The California Supreme Court disbarred constitutional scholar John Eastman last April for the crime of representing Donald Trump.
Eastman wasn't alone – left-wing groups spent $16 million targeting 122 conservative lawyers across 26 states.
Conservatives just built the answer to the lawfare against conservative lawyers.
The 65 Project Spent $16 Million on Lawfare to Disbar Trump Lawyers
David Brock – the Democrat operative who founded Media Matters – was the key architect of the 65 Project, and he was honest about its purpose.
He told Axios the mission was to "shame" conservative lawyers and "make them toxic in their communities and in their firms" – accountability was never the point.
The group took its name from the 65 lawsuits Republicans filed contesting the 2020 election – a signal, from the start, that challenging a Democrat win would cost you your career.
Over a decade, a coordinated network of left-wing groups filed 181 bar complaints across 34 jurisdictions, targeting 122 lawyers and five law firms, with $16.4 million in documented funding, according to a 2026 report by Democracy Restored.
Trump 2020 lawyer John Eastman spent $1 million defending himself before the California Supreme Court stripped his license anyway in April 2026.
Rudy Giuliani lost his New York law license for the same offense – contesting the results of the 2020 election.
Jeff Clark – Harvard- and Georgetown-educated, former assistant attorney general – has spent years fighting a DC Bar recommendation for full disbarment over legal advice he gave inside the Department of Justice.
The DC Board on Professional Responsibility recommended stripping Clark's license in July 2025, and Trump's Justice Department responded by suing the DC Bar directly, arguing that federal lawyers cannot be disciplined by a local bar for legal advice given inside the executive branch.
If that argument loses, no government lawyer in America will ever give their boss an honest legal opinion again.
Every conservative who needs legal representation in a high-stakes political fight now faces a shrinking pool of lawyers willing to risk becoming Brock's next target.
Jeff Clark and the Oversight Project Fight Back Against Legal Weaponization
Jeff Clark now leads the Oversight Project's new law firm – launched last month – built to be what the group calls a "public defender for the right."
Clark laid out the stakes at a conference near Capitol Hill.
"This lawfare and barfare effort is about creating a one-party system," Clark said. "It is about totally destroying our competitive system, government, and our entire republic."
He wasn't being dramatic.
When Brock's operation makes it career-ending for a lawyer to represent a Republican, the Left wins those fights before they ever reach a courtroom.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) fought this same battle as Missouri attorney general against Biden's COVID mandates, and his message at the conference was direct: "The only way out is through."
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward – the third-highest official at the Justice Department – raised the question nobody in a state bar association wants to answer.
"Do you mean to tell me there were no controversies from the Merrick Garland Justice Department?" Woodward asked.
Nobody can name a single bar complaint filed against a Biden DOJ lawyer – not after Garland's prosecutors threw hundreds of January 6th cases at courts that dismissed them for overreach, not after his FBI raided a former president's home.
Why Brock Wins Every Legal Fight Before It Starts
John Adams represented British soldiers after the Boston Massacre – a case no other Boston lawyer would touch – because legal representation is foundational to a free republic.
The Left figured this out years ago.
Destroy the lawyers willing to represent Republicans and you destroy the Right's ability to fight in any courtroom in America – David Brock said that was the goal out loud.
John Eastman lost his career and Jeff Clark nearly lost his – Brock's campaign spent a decade making conservative lawyering a professionally fatal choice.
The Oversight Project's new law firm is the first institution built to make that strategy more expensive than the Left can afford to sustain.
Donald Trump Jr. endorsed it the day it launched, and the barfare machine just met its first real opposition.
Sources:
- Fred Lucas, "Creating a One-Party System: Conservatives Warn of Consequences and Need to Counter Left's Weaponization of Legal System," The Daily Signal, September 30, 2026.
- Fred Lucas, "Evil Lawfare Needs to End: Oversight Project Unveils New Firm to Combat Government Weaponization," The Daily Signal, September 18, 2026.
- Katie Daviscourt, "Left-wing Legal Groups Spent $16 Million in Attempt to Disbar, Cancel Conservative Lawyers Tied to Trump," The Post Millennial, 2026.
- Shawn Fleetwood, "California Bar Strips John Eastman of Livelihood for Representing a Client with Views It Dislikes," The Federalist, April 16, 2026.
- Brooke Singman, "Jeff Clark's Yearslong Disbarment Fight Tests Reach of DC Bar over Trump DOJ," Washington Examiner, July 21, 2026.
