My Testimony at the Eastman Disbarment Trial

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About a year ago, I received a phone call from John Eastman, the prominent constitutional scholar.  He was facing disbarment proceedings for the advice he had given President Trump, had read my book (Debunked), and wanted me to testify on his behalf at the forthcoming California disbarment trial.  Of course, I was eager to testify because I believed (and still believe) that the six key swing state elections in 2020 were not certifiable.  The specific reasons are laid out in the book.

Originally, I was one of seven “experts” selected by Eastman and his attorney, Randy Miller.  As experts, we would be able to give our opinions regarding the integrity of the election.  However, well financed attorneys for the California State Bar Association (SBA) immediately objected — to every witness.  Most of the time, Judge Yvette Roland was eager to oblige the SBA. 

In my case, Judge Roland ignored the fact that I was a veteran auditor and CPA, had written a comprehensive numbers-based book on the 2020 election, had written a book describing 23 ways we can improve our elections, and had published at least 25 articles on the subject.  The problem?  I “did not audit any of the state results for the 2020 election.”  Her statement was correct: no state or county offered to let me inspect and audit its election.  To my knowledge, however, no state or county has ever invited any outside CPA firm to perform such an audit.  The closest we came was in 2021, when the Cyber Ninja audit was forced upon the highly reluctant and totally uncooperative Maricopa County, in Arizona.

So I would not be an “expert,” but I would still be able to testify as a “fact witness.”  I could testify about relevant observations I made and testing I performed, but I would not be able to express a general opinion.  That did not bother me too much because the facts would speak for themselves.  Besides, as a dismissed “expert,” I was in fine company.

In the final analysis, Her Honor disqualified most of the defense experts, including defendant John Eastman (arguably the nation’s foremost expert on constitutional issues); Michael Gableman (a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice and the special counsel who conducted a comprehensive review of the 2020 Wisconsin election); and Garland Favorito, who has performed extensive election research for more than a decade and has testified as an expert in other courtrooms.  We would be allowed to testify as fact witnesses.  The testimony of some other experts was completely barred.

As a result of “the purge,” one side (the prosecution) would be able to expound on the accuracy and fairness of the election, whereas the other side (the defense) would not be able to express disagreement.  For this and other reasons, the trial was a joke.

Although Judge Yvette Roland seems like a smart woman, and she may have a good grasp of the law, it is clear that she is a committed partisan.  That is evident because she has donated to Democrat campaigns while serving on the bench.  It is also clear because of her demeanor in the courtroom.

From the start, the judge showed great skepticism of every assertion made by Eastman and his attorney, Randy Miller.  Almost all of Miller’s objections were overruled, whereas the objections of the SBA attorneys were mostly sustained. At one point, Judge Roland had the audacity to berate former Wisconsin justice Michael Gableman.  He made the mistake of inquiring about the rules of evidence being used in the courtroom.  Roland became so angry that she called for a five-minute break and told the defense counsel to “have a conversation with Judge Gableman, maybe straighten out a few misunderstandings, or…we’ll leave it at that.”

When John Eastman referred to the vice president as “him,” Judge Roland corrected Eastman  by saying “or her.”  According to reporter Rachel Alexander, a trial observer tweeted that Roland seemed more like a prosecutor than a judge.

The president of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton, took it a step farther in a posting on X: “Kangaroo court proceedings in California to disbar John Eastman, one of the nation’s leading constitutional lawyers, for daring to provide legal advice on the Biden election controversy.”

Fitton hit the nail on the head: across the country, attorneys are facing disbarment and even jail time, simply for agreeing with the assertions of their clients, or for aggressively exploring the legal options available to their clients.  That is unprecedented.

In the past, it was normal to hear a lawyer proclaim the innocence of his client.  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client did not kill his wife!”  Later, when the jury decided that the client had, indeed, killed his wife, the attorney did not face disbarment for lying to the court.  The lawyer who supported the views and legal options of her client was considered a good and dedicated defense attorney.  Not anymore.

But let’s get back to my testimony in the John Eastman trial.  In the final analysis, I did not testify at all — even as a fact witness.  That was extremely unfair to John Eastman, and to the standards of justice we used to cherish in America.

Late one afternoon in September, I was scheduled to testify and was ready to present many facts — not opinions.  I had developed those facts by applying the audit skills I had developed in a 40-year career as a CPA.  In some cases, the results were alarming.

In Pennsylvania, I tested the work of Rep. Frank Ryan and Verity Vote and could confirm that there were exactly 202,377 more ballots cast than identified voters when the state certified its election.  That is not opinion; it is something that can be calculated from publicly available information.  In the weeks following the election, the Pennsylvania voter deficit got smaller.  However, on February 1, 2021 — nearly 3 months after the election — there were still at least 90,000 more ballots cast than identified voters.  Thanks to Judge Roland, that information was never presented at trial.

In Georgia, I calculated the statistical odds of Democrat Fulton County, the largest county in the state, having a rejection rate only 1/7 of that of the state as a whole, and less than any other comparable county (comparable in terms of per capita income, demographics, or population).  It was less than 1 in a billion.  That is not opinion — it is a statistical fact.

I also tested a sample of the bizarre findings of VoterGA.  It can be proven that thousands of scanned ballot images had precisely the same timestamp, to the split-second.  That is quite a trick when it takes a full second to scan each ballot.  And in Michigan, it was not hard to calculate how many ballots were rejected for having bad signatures.  It was just one in 2,500.

When I was about to testify, in late September 2023, the judge changed her mind: I no longer qualified — even as a fact witness.

The prosecutors asked me how I went about writing Debunked, and I responded that information was disappearing from the internet, so I started by grabbing as much as I could before it was gone.  Then I reviewed the information and applied audit-type tests, using information from sources such as the Election Administration Voting Survey, Ballotpedia, secretary of state databases, and about two dozen county election administration websites.  In a detailed overview of my data sources and procedures, Eastman’s attorney listed 40 different information sources I used so that I could independently verify election information.

In the end, it was for nothing, and the judge would not let me testify.  Why?  Because I sounded more like an expert than a fact witness: “To testify about his analysis of this material and, to offer an opinion regarding it, falls within the role of an expert.”

Was that supposed to be a joke?  When a judge is hostile, the defendant cannot win.

Joe Fried is an Ohio-based CPA who has performed and reviewed hundreds of certified financial audits.  He is the author of the book Debunked? An auditor reviews the 2020 election and How Elections Are Stolen, which outlines 23 problems that must be fixed before the 2024 election.  More information can be found at https://joefriedcpa.substack.com, Joe’s permanently free Substack account.

Image via Picryl.