[28] Following law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, who has since denounced Eastman for assisting Trump's efforts to remain in power and subvert the results of the 2020 election.

[30] For the 2020–2021 academic year he was the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy at the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado Boulder.

[32] Eastman has represented the North Carolina legislature and the State of Arizona in unsuccessfully petitioning the Supreme Court in cases involving same-sex marriage, abortion,[33] and immigration.

[34] He testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2014 arguing that President Barack Obama's unilateral suspension of deportation for undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional[35] and regarding the disclosure by the IRS of tax returns.

Axios also criticized Eastman for dismissing the eligibility concerns of 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz, born in Calgary, Canada, in a 2016 National Review op-ed, claiming they were "silly".

"[61] Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe was similarly dismissive, telling The New York Times "I hadn't wanted to comment on [Eastman's idea] because it's such an idiotic theory.

[73] After receiving sharp criticism about his role in the election aftermath, in October 2021 Eastman asserted the memos did not convey his advice but rather he had written them at the request of "somebody in the legal team" whose name he could not recall.

[75] On December 24, 2020, in an email exchange with New York appellate attorney Kenneth Chesebro and Trump campaign officials, Eastman wrote he was aware of a "heated fight" within the Supreme Court about whether to hear a case.

Chesebro had emailed Rudy Giuliani 11 days earlier with a proposal for Pence to recuse himself from the January 6 certification so a senior Republican senator could count fraudulent elector slates to declare Trump the victor.

[79][80] That same day, together with Giuliani and Boris Epshteyn, he appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast The War Room and promoted the idea that state lawmakers needed to reconsider the election results.

[80] On January 5, 2021, Eastman met with Pence in the Oval Office to argue, incorrectly, that the vice president has the constitutional authority to alter or otherwise change electoral votes.

[65] Pence rejected Eastman's argument and instead agreed with his counsel, Greg Jacob, and conservative legal scholars and other advisors, such as John Yoo and J. Michael Luttig.

[82][83][84][85][86] Pence later released a letter stating he would not attempt to intervene in the certification process, citing Luttig by name, who later said it was "the highest honor of my life" to be involved in preserving the Constitution.

[83][84][85] On January 6, Eastman spoke alongside Giuliani at the "Save America" rally that preceded the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol and asserted without evidence that balloting machines contained "secret folders" that altered voting results.

Eastman replied by blaming Pence and Jacob for refusing to block certification of Trump's loss in the election, writing, "The 'siege' is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened."

Later in the day, when the rioters were expelled from the Capitol and Pence was again presiding over Congress, Eastman told Jacob in another e-mail that Pence should still refuse to certify the election results:[91] "Now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for 10 days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations as well as to allow the full forensic audit of the massive amount of illegal activity that occurred here", Eastman wrote.

[93] According to testimony given to the January 6 Committee by former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, Eastman emailed Giuliani several days after the storming of the Capitol, asking to be placed on the list of those to be given a presidential pardon before Trump's term in office ended.

[101][102] Eastman asserted his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination on December 1, 2021, in a letter in which he refused to testify to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

"[107][108][109] Douglas Letter, general counsel to the House, said about Eastman asking Pence to delay Biden's certification, "It was so minor it could have changed the entire course of our democracy.

The plan called for legislators to express concern about absentee ballots to justify disqualifying tens of thousands of them, then using historical voting data to "discount each candidates' totals by a prorated amount" to arrive at a significant Trump lead.

Carter concluded it showed the Trump legal team had decided to "evade judicial review to overturn a democratic election" and "forged ahead with a political campaign to disrupt the electoral count".

[125] Judge Carter ruled in October 2022 that Eastman must turn over an additional 33 documents to the January 6 committee, including eight he determined were ineligible for attorney-client privilege because they related to possible criminal activity.

Carter found that one Eastman email exchange showed Trump had sworn under oath that the number of alleged voting fraud cases his attorneys cited in a Georgia federal suit was accurate, though he knew it was not.

[126] One of the eight emails showed Eastman agreeing with Chesebro that bringing a legal argument to Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas would be "our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress".

[131] On January 9, 2021, the chairman of Chapman's board of trustees and two other members (including former Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez) called on the university's president and provost and the law school's dean "to promptly take action against Eastman for his role in the events of Jan. 6".

[134] Eastman published a statement the next day saying that those who publicly condemned him "have created such a hostile environment for me that I no longer wish to be a member of the Chapman faculty, and am therefore retiring from my position, effective immediately".

He is accused of making false and misleading statements regarding alleged election fraud — including claims he made at a rally at the Ellipse outside the White House that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The California bar directly connects Eastman's speech to the insurrection, saying he "contributed to provoking a crowd to assault and breach the Capitol to intimidate then-Vice President [Mike] Pence and prevent the electoral count from proceeding."

[145][146] After an eight-week pause,[146] on August 24, Matthew A. Seligman, an expert witness for the prosecution, submitted a 91-page report arguing that Eastman's positions — that Pence had had "unilateral authority" related to the electoral vote counting procedures — were not "reasonable".

[164] Eastman's alleged role as "a legal architect of the plan"[165][166] to advance "fake electors" in Arizona led to his indictment on conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges there in April 2024.