In the first day of a disciplinary hearing that could lead to John Eastman’s disbarment, the California state bar’s lead counsel tried to paint the Orange County lawyer as a blindly charging advocate for Donald Trump who cited unsubstantiated claims about election fraud in 2020 without vetting their veracity.

Duncan Carling, a supervising attorney with the bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel, repeatedly pressed Eastman to detail what scrutiny he gave to sweeping allegations about election violations, including one—later retracted—that up to 66,000 Georgia voters had been too young to register.