California disciplinary court Judge Yvette Roland (pictured above), who disbarred Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar John Eastman last month, contributed to a Democratic PAC last year which funneled all of the contributions to a Super PAC that seeks to stop “undermining the most basic tenet of our democracy, the right to vote.” Despite the fact that the charges against Eastman were all related to his efforts investigating and stopping election corruption in the 2020 election, Roland did not recuse herself.
While serving on the bench, Roland donated $250 twice on March 30, 2023 to Newsom for California Governor 2022 (NCG). Just 18 days later, NCG then contributed everything it had raised, about $23 million, to Campaign for Democracy Group (CDG), an independent expenditure Super PAC. CDG is primarily supporting Newsom. Its website states, “Across the country, extremist Republicans are systematically attacking the very foundations of a free society — bullying and criminalizing the most vulnerable, denying women equality and reproductive healthcare, attacking communities of color, dehumanizing immigrants seeking the American Dream, banning books and restricting speech, and undermining the most basic tenet of our democracy, the right to vote.”
Under the section “Threats,” the website attacks former U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for challenging the 2020 election corruption. It said he “Voted to Overturn the Presidential Election,” and “led 147 Republicans in trying to invalidate the results of the 2020 presidential election.” It also attacks McCarthy for “Help[ing] Perpetuate Conspiracy Theories About January 6,” stating that “McCarthy consistently attacked the January 6 committee and even released video footage of the attack to Tucker Carlson in order to bolster conspiracy theories about January 6.”
The charges against Eastman accused him of lying when he said during his January 6 speech that “dead people voted.” This was false, he said, because election officials in Michigan admitted that 1,500 votes were cast in the names of dead people — the officials disagreed that the number was higher. After Eastman pointed that out, he said the bar attorneys changed their accusation to state that 1,500 wasn’t enough to change the election results.
The CDG website lists Texas Governor Greg Abbott as a threat due to his election integrity efforts, citing his removal of noncitizens from the voter rolls, supporting voter ID requirements, and “establish[ing] a $1.5 million ‘Special Investigations Unit’ to hunt down players in what he called ‘epidemic’ voter fraud.”
NCG appears to have received “Smurfing” donations. There were over 74 million contributions to NCG between 2023 and 2024, an extremely high number (the population of California is 38.9 million). Election integrity journalist Peter Bernegger (pictured below), along with investigative journalist James O’Keefe and investigator Chris Gleason, exposed officials, candidates, and ActBlue for accepting tens of thousands of small donations allegedly facilitated by progressive activists in the names of people who were unaware of them. Bernegger told The Arizona Sun Times that progressive activists use bots to take names from the FEC website, where the donor has indicated they are retired or have left the employment space blank. He said he believes they target these types of donors since “they are unlikely to be able to fight back.”
After Bernegger filed 52 ethics complaints against officials and candidates over the contributions, prosecutors arrested and charged him with a felony that has only been used against individuals twice since 1977, simulating a legal process.
Canon 5 of the California Code of Judicial Ethics states, “A judge or candidate for judicial office shall not engage in political or campaign activity that is inconsistent with the independence, integrity, or impartiality of the judiciary.” Canon 4 states, “A judge shall so conduct the judge’s quasi-judicial and extrajudicial activities as to minimize the risk of conflict with judicial obligations.” Canon 2 states, “A judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of 18 the judge’s activities.”
Eastman is appealing the disbarment. His GiveSendGo has raised $743,958 for his legal defense. He is also a defendant along with Trump in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s RICO prosecution, and an unnamed co-conspirator in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election prosecution.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to rachel.r.alexander@gmail.com.
Photo “Judge Yvette D. Roland” by Langston Bar Association of Los Angeles and “Polling Place” by Corey Seeman CCNC2.0.
