PALM BEACH, Fla.—On the sunny yet slightly cool afternoon of Jan. 4, guests began to arrive at President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach for an exclusive event.
The occasion was a private screening of a documentary featuring attorney John Eastman, whose name in recent years gained national attention due to his role advising Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign and his stance on the election’s integrity.
The new film “The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice” conveys a message that, while the November election is over, the battle against lawfare is far from finished.
It tells the story of Eastman, who faced disbarment and criminal charges for his role in advising Trump.
The other prominent lawyers featured in the documentary include Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, and Jeffrey Clark, a senior Justice Department official in the Trump administration. In the movie, these attorneys draw attention to the “weaponization of the legal system,” saying that lawyers who defended Trump and other conservative figures after the 2020 election have been unfairly targeted and canceled by a politically biased legal system.
The screening of the movie coincided with the visit of a high-profile guest—Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was also at Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with the president-elect. After dining together, Trump and Meloni joined the guests to watch the documentary.
Before the screening of the film, Trump took a moment to praise Meloni, calling her a “fantastic woman” who has “taken Europe by storm.” He also said they decided to skip dessert upstairs to watch the documentary.
“I’m a big fan of John Eastman. You know, he was right, he happened to be right,” Trump told nearly 400 guests.
“That’s why they changed the law. Nobody wants to talk about that.”
Among the attendees were Trump’s Secretary of State nominee, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent. Also in attendance were Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), Trump’s national security advisor pick, as well as Tilman Fertitta, who is slated to become the U.S. ambassador to Italy.
‘The Eastman Dilemma’
Eastman is facing criminal charges in both Georgia and Arizona related to his alleged role in efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election.In March 2024, a California judge recommended that Eastman’s law license be revoked, stating that he committed “exceptionally serious ethical violations” due to his efforts to dispute the election results. This means he is banned from practicing law in his own state.
Eastman can still practice law in the Supreme Court of the United States.
“I often get the question, do I regret any of these actions? I don’t regret anything I did,” Eastman says in the movie. “I certainly regret, what’s happened as a result of it. It makes me sad that our country has gotten to this point.”
In the movie, Dershowitz said that today’s challenges faced by lawyers questioning the integrity of the 2020 election are akin to the disbarment of attorneys during McCarthyism of the 1950s.
He criticized a left-wing group called the 65 Project, accusing it of targeting lawyers who dare to represent Trump or anyone connected to him.
“They tried to have me disbarred in Massachusetts. They go after everybody. So, they’re trying desperately to weaponize the disbarment procedures,” Dershowitz said in the movie.
In the movie, Clark says that no one should monopolize the interpretation or the use of the law.
“You don’t want a one-party Republican monopoly. And we Republicans don’t want a one-party Democrat monopoly,” he said. “We want a healthy, competitive system. And what’s happening with this lawfare is a dagger at the heart of having a healthy, competitive system.”
In the movie’s closing argument, Eastman spoke about the importance of self-government and the consent of the governed, prompting cheers from the crowd, which he described later as “heartwarming.”
“That’s the whole reason I was involved in the election challenges itself and why I’ve been standing and fighting,” Eastman told The Epoch Times after the movie.
“I hope every American gets a chance to see it,” he said. “And I hope they come away angry at the lawfare so that it becomes impossible for anybody to ever even think about doing that again because otherwise, we throw our system of justice out the window.”
The movie will be released in theaters nationwide on Jan. 6.
Christina Wheatland, daughter of Eastman, spoke out about the harassment her family has faced over the past three years.
“They spiked our driveway. They threw dog feces all over our driveway. They have graffitied the house, the roads leading up to the house. It’s just despicable what these people have done,” Wheatland told The Epoch Times at the event.
“But I keep telling people, we are not victims. Like my dad said, he’s on the front lines of one of the most important roles in his lifetime.”
Eastman once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He is a former dean of Chapman University Law School and a visiting professor at the University of Colorado. He was forced to sever ties with both institutions in January 2021.
Eastman has also been allegedly de-banked by Bank of America and is unable to renew his TSA pre-check clearance while criminal charges against him remain pending, according to the movie.
Bank of America spokesperson Bill Halldin denied the claims of alleged de-banking.
“Due to privacy rules, we don’t comment on client accounts. However, I can say that political views are not a factor in any account closing,” Halldin told The Epoch Times in an email on Jan. 3.
At the event, guests were given flyers stating that Eastman had to hire outside counsel at a significant personal cost and encouraged attendees to donate to his “legal defense fund.”
Before the screening of the film, a panel discussion was held with a group of speakers, including attorneys featured in the movie—Eastman, Dershowitz, and Clark.
Other panelists included Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City; Peter Navarro, the incoming White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing; and Michael Flynn, former national security adviser under the Trump administration.
“It’s probably one of the best films, about the weaponization of our justice system—going after those who are supposed to protect our justice system,” Flynn told The Epoch Times after watching the movie.
He said that every law school in the United States should make it mandatory for students to watch this film.
In an interview with NTD Television, a sister media of The Epoch Times, Navarro stated that the movie seeks to shed light on how Trump advisors, himself included, have been targeted.
“There needs to be a national discussion about how to make sure it never happens again,” he said.
