those actions in the course of his role as Trump’s lawyer. Segretti’s actions occurred outside his legal role.

What’s more, when Segretti faced trial, the “court found compelling mitigation based on his expressed remorse and recognition of his wrongdoing,” Roland wrote. But “no such mitigating factor is present with Eastman. To the contrary, Eastman has exhibited an unwillingness to acknowledge any ethical lapses regarding his actions, demonstrating an apparent inability to accept responsibility.”

Eastman helped lead Trump’s legal efforts to undermine the election results and prevent certification of the votes, including by appealing directly to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He also helped try to implement the plan to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states that Joe Biden had won.

He can appeal Wednesday’s decision. And the California Supreme Court still has to issue a final ruling.

The California bar association opened disbarment proceedings against Eastman in January, for helping Trump spread election fraud falsehoods, including at the January 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into the insurrection at the Capitol. His trial was set to begin in August, but it was delayed so Eastman could surrender himself to Georgia authorities for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Eastman also has been identified as one of the unnamed co-conspirators in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Representative Dan Meuser had an unusual take on the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge: It’s not the government’s job to fix it.

During an interview on Fox Business on Thursday, the Pennsylvania Republican slammed President Joe Biden for daring to say the multibillion-dollar reconstruction job is a responsibility of the federal government.

“Is Congress going to need to pony up more money, or is there enough money in the infrastructure package?” asked host Maria Bartiromo.

“Yea, it was kind of outrageous immediately for Biden to express in this tragedy the idea that he’s going to use federal funds to pay for the—in the entirety,” Meuser responded, suggesting instead that Biden use the money set aside for electric vehicle infrastructure to fund the collapsed bridge. “You know, he doesn’t refer to it as the American taxpayer dollars on anything. You know, the first reaction, in fact the only reaction, tends to be to spend.”

But Meuser’s comments completely overlook the role the federal government has to play in repairing federal property. The Key Bridge was a section of Interstate 695, an alternative route passing Baltimore on Interstate 95—both of which are a part of the federal highway system, funded by the national government by as much as 90 percent, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

On Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that the federal government has approximately $950 million set aside in an emergency fund that could be used to reconstruct the bridge—though that may only cover part of the bill, which federal officials estimate could cost as much as $2 billion.

All the while, Baltimore is bleeding approximately $15 million a day in economic activity as the major artery, and the Port of Baltimore, remains closed “until further notice.”

But maintaining critical infrastructure might not be that important to Meuser. In 2021, the GOP lawmaker joined several dozen other Republicans in voting against a $1 trillion infrastructure package that promised to fix outdated roads, bridges, and other transit systems—though it passed without their help.

Former billionaire and tech wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years on Thursday for defrauding clients around the world out of billions of dollars via his crypto exchange, FTX.

Once a poster boy for the emerging virtual market, Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all charges in November, including seven federal counts of fraud and conspiracy for stealing as much as $10 billion in customer funds, transferring them to another one of his companies, Alameda Research.

The sentencing was significantly less than the one recommended by federal prosecutors, who suggested the 32-year-old be put away for upward of 40 years, or by the Probation Department, which recommended a maximum sentence of 105 years.

“I know a lot of people felt very let down, and they were very let down. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about what happened at every stage—things I should have done and said and things I shouldn’t have,” Bankman-Fried told the court moments before his sentencing. “I failed everyone I care about and everything I cared about too.”

In his closing words, Judge Lewis Kaplan noted that Bankman-Fried “knew it was wrong.”

“A man willing to flip a coin as to the continued existence of life on earth. Mr. Bankman-Fried knew that Alameda was spending customer funds on risky investments, political contributions, and Bahamas real estate,” said Kaplan. “The funds were not his to use.”

“People need to feel it’s fair, or we’re back to trial by combat, folks, or something like it,” Kaplan continued. “So punishment must fit the seriousness of the crime. And this … was a serious crime.”

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who coined the phrase “alternative facts,” may soon rejoin Team Trump.

Conway is considering an offer to join Trump’s team again, Axios reported Thursday, citing an anonymous person close to Conway. The source would not specify who had offered her a position or what the role even was.

Senior Trump advisers denied that an offer had been made. But Conway, now a Fox News commentator, has recently been front and center, speaking out about multiple contentious issues, including TikTok, abortion, and race. Many Republicans see this as an attempt to make herself relevant and ingratiate herself to Trump, according to Axios.

There is no denying Conway’s ability to deliver a message. Once Trump was elected, she became one of his primary spokespeople and demonstrated a terrifying skill for spinning reality to try to make it seem more favorable to Trump.

“She is the go-to messenger when it comes to hot-button issues,” one source, speaking anonymously, told Axios. “Anytime she talks about a topic, Republicans and Trump’s orbit take it very seriously.”

But that line to Trump’s ear means that even some people who like her don’t want to publicly associate with her, Axios reported.

In recent months, Conway has tried to help the GOP rebrand on abortion, advocating for a 15-week abortion ban as a compromise. Trump later backed this position.

Conway wrote an essay in The New York Times last month decrying “identity politics” but urging Trump to pick a person of color as his running mate. Trump is reportedly considering Senators Tim Scott and Marco Rubio, and former House and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. He also briefly considered Vivek Ramaswamy.

Conway works for the conservative super PAC Club for Growth, lobbying against the bipartisan bill in Congress to ban TikTok. She recently urged Trump to highlight the app’s usefulness to his supporters, according to Axios. Trump has come out against the bill.

Conway was one of the few people who left Trump’s White House by choice, not because he fired them. She stepped down in 2020 after she and her husband, George Conway, made the country watch their opposing political ideologies battle it out on social media for years. (They divorced last year.) Conway said at the time that her resignation was prompted by a desire to focus on her family.

“In time, I will announce future plans. For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama,” she said, in what may be the cringiest resignation announcement ever.

On Tuesday, conservative leader and Trump ally Matt Schlapp claimed that the sexual battery case against him had been dropped, and that it hadn’t cost the American Conservative Union a dime. But that’s not the whole story.

Sources familiar with the situation that spoke to CNN confirmed that a $480,000 settlement was paid to Carlton Huffman, a former staffer for the 2022 Herschel Walker Senate campaign, through an insurance policy. In the days following the end of Walker’s campaign, Huffman alleged that Schlapp had “pummeled” his crotch while he chauffeured the conservative icon back to his hotel in Atlanta and that his wife had defamed him in an attempt to swipe away the allegations. Huffman originally sought $9.4 million in damages. The workaround settlement got Schlapp the best of both worlds—his accuser’s bought silence and the wiggle room to tell the press that he was off scot-free. But not entirely.

Since the lawsuit was dropped, Schlapp has claimed online that he was “exonerated” and “cleared” of wrongdoing, and that Huffman had “apologized”—a detail that went too far and threatened to breach the agreement’s nondisparagement clause, resulting in a warning from Huffman’s legal counsel and the subsequent removal of those posts from Schlapp’s social media feeds, according to The Daily Beast.

“It’s not exoneration,” a source told CNN, “if you paid the guy off.”

When reached out for a statement by CNN, Schlapp passed along not just his own words but also Huffman’s, the language of which had been coordinated via a private agreement between the two parties.

“From the beginning, I asserted my innocence,” Schlapp told the outlet. “Our family was attacked, especially by a left-wing media that is focused on the destruction of conservatives regardless of the truth and the facts.”

Huffman’s subsequent statement chalked up his initial allegations to a “complete misunderstanding” that he said he regrets. “Neither the Schlapps nor the ACU paid me anything to dismiss my claims against them,” he added.