disbar lose license

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PRIMARY 3 26 BONDI TRIES TO STOP ABA, ED FUCKING MARTIN ETHICS

see MODERATION KRAKEN

see pjt 65 dis-bar = bak?

SEE JEFFERY CLARK JOHN EASTMAN

SEE DISBAR ABA DISCIPLINARY ETHICS ED FUCKING MARTIN 3 26

WHAT IS STATUS, WIN-LOSS RECORD? WHAT EFFECT? tacopino quit 1 24

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https://www.alternet.org/kari-lake-2659013140/

sanctions? blehm

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AN 9 26

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, had a tough hearing before the Missouri state Supreme Court on Thursday, in which the state attorney general's office was forced to defend him against contempt charges for refusing to comply with a ruling they issued on the usage of congressional maps for the upcoming 2026 election.

Like many states, Missouri Republicans attempted to redraw lines to eliminate Democratic seats and help President Donald Trump keep as many GOP members of Congress as possible.

Ultimately, the hearing closed with Chief Justice W. Brent Powell telling the attorney general's office, "I would tell your client, the secretary of state, not to venture far from Jefferson City until this contempt ruling is decided."

It wasn't the only verbal smackdown delivered by the conservative state court.

Chuck Hatfield, counsel for People Not Politicians, the group that sued over the use of the 2026 maps, began the hearing by walking through the quickly changing legal situation, but Hoskins knowingly ignored the ruling and told local election officials not to follow the law. To him, that is worthy of a contempt ruling.

Missouri's AG's office lawyer claimed that Hoskins was in a difficult position because one court said one thing and another court said another. The reason for that, however, is that Hoskins went to the federal court when he didn't like the ruling from the state Supreme Court. He also asked the federal court to intervene to protect him from being held in contempt. The judge refused.

The justices didn't appear to buy into it, asking whether Hoskins fully understands that the law changing to the new maps, known as House Bill 1 (HB1), never went into effect. Chief Justice Powell, along with other justices, asked multiple times and in different ways whether Hoskins fully grasped that the maps were never legally changed. The AG office's lawyer appeared to play around with the admission, saying that Hoskins understands that now, but before, he was in a difficult position.

"We’re in a precarious situation," a frustrated Powell said. He urged them all to "get on the same page" and "find a way to save some of these elections so they are valid and we can sit the congressional delegation that our state is entitled to."

One justice cut in to say that they have a larger concern that the secretary of state could turn around and use maps that aren't law.

According to the attorney general's lawyer, Secretary of State Hoskins "acknowledges that this court's injunction is back in full force and effect" and is "evaluating next steps." In fact, the lawyer said multiple times that he hadn't had much time to confer with Hoskins since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling about an hour prior to the contempt hearing. So, Hoskins is still "evaluating the situation."

"I mean, it's just English," one justice said.

The justice explained that Hoskins could easily have waited until he had a final ruling on the matter as a whole, but instead, he chose the decision he wanted most and broadcast it to local officials, thereby causing more confusion. They asked what direction he had given to officials, and the AG's office said that there wasn't any.

A justice cut in to say that actually wasn't the case. The most recent message from the secretary of state's office was not to follow the law and the ruling by the state Supreme Court.

The hearing ended with Hoskins committing to telling the local officials that he lost in court and that they must comply with the 2022 maps.

As for his contempt, the justices said that he shouldn't leave town any time soon.

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AN 8 26

President Donald Trump's lawyers filed an appeal on Wednesday alleging that they are the victims of a judge's abuse after they were sanctioned in court and the president was slapped with a gag order.

After losing a case last month, Trump's lawyers are now asking that sanctions against them and the Trump gag order be paused pending their appeal, Law&Crime reported.

At issue is Trump's "agreement" between the Justice Department and the IRS to create a nearly $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" for anyone who felt they were wronged by previous administrations. Already, there are dozens of Jan. 6 attackers demanding millions in financial compensation despite being found guilty or pleading guilty.

Trump sued the IRS in the Southern District of Florida after his taxes, along with those of over 400,000 others, were exposed in a data breach. In his January filing, Trump demanded a $10 billion payout for damages from the IRS. Trump then claimed he had reached a "settlement" with the U.S. government, which he runs.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams didn't buy it. In her July ruling over the matter, she not only said that there can be no "settlement," but she also issued sanctions for the lawyers involved in the case.

Finding that “sanctions are appropriate here,” Williams said Trump’s personal attorney Alejandro Brito will be referred to the Florida Bar for “its consideration, review, and determination as to whether any disciplinary action is appropriate in light of the findings and rulings made in this order.”

Williams also banned another Trump lawyer, Daniel Epstein, from seeking admission to practice law in the Southern District of Florida for one year.

Further, she attacked acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche’s “apparent capacity to speak for both plaintiffs and defendants, sign a ‘settlement’ document on behalf of all parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case.”

Additionally, Williams restricted Trump, the government, their lawyers and certain related individuals from discussing or using the settlement agreement.

On Wednesday, those lawyers filed an appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, alleging that the judge lacked the authority to issue sanctions.

"This appeal arises from the district court’s extraordinary abuse of its sanctions power. In this action, Plaintiffs President Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and The Trump Organization, LLC sued the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of the Treasury, pursuant to a congressionally-authorized remedy, over the undeniably unauthorized and illegal disclosure of their confidential tax-return information to the press," the filing said. "After reaching a settlement with the IRS and Treasury, Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the action, which the court so-ordered."

The lawyers alleged that the judge had no "proof of collusion and bad faith," while punishing them with a "sweeping, unconstitutional, and unlawful gag order" that targets the president himself.

"The injunction categorically forbids Movants from even 'referring to' the Settlement Agreement, and separately bars any use of its provisions in official proceedings," the brief continues. "That gag order wrongly silences the sitting President, the Government, private parties, and counsel on a matter of obvious public concern at a politically consequential moment — and denies the public the right to hear their views."

The filing says that any gag order against the president is "unconstitutional," meanwhile, any penalties against them could damage their careers.

The lawyers further claim that the judge wrongly believes that because Trump runs the government, he can't sue it. In this capacity, he was suing as a private person.

The brief said her sanctions "flowed from a single predicate legal error: that presidential supervision under Article II supposedly eliminated Article III adversity."

In fact, Williams' issue is not with the suit itself; it's that Trump controls whether or not to settle with himself.

IRS employees have sued over the Trump fund, saying that the agreement has a hidden legal trap.

-=-=-=

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AN 726

Meltdown: Trump DOJ in total chaos as mass exodus continues

A federal court judge got "really worked up" in a ruling against President Donald Trump and his Justice Department on Monday.

Legal analysts posted the ruling in Trump's IRS case, in which the judge decided the lawsuit and creation of $1.8 "anti-weaponization fund" was improper as Trump was in control of both sides of the negotiations and litigation.

One of the findings from the judge is that the plaintiff's attorney, Alejandro Brito, is being referred to the Florida Bar for an investigation to decide whether disciplinary actions are warranted. Another attorney, Daniel Z. Epstein, "will be denied for one year" admission "*pro hac vice* in the Southern District of Florida."

According to legal reporter Chris Geidner, who runs the Law Dork substack, "Judge Kathleen Williams also sanctions Trump's lawyers, issues monetary sanctions and harshly criticizes DOJ's 'untenable' conduct."

Trump legal foe Norm Eisen took a victory lap, commenting on BlueSky, that the ruling "Knocks out any legal basis for the $1.8 billion, Also undermines the accompanying settlements, And opens the way to ethics [and] financial SANCTIONS."

Among the comments from the judge includes the accusation that Trump "abused the judicial process" in what amounts to a sham case just to have "access to taxpayer funds and exemption from audits and other investigations."

"It is risible to suggest there was ever adverseness between the parties," wrote Judge Williams.

New Mexico civil litigator Owen Barcala posted specifics about the case, encouraging folks to peruse it as it's "a fun read, you can tell the judge really got worked up by what Trump/DOJ was trying to do, but I'm not really sure it invalidates or nullifies the settlement agreement as some people are saying."

"The main holding," he explained, "is that there was not sufficient adversity to support Article III jurisdiction. That means the court never had jurisdiction over this supposed claim and can't enter any orders on the merits. So, functionally, the court can't enter an order directed at the validity of the agreement."

He added, "But the court can enter non-merits orders against the parties in the form of sanctions. This supports the purpose of Rule 11 because, otherwise, a party who files a frivolous case escapes precisely because the case is frivolous. So a court has to have the ability to sanction even after dismissing. The court recognizes this because the sanction is directed toward the parties, not the merits of the settlement fund itself. The parties cannot refer to the purported 'settlement agreement' as a 'settlement' reached in this matter. The last part is important — limited to a 'settlement' in this case."

The ruling is a tough blow, coming mere days ahead of attorney general candidate Todd Blanche's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he will face questions from lawmakers on the matter.

"Blanche and [Stanley] Woodward were required to recuse themselves from issues related to the [January 6] and stolen documents criminal inquiries (because they represented Trump) and instead those were Exhibits A and B in 'anti-weaponization' claims for settlement," Law & Chaos co-reporter Andrew Torrez remarked on BlueSky.

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MADDOW UBC 3 26 FLA BAR GOING AFTER HER LICENSE? HALLIGAN

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an 5 26

President Donald Trump lost his appealof a personal lawsuit he launched against former Secretary Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, the Democratic National Committee, the law firm Perkins Coie, LLC and others he blames for the Russia investigation.

Politico's Kyle Cheney reported on Tuesday that the 11th Circuit declined to rehear Trump's case, leaving his only option an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump and lawyer Alina Habba in 2023 were sanctioned $1 million for the "frivolous" lawsuit. Florida has rules that allow defendants to ask that a court decide whether a lawsuit is "bogus," the Associated Press reported.

At the time, U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks wrote in the ruling that Trump has a "pattern of abuse of the courts" for filing such lawsuits specifically for political purposes. He said that the move "undermines the rule of law" and "amounts to obstruction of justice."

"Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose," he wrote.

Chief Judge William Pryor, a George W. Bush appointee, along with Trump appointee Judge Andrew L. Brasher and Joe Biden appointee Judge Embry Kidd, denied Trump's demand to rehear the case.

They added the detail, "... no judge in regular active service on the Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc," which means none of the judges had any interest in weighing in on rehearing the matter. On the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, six of the 12 judges were appointed by Trump.

Lawyer Marc Elias commented on BlueSky, "I was a defendant in Trump’s frivolous lawsuit. I did not settle. I did not compromise. I did not stop speaking out. We fought and won."

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an 4 26

A Politico Senior Affairs writer reports that the California Supreme Court has declined to reverse the disbarment of conservative attorney John Eastman, one of the co-conspirators in President Donald Trump‘s plan to overturn the 2020 election.

The decision came weeks after Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland ruled Eastman should be removed. Last year, A California appellate court, charged with reviewing recommendations to discipline lawyers in that state, affirmed the findings of a trial judge and recommended that Eastman 'be disbarred from the practice of law in California and that Eastman's name be stricken from the roll of attorneys.'"

Eastman was one of Trump’s lawyers in 2020, and he played a big part in helping Trump try to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, which the former president falsely claims was “stolen” by Joe Biden and Democratic officials. Eastman helped devise a false elector’s scheme involving former Vice President Mike Pence invalidating the 2020 results during a joint session of Congress as it convened to count the electoral votes.

Additionally, Eastman is the attorney behind Trump’s ongoing push to end birthright citizenship in America,

“The idea that birthright citizenship is a false interpretation or recent innovation that warps the intended meaning of the 14th Amendment has been pushed into mainstream Republican circles by the tireless work of John Eastman and the Claremont Institute,” said Bulwark writer Phillip Jaffa last year.

Eastman faced 11 disciplinary charges including violations of California’s business and professions code by making false statements that constitute acts of “moral turpitude, dishonesty and corruption,” the California State Bar wrote in a filing.

Eastman testified in his defense and asked the state Supreme Court to review the Bar’s decision.

The court disagreed with him.

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DISBAR ABA DISCIPLINARY ETHICS ED FUCKING MARTIN 3 26

AN 3 26

Former DOJ prosecutor cheers investigation of Trump ‘charlatan’ US attorney

Outgoing "weaponization" chief and Donald Trump appointee Ed Martin is facing an ethics investigation, and former prosecutor Elie Honig it couldn’t happen to a better person.

VID]

“Any time you give enormous prosecutorial power to a charlatan, to a person like Ed Martin—who had zero prior prosecutorial experience before he took this job and came into an office with an explicit political agenda—you’re going to wind up in trouble,” Honig told CNN anchor Jake Tapper.

Martin, a Department of Justice employee, is facing ethics charges after he sent a Feb. 2025 letter to the Georgetown University Law Center alleging that a whistleblower reported them for teaching "diversity, equity, and inclusion." Before law center officials even responded to his letter, however, he said he would impose sanctions on Georgetown by telling his staff not to hire any students from the school.

A Tuesday filing shows Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton "Phil" Fox III of the D.C. Bar alleged on Friday that while working for the federal government, Martin violated the First and Fifth Amendments with his letter, and that “Martin knew or should have known" this at the time.

"Acting in his official capacity and speaking on behalf of the government, he used coercion to punish or suppress a disfavored viewpoint, the teaching and promotion of DEI," the court filing says. "He demanded that Georgetown Law relinquish its free speech and religious rights in order to obtain a benefit, employment opportunities for its students."

If the D.C. Bar determined Martin did indeed blatantly violate the Constitution is could suspend or cancel his law license.

“During his time as U.S. attorney, Martin made various wildly inappropriate public statements,”, a former assistant United States Attorney and director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. “He launched various explicitly political investigations and now … he's facing ethics charges over that letter to Georgetown law school, where he [threatened] to punish their students … and I may cut off their funding.”

“So now he will have to face an ongoing proceeding where he may lose his bar license. And for the first time, Jake, Ed Martin seems to be facing some level of accountability.”

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an3 26

Outgoing "weaponization" chief Ed Martin was supposed to have left the Justice Department sometime in February after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche "made moves to significantly limit Martin’s ability to wield power," CNN reported at the time. Now, Martin is facing an ethics investigation.

"On his way out the door from the U.S. attorney's office, [Martin] announced to his entire staff that he was under investigation by the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel without elaborating on the details, CBS News reported Tuesday. According to the report, Martin is facing ethics charges after he sent a letter to the Georgetown University Law Center alleging that a whistleblower reported them for teaching "diversity, equity, and inclusion."

Martin's Feb. 17, 2025, letter made the allegations, but before he heard a response, he said he would impose sanctions on Georgetown by telling his staff not to hire any students from the school.

Now-former dean, William Treanor, responded in a letter challenging Martin's Catholic faith, saying it was "an attack on the University's mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution."

A filing revealed Tuesday shows Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton "Phil" Fox III of the D.C. Bar alleged on Friday that while working for the federal government, Martin violated the First and Fifth Amendments with his letter. "Mr. Martin knew or should have known" that.

The filing goes on to say that Martin replied to the exchange, "stating that he would not be responding to Disciplinary Counsel’s inquiry, complained about Disciplinary Counsel’s 'uneven behavior' and requested a 'face-to-face meeting with all of you to discuss this matter and find a way forward.' He copied the White House Counsel 'for informational purposes because of the importance of getting this issue addressed.'"

Technology lawyer Kendra Albert mocked on BlueSky that Martin's comments in count two had "I want to speak to your manager" energy.

Lawfare's senior editor, Roger Parloff, called the comments from Martin, "very Ed Martin-y." He noted that after the D.C. Bar Association began its inquiry, "Martin [wrote] Chief Judge of D.C. Court of Appeals three times." He was warned not to on two occasions and did so anyway.

The first letter was sent to the judge ex parte, meaning it did not inform the opposing counsel.

Slate legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern suggested this is one of many reasons Attorney General Pam Bondi is going after state Bar Associations for filing ethics complaints.

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omg

an 3 26

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance is disputing a Wednesday claim by President Donald Trump's administration that it can sideline investigations by Bar Associations around the country.

According to Bloomberg Law, the Justice Department is working to "suspend stat bar ethics investigations" targeting DOJ lawyers. The DOJ has clashed with judges across the U.S. and judgment, behavior and legal violations have prompted complaints to state Bar Associations as a result.

According to the proposal, which was posted in the Federal Register on Wednesday, the DOJ wants to do its own internal review of the lawyers rather than the regulatory association. Critics see it as diminishing the power of the Bar Associations as a whole.

Commenting on the report on X, Vance called it "bunk."

"State bars license attorneys and consider misconduct allegations. Historically, state bars have deferred to DOJ‘s internal discipline process as a courtesy, but they are not obligated to, and the AG has zero authority to suspend state bar operations," Vance said about Attorney General Pam Bondi.

"DOJ can’t avoid investigation and incredible allegations of clear, ethical violations, like lying to or misleading judges and failing to follow court orders if state bars want to pursue them," Vance added. "The process is usually long and involves wrist slaps instead of jumping straight to disbarment, but egregious cases deserve serious discipline."

University of Michigan Law School Professor Barbara McQuade agreed.

"All DOJ lawyers are members of a state or DC bar, and subject to its ethics rules and penalties, up to disbarment. Subverting state bar authorities would give DOJ lawyers carte blanche to violate ethics rules," she said about the report.

Self-described "recovering lawyer" Jeff Jacobs commented, "You would think that, given the ethical implications of many of the actions by this DOJ and its state-licensed attorneys, the administration would go out of its way to avoid antagonizing state bar associations."

In January, the Texas Supreme Court ended the 42-year reliance on the American Bar Association for law school accreditation because the ABA has diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements. Florida has now done the same. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) has proposed his own accreditor for Florida law schools instead.

If Bondi's proposal moves forward after a public comment period, “whenever a third party files a bar complaint alleging that a current or former Department attorney violated an ethics rule while engaging in that attorney’s duties for the Department, or whenever bar disciplinary authorities open an investigation into such allegations,” the attorney general “will have the right to review the complaint and the allegations in the first instance,” it states.

Bondi is calling ethics probes into attorneys at the DOJ part of an anti-Trump "weaponization" effort.

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OMG AN 3 26

Political scientist Austin Sarat on Wednesday warned that

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an 2 26

According to New Republic sources, President Donald Trump's allies in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) were determined to move ahead with a federal prosecution of six Democrats even though they couldn't specify exactly what laws were violated. And the allegations from reporter Greg Sargent's sources are so damning, a legal blogger argues, that DOJ attorneys who pursued the case should be disbarred.

In a late 2025 video, six Democrats — who included Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) — told members of the U.S. Armed Forces that they should disobey any orders from Trump if they are blatantly illegal. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were furious, with Trump attacking the Democrats as "traitors" and saying they deserved to be "arrested and put on trial."

But a federal grand jury, on February 10, decided against an indictment. And Sargent reported that according to attorney Preet Bharara — who was representing Slotkin — Trump's DOJ allies, including prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, were unable to tell him what specific statutes were violated. Regardless, the prosecutors were determined to move ahead with an indictment.

Responding to Sargent's reporting in a February 18 post on X, legal blogger Scary Lawyer Guy argued that such "misconduct' should result in the federal prosecutors losing their right to practice law.

Scary Lawyer Guy tweeted, "Textbook prosecutorial misconduct that should result in disbarment. Walking into a GJ and attempting to obtain an indictment against sitting members of Congress WITH NO IDENTIFIED CRIMINAL STATUTE BEING VIOLATED should also be a 'gate' level scandal but no one in the press cares."

Scary Lawyer Guy isn't the only one who is criticizing the Trump DOJ's conduct.

Kristy Parker, counsel for the group Protect Democracy and a former DOJ prosecutor told Sargent, "That is irregular. Typically, when someone is the target of a criminal investigation, it's unusual to dissemble with the target's lawyer about what the charges might be that close to an indictment. It's not how federal prosecutors are supposed to conduct themselves."

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AN 2 26

Hailing it as a "truly heartening" decision while Donald Trump acts with almost total impunity, legal expert Steven Lubet commended the disbarment recommendation against a MAGA lawyer for taking part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Writing for The Hill on Monday, Lubet, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law and prolific writer on the subject of legal ethics, relayed the story of Georgia-based lawyer, William McCall Calhoun Jr. Last month, Lubet explained, the state's nine Supreme Court Justices, including eight Republican appointees, unanimously issued an opinion that Calhoun must be disbarred for his participation in the Capitol Riots.

While Trump issued a mass pardon for all Jan. 6 participants when he returned to the White House, and while he himself acts with "total immunity" granted to him by the U.S. Supreme Court, Lubet held up the ruling against Calhoun as an example of meaningful consequences for "law-breaking" committed in the name of the MAGA movement.

"There have been few if any lasting consequences for crimes or malfeasance in Trump world," he wrote. "It was, therefore, truly heartening to see a group of Republicans acknowledge that law-breaking must be meaningfully penalized, even if committed under the MAGA banner."

Calhoun was arrested not long after his participation in the Capitol riots back in 2021, and was ultimately convicted on four misdemeanors and one felony charge. In addition to being sentenced to serve 18 months in prison, his law license was also suspended.

Despite his conviction being wiped away by Trump last year, Calhoun remained disbarred in Georgia, a fact he petitioned to have overturned. The state's bar disciplinary counsel decided that the petition had merit and that only “a public reprimand was warranted.” Last month, however, the state's Supreme Court denied the petition.

“Pardons do not prevent disbarment for the underlying activity that formed the basis of the crime," the court's ruling detailed, concluding that it was "hard … to see how anything less than disbarment can be accepted."

”The Republican-led state Supreme Court has now exemplified the same integrity by disregarding Trump’s blanket pardons and recognizing the true nature of the Jan. 6 attack," Lubet wrote. "It was not a 'day of love' or a 'normal tourist visit,' or even a 'political protest that got out of hand.' Jan. 6 was an insurrection, and insurrectionists will not be practicing law in Georgia any time soon."

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AN 11 25

In the service of President Donald Trump, Lindsay Halligan, Trump’s second interim appointment as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, may lose her license to practice law.

Who is Halligan?

Competence is a key requirement for obtaining and retaining a law license. But nothing in Halligan’s education, experience, or training qualified her to prosecute federal crimes, much less lead a US Attorney’s office of more than 300 attorneys and staff in four divisions in Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk, and Newport News. For starters, she has never tried a criminal case. But Trump always prefers loyalty over competence.

Halligan attended a private Catholic high school and a Jesuit university where she studied politics and broadcast journalism. She competed in the Miss Colorado USA pageant in 2009 and 2010 and received her law degree from the University of Miami School of Law. Upon graduation, she went to work in a Miami law firm, representing insurance companies against homeowners and businesses.

Even if Halligan manages to keep her law license, she will never recover her professional reputation. It’s the Trump effect.

Halligan met Trump in November 2021 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. In early 2022, he made her part of his legal team on the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

After the election, she worked on Trump’s project to whitewash US history by cleansing the Smithsonian Institution of historically accurate but unpleasant facts. In August, she co-signed a letter instructing eight of the Smithsonian’s museums to replace exhibits that include “divisive or ideologically driven” material with “unifying, historically accurate” displays.

Answering Trump’s Call…

Based on the weakness of the cases against former FBI director James Comey and another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump’s first interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Eric S. Siebert, refused his demand to indict them. Trump responded by declaring that he wanted Siebert “out.” Hours later, he resigned.

With the statute of limitations on charges against Comey expiring in days, Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint 36-year-old Halligan—a senior White House staff secretary and special assistant to the President—as Siebert’s replacement.

“Lindsay Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you a lot,” Trump posted in a public message to Bondi.

Two days later, Halligan was sworn in as the new interim US Attorney. Her singular mission was to secure indictments against Comey and James.

Two days after that, on September 24, she succeeded. Halligan presented the case against Comey personally to the grand jury. Federal judges are now exposing her incompetence.

November 17:A federal magistrate judge found that the government may have violated Comey’s constitutional rights and his attorney-client privilege. The court listed 11 bases upon which the government’s misconduct—including Halligan’s statements to and conduct before the grand jury—may have violated the Constitution and require dismissal of Comey’s indictment.

November 19:Halligan admitted to another federal judge that she never showed the final indictment to the entire grand jury after it had rejected her first submission – a remarkable prosecutorial failure.

November 24:In rulings that invalidated the Comey and James indictments based on Trump’s unlawful appointment of Halligan, a third court began its opinion with this shot:

On September 25, 2025, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, appeared before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. Having been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney General just days before, Ms. Halligan secured a two-count indictment charging former FBI Director James B. Comey, Jr….

…And Suffering the Consequences

Every attorney requires a license to practice law. The bar examiners who issue and renew those licenses promulgate rules of conduct that every lawyer must follow. Even before the latest judicial revelations, Halligan was defending complaints that she had violated those rules. But with the latest court rulings, she is in a whole new world of hurt. And Trump’s pardons won’t help her.

Here’s a partial list of the Model Rules that could pose problems for Halligan:

Rule 1.1: Competence

A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.“

[Halligan has never tried a criminal case.]

Rule 3.1: Meritorious Claims and Contentions

A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous,….“

[Halligan’s predecessor found that the case against Comey was too weak to pursue.]

Rule 3.8: Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor

The prosecutor in a criminal case shall:

(a)refrain from prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause;….“

[Here, again, her predecessor found that any case against Comey was a loser for the government.]

Rule 8.4: Misconduct

It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

(d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice;….“

[The circumstances surrounding Trump’s appointment of Halligan and her subsequent indictment of Comey suggest an abuse of power and conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.]

Special rules for federal prosecutors echo and reinforce the Model Rules. They too require probable cause for charges, investigations and prosecutions that are conducted fairly and without vindictiveness, and a ban against politicized or partisan prosecutions.

In fact, the Justice Department has a “longstanding threshold requirement that a prosecutor may commence or recommend federal prosecution only if he/she believes that the person will more likely than not be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by an unbiased trier of fact and that the conviction will be upheld on appeal.”

Even if Halligan manages to keep her law license, she will never recover her professional reputation. It’s the Trump effect.

Maybe she can get Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s old job at Fox News.

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AN 9 26SN

A formal recommendation of punishment for Michael Gableman, whose career rise and fall set him apart in Wisconsin legal and political history, signals the end of a case that has been humiliating for the former state Supreme Court justice and the court itself.

In a report issued Friday, a referee in a state Office of Lawyer Regulation case against Gableman found that Gableman committed 10 lawyer misconduct violations in his probe of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin.

The partisan probe was authorized at the behest of then-citizen Donald Trump, who lost that election to Joe Biden.

The referee, Milwaukee attorney James Winiarski, recommended that the state Supreme Court suspend Gableman’s law license for three years.

Gableman and the Office of Lawyer Regulation, seeking to settle the case, had stipulated to the three-year suspension.

IFrame Content

“A high level of discipline is needed to protect the public, the courts and the legal system from repetition” of Gableman’s conduct, by him or other attorneys, the referee wrote.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, who was appointed to the court by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, said before the report was issued that Gableman’s behavior in the investigation “was so outrageous and damaging to the image of the Supreme Court.

“But he has been on the outskirts or around ethical violations his whole Supreme Court career.”

Gableman worked for first Trump administration

Gableman, 58, a Waukesha County resident who has largely receded from public view, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The conservative Gableman, a former small-county judge with close ties to the Republican Party, made history by defeating an incumbent justice in the 2008 election. He served one 10-year term before his career began to unravel.

As Wisconsin Watch detailed in April, Gableman attended the 2016 Republican National Convention, in possible violation of the state judicial code, and had to be escorted out of two gatherings there after causing disturbances. After deciding not to seek reelection in 2018, he worked for the first Trump administration before leading the election investigation, a probe that found no fraud but cost taxpayers $2.8 million — four times the budgeted amount.

Gableman now finds himself facing punishment from the very court he served on.

Winiarski has practiced law for more than 40 years and has previously served as referee in lawyer discipline cases. He invoiced the Supreme Court $8,208 for nearly 109 hours on the case at $75.51 per hour. He recommended Gableman be responsible for all costs associated with the disciplinary matter.

The suspension recommendation essentially codifies a stipulation Gableman made in April with the Office of Lawyer Regulation in which he stated he could not successfully mount a legal defense against the misconduct allegations.

The liberal-majority Supreme Court, which began its current session in September, must still approve the punishment.

Geske, who was a justice from 1993 to 1998, said the suspension would be fair punishment in part because Gableman’s conduct in the investigation, including threatening to jail elected officials, helped solidify the public perception that Wisconsin judges have become partisan actors.

“I think people wonder what’s happening in the court and what’s happening with the individual justices,” she said. “So I think he did great harm to the court in engaging in that behavior.”

The Office of Lawyer Regulation case against Gableman alleged that during the election investigation, Gableman violated 10 counts of Supreme Court rules of professional conduct for attorneys. He was accused of making false statements about a judge, an opposing attorney, and two mayors; making false statements to the Office of Lawyer Regulation; disobeying a court order; and violating the state open-records law and confidentiality rules.

A call for tougher penalties for misconduct

University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Howard Schweber, who is affiliated with UW’s law school, said a three-year license suspension verges on lenient because of the seriousness of the misconduct and because Gableman was acting in a public capacity, not as a private attorney.

Wausau attorney Dean Dietrich, a former Wisconsin Bar Association president and expert on lawyers’ professional responsibility, said “it is unfortunate” that a former justice is facing a law license suspension, but that “the actions of one person do not reflect the actions of others.”

Judicial offices in Wisconsin technically are nonpartisan, but state Supreme Court races have drawn heavy participation and money from the Republican and Democratic parties.

Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather, author of a recent book on the importance of selecting judges with good character, said a three-year suspension would be typical for the type of misconduct alleged against Gableman.

“Ultimately, we want people of the highest character in judicial roles,” Oldfather said. “Somehow we have to find a way to get the legal profession and the broader culture to buy into that as the top priority, which seems like an awfully heavy lift these days.”

There are also calls for tougher action on lawyer misconduct.

Madison lawyer Jeffrey Mandell, head of a law firm that filed a misconduct complaint against Gableman with the Office of Lawyer Regulation, noted that Gableman previously was investigated for ethics violations involving an ad he ran in his Supreme Court campaign and for hearing cases while a justice that involved a law firm that gave him free legal services.

Gableman was not sanctioned in those cases.

Mandell said the state needs to act more quickly and more decisively on lawyer misconduct. He noted Wisconsin lawyers are not subject to permanent disbarment. Those who receive the most severe punishment, a five-year license revocation, can petition after five years to get their license back.

The vast majority of states allow disbarred attorneys to apply for license reinstatement.

“Some conduct is simply beyond the pale, deserving of a permanent ban from the public trust of legal practice,” Mandell said. “It’s past time for Wisconsin to recognize this.”

*Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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Trump US attorney who is prosecuting Democrats now at risk of losing her law license

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rww

06/26/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Ian Millhiser @ Vox: The Supreme Court’s disastrous new abortion decision, explained

The Republican justices just nuked much of federal Medicaid law, in order to spite Planned Parenthood.

Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Pete Hegseth Uses Iran Strike Presser to Complain Media Is Mean to Him

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted to bully journalists for covering the leaked Iran strikes report.

Alex Bollinger @ LGBTQ Nation: Christians warned marriage equality would end civilization. 10 years in, we’re still standing.

Perhaps the most dire prediction right-wingers made in the first 15 years of this century was that legalizing marriage between two people of the same sex would end civilization. No less than the pope warned that humankind was in peril because of countries legalizing marriage.

David Edwards @ Raw Story: Trump 2020 fake electors architect disbarred in New York

Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who plotted to use fake electors to overturn the 2020 presidential election on behalf of President Donald Trump, was disbarred in the state of New York this week.

Angry White Men: Laura Loomer: Zohran Mamdani Will ‘Stand With’ People Who Firebomb Churches And Synagogues

Once it became apparent that New York state Rep. Zohran Mamdani was the presumptive winner of New York City’s mayoral primary, right-wing figures went into full-blown hysterics. But few could top the meltdown from self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer, who claimed that Mamdani will support firebombing synagogues and murdering the rich — including President Trump.

Jennifer Bendery @ HuffPost: Trump Court Pick Emil Bove Can’t Say Joe Biden Won In 2020

The U.S. appeals court nominee claimed it is “political” to say Biden got the majority of votes and Electoral College votes to become president.

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After Donald Trump lost the United States' 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, MAGA attorney and far-right conspiracy theorist John C. Eastman did everything he could to help Trump overturn the election results. Eastman, an aggressive promoter of the Stop the Steal movement, is a close ally of the Claremont Institute — often promoting fringe legal theories that are rejected by traditional conservatives.

Many MAGA Republicans consider Eastman one of the intellectual thinkers of their movement. But he is facing disbarment in California, and according to jurisprudence professor Austin Sarat (who teaches at Amherst College in Massachusetts) and attorney Neil Goteiner, his problems are going from bad to worse.

In an article published by Salon on June 18, Sarat and Goteiner explain, "Friday, June 13, was a truly unlucky day for John Eastman, a key architect of President Trump's plot to disrupt the results of the 2020 presidential election. A California appellate court, charged with reviewing recommendations to discipline lawyers in that state, affirmed the findings of a trial judge and recommended that Eastman 'be disbarred from the practice of law in California and that Eastman's name be stricken from the roll of attorneys.'"

Sarat and Goteiner continue, "The judges found that his work on the 2020 election case was shoddy and deceptive. 'Disbarment,' they said, 'is necessary to protect the public, the courts, and the legal profession.' For any lawyer, this is a professional death sentence. But the court's decision is not only a devastating blow to Eastman, but also, to the Trumpist myth that the 2020 presidential election was stolen…. The Eastman case demonstrates again that misinformation and lies collapse in a courtroom where facts and evidence rule "

IFrame Content

In 2025, Eastman, Sarat and Goteiner observe, continues to claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. And his problems, they point out, are bad news not only for Eastman, but also, for the MAGA legal movement in general.

"Eastman will likely appeal to the California Supreme Court and, if he loses there, eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds," Sarat and Goteiner argue. "It is also possible that when the next Supreme Court vacancy occurs, Trump may nominate Eastman. After all, if we can have a convicted felon in the White House, why not a disbarred, but loyal, lawyer on the nation’s highest court?"

The legal experts continue, "Whatever unfolds for Eastman, and despite the profound damage that Trump's election denialism has done to American democracy, the Eastman case compellingly illustrates Alexander Hamilton’s confidence that this nation is well served by an independent judiciary."

*Austin Sarat and attorney Neil Goteiner's full article for Salon is available at this link.

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06/16/2025

by Kyle Mantyla

Courtney Hagle, Alex Kaplan & Noah Dowe @ Media Matters: Right-wing disinformation machine spins up a false profile of Minnesota shooting suspect

The suspect is reportedly a Trump supporter who railed against abortion and the LGBTQ community. But as the public waited for more information, conservatives spun a profile of a far-left Tim Walz ally who assassinated Democratic lawmakers over immigration.

David Gilmour @ Mediaite: MN Suspect Vance Boelter’s Chilling ‘Hit List’ Named 70 ‘Targets’ – Including Amy Klobuchar, Ilhan Omar, Abortion Providers

The suspect arrested in the murder of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband reportedly left a chilling “hit list” of potential targets that included Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and the offices of multiple abortion providers.

S.V Date @ HuffPost: Trump Hosts $45 Million Military Parade For Himself Before Underwhelming Crowd

While the parade was ostensibly to honor the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, and not Trump’s 79th, Vance hyped Trump’s remarks as “the main event” of the night.

Colin Kalmbacher @ Law & Crime: Appeals court affirms disbarment recommendation for Trump attorney John Eastman

The legal disciplinary board for attorneys in California has affirmed a recommendation that former law professor John Eastman be disbarred over his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election to favor President Donald Trump.

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Trump Organization eyes a new Trump-branded wireless service, complete with gold phones

For those consumers who’ve already stocked up on all kinds of Trump-branded items, but who are still asking, “Where’s my Trump phone?” I have some good news.

David Edwards @ Raw Story: ‘I'll have to answer’: Tucker Carlson admits to being ‘dishonest’ and ‘nasty’

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson admitted that he had spent much of his life being dishonest, cruel and nasty.

Trump allies launch a bid to take control of the D.C. Bar Association

archiescom - March 8, 2025

WASHINGTON — Two of President Donald Trump’s allies have launched bids for leadership roles with the D.C. Bar Association, an under-the-radar effort that would give them more control over the influential legal group.

The push comes amid bar associations’ confrontations with the Trump administration, and some federal attorneys have looked to their state groups for ethical guidance amid Trump’s rapid reshaping of government.

Bradley Bondi — a lawyer who is Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother — and Alicia Long — a deputy to Ed Martin, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — are running for president and treasurer. The election runs from April to June, according to the organization’s website.

While the general public may not pay much attention to bar associations, lawyers do. The nongovernmental groups decide who gets to be a lawyer — and who gets to stay a lawyer when misconduct allegations are involved. The D.C. Bar, as it is known, has more than 120,000 members, and, by virtue of its location, it is where a significant number of federal attorneys are licensed.

The effort to take control of the D.C. Bar follows warnings Trump administration officials have directed at bar associations, which lawyers inside and outside the government have suggested could play a role in slowing down legally questionable elements of Trump’s agenda.

On one of her first days as attorney general, Pam Bondi warned career lawyers that they could be fired for refusing to carry out orders because of any personal objections. Meanwhile, the D.C. Bar maintains a confidential legal ethics hotline for members to submit concerns.

In a statement to NBC News after this article published, Bondi pledged to protect the D.C. Bar from being politicized and noted that he has been an active member of the organization for 26 years.

“The Bar has a non-partisan mission, which I intend to vigilantly protect against any push to politicize it,” he said.

“My effort to run for DC Bar president began months before the federal elections and has no connection with national politics at all. With my six years of DC Bar leadership — having been elected two times to a Bar leadership position — three years in public service, and over 20 years in private practice and as a law professor, my record of serving the legal community with that integrity is plain to see,” he added.

Bondi also said he wants to focus on “efficiency and practical benefits,” including “free on-demand continuing legal education for all 50 states” and more educational programs and pro-bono opportunities.

“This isn’t about politics; I’m running to help strengthen our profession and support members of the Bar no matter what their beliefs or backgrounds,” he said.

Bondi and Long each face one opponent. If elected, they would join the professional organization’s 23-person Board of Governors. Though the D.C. Bar does not have a direct role in disciplining lawyers for misconduct, its board does recommend members to sit on the D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility, the disciplinary arm of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Disciplinary cases are brought forward by a separate Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates and prosecutes ethical complaints against lawyers.

With Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, bar discipline could be one of the last remaining ways to hold Trump-appointed attorneys accountable. On Thursday, a group of Democratic senators wrote a letter to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel expressing “grave concerns” about some of the highly unusual steps Martin has taken since he became interim U.S. attorney. The letter accused him of “serious violations of professional conduct” and abusing his position. Martin did not respond to requests for comment.

Some Trump attorneys have faced sanctions in Washington for their actions. Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in Washington last year in the wake of his efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss; a committee of the Board on Professional Responsibility found that what it called his “utter disregard for facts denigrates the legal profession.”

Jeffrey Clark — a former Justice Department lawyer whom Trump tried to make attorney general in the days before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack — appeared before the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility last year and invoked the Fifth Amendment. A panel made a preliminary determination that he had committed an ethical violation and recommended in August that he be suspended from practicing law for two years. With Trump back in the White House, Clark is now acting administrator of the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

And a Republican report issued in December by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, of Georgia, alleged possible coordination between House Jan. 6 investigators and the D.C. Bar to target an attorney who represented a former Trump White House aide. (The Office of Disciplinary Counsel dismissed that complaint last year.)

Bondi’s and Long’s bids quickly caused some alarm among attorneys in Washington. An email seen by NBC News and sent to dozens of Washington-area lawyers — and also shared on social media — described the duo as “Trump/Pam Bondi loyalists” who were “making a bid to take over the DC Bar” and encouraged recipients to pay attention and vote.

An attorney at a federal agency said the pro-Trump effort to win leadership positions at the D.C. Bar suggests the administration “may be getting pushback internally” from lawyers who are concerned about potential professional consequences for carrying out Trump’s agenda.

“They know this is a potential weakness,” this person added.

Bondi and Long did not respond to requests for comment. NBC News has reached out to the D.C. Bar for comment.

Bondi’s opponent, Diane A. Seltzer, an attorney with a focus on employment law who already serves on the D.C. Bar’s Board of Governors, said she decided to run because she saw it as the culmination of decades of bar leadership experience at a critical time in history.

“I want to be able to support the members of our bar in this time of governmental chaos,” she said. “Our legal system needs a bar that understands and sees them and can support them in ways that will be helpful and keep everyone’s energy up and keep people from giving up or burning out.”

The D.C. Bar does not control the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, but anyone can submit a complaint there, which is then heard by the Board of Professional Responsibility. The D.C. Bar seeks candidates for the Board of Professional Responsibility, but the D.C. Court of Appeals ultimately chooses the candidates.

There are fears among some Washington lawyers, however, that with Trump-supporting officials in place, the D.C. Bar might choose to ignore Court of Appeals rulings or orders from the Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

“I would never want to be president of a bar that could do that or that would do that,” Seltzer said. “I wouldn’t want to be president of a bar where those lines could be blurred and we would say, ‘I am not going to follow what the Court of Appeals has decided or what the Office of Disciplinary Counsel has ordered.’”

The disciplinary process can be protracted. Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens — a former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington who led the aggressive prosecution of anti-Trump protesters arrested en masse during Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 — is only now facing a disciplinary hearing eight years later, accused of hiding exculpatory evidence from defendants.

The Trump administration has had a contentious relationship with bar associations, and Republicans have long accused them of having a left-wing bent — tensions that reached a boiling point in Trump’s first term when the American Bar Association, the national bar organization, rated several of his judicial picks as “not qualified” for the jobs they were nominated for.

Project 2025 took aim at the American Bar Association in its policy road map for a future conservative administration, calling for the president to issue an executive order pursuing antitrust measures against it. In one of his first moves as president, Trump signed an executive order that said bar associations could be targeted for investigations over their diversity programs.

Last month, the American Bar Association lambasted what it described as the Trump administration’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself.” After billionaire Elon Musk, who is overseeing Trump’s effort to reshape government, called for judges who have ruled against Trump to be impeached, the ABA said in a new statement Tuesday that it would “not stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not.” It added that such attempts at intimidation “cannot be sanctioned or normalized.”

On Wednesday, Chad Mizelle, the Justice Department’s chief of staff, punched back at the ABA, posting to X that “they disguise their advocacy as work to ‘promote the best quality legal education, competence, ethical conduct and professionalism, and pro bono and public service work in the legal profession,’ but they never mention that they also work hand-in-hand on left-wing causes.”

He also wrote that the bar association’s “dedication to left-wing activism undermines justice” and that under the attorney general’s “leadership, DOJ is carrying out President Trump’s executive orders putting an end to radical DEI programs, and we’re all over the ABA’s illegal and immoral diversity mandates for law school accreditation.”

In 2020, the ABA rated Mizelle’s wife, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, as “not qualified” to serve as a U.S. district court judge in Florida. She was 33 at the time and the youngest person Trump had tapped for the lifetime appointment. She was confirmed to the seat in November 2020.

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Two former attorneys and a campaign staff member for President-elect Donald Trump made their initial appearance in Dane County Circuit Court Thursday in the felony cases against them for their roles in hatching the scheme to cast false Electoral College votes for Trump following the 2020 election.

Of the three men charged, Michael Roman, James Troupis and Kenneth Chesebro, only Troupis appeared in court in person. The other two appeared over the phone. All three were granted signature bonds with the condition that they not have any contact with the ten Wisconsin Republicans who cast Electoral College votes for Trump in 2020.

All three men face 11 counts of felony forgery.

Multiple recounts, lawsuits and investigations have found that Trump lost the 2020 election in Wisconsin. Still, after that election, the three men worked to develop the plan that involved false slates of electors casting votes for Trump in Wisconsin and other states. The false slates of electors provided a pretext for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

After the hearing, Troupis called the charges “lawfare in all its despicable forms,” saying Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has “doubled down on a vicious strategy to destroy our very faith in the system of justice by using the courts for his own personal political game.”

On Wednesday, the voting rights focused firm Law Forward filed an ethics complaint against Troupis, a former Dane County Circuit Court judge, with the state Office of Lawyer Regulation. The grievance alleges that Troupis’ role in developing the fake elector scheme subverted the will of the people and violated state rules for attorney conduct.

“Our democracy depends on attorneys adhering to their ethical obligations,” Jeff Mandell, President and General Counsel of Law Forward, said in a statement. “Troupis violated those obligations by advancing falsehoods, enabling fraud, and undermining the rule of law. This grievance seeks to hold him accountable and ensure that such abuses of the legal profession are never repeated.”

The three men are next scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 28.

Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com.

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no lnx?

Breaking

Giuliani Disbarred In D.C.: Here Are All The Other Ex-Trump Lawyers Now Facing Legal Consequences

Alison Durkee

Forbes Staff

Alison is a senior news reporter covering US politics and legal news.

Sep 26, 2024,12:38pm EDT

Updated Sep 27, 2024,

Topline Ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was formally disbarred in Washington, D.C., on Thursday—months after being disbarred in New York—as a string of lawyers are now facing consequences for their work with former President Donald Trump.

Rudy Giuliani

Key Facts

Rudy Giuliani: Giuliani, who led Trump’s post-election efforts, was formally disbarred in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ordering the penalty based on New York disbarring the attorney in July. The former New York City mayor has also been criminally charged in Arizona for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election—where he initially tried to evade being served—after already being charged in Georgia, and he’s also been sued for defamation by voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. He was ordered to pay $148 million to Georgia election workers whom he defamed, which resulted in Giuliani declaring bankruptcy.

Jenna Ellis: Ellis was charged in Arizona after previously being indicted in Georgia and taking a plea deal in that case, and she took another deal in August that requires her to provide “truthful, honest, candid, and complete” testimonies after being suspended from practicing law for three years as a result of her Georgia guilty plea. She was also previously censured for violating rules that bar attorneys from engaging in “dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation,” with the attorney admitting in court she had made “misrepresentations” while representing Trump after the election that had a “selfish motive.”

Kenneth Chesebro: The attorney, who is described as the architect of the Trump campaign’s “fake electors” scheme—in which GOP officials in battleground states submitted false slates of electors to Congress claiming Trump won—was criminally charged in Wisconsin on one count of forgery, after previously being indicted in Georgia, though he took a plea deal right before his case went to trial.

James Troupis: Troupis was also reportedly charged in Wisconsin in June; another Trump attorney who helped organize the false electors scheme, the lawyer had previously avoided criminal charges in other states and settled a civil lawsuit regarding the electors plot in Wisconsin in March.

John Eastman: Eastman was also charged in Arizona, after already being indicted in Georgia and having 11 charges filed against him by counsel for the California State Bar stemming from his efforts to challenge the election results with Trump. A judge recommended in March that Eastman be disbarred and sanctioned $10,000 for his post-election efforts, which the lawyer intends to appeal.

Christina Bobb: Bobb was charged in Arizona, the first charges the attorney and former One America News anchor—who now serves as an attorney for the Republican National Committee—has so far faced. The lawyer joined Trump’s legal team in November 2020, according to the Washington Post, and the indictment cites a text message that ties the lawyer to the “fake elector” scheme in which GOP officials submitted false slates of electors to Congress claiming Trump won their states.

Jeffrey Clark: Former DOJ attorney Clark, who faced charges from the D.C. bar for aiding Trump’s post-election efforts from within the agency, broke at least one rule of professional conduct related to his actions after 2020 election, a D.C. ethics committee found in a preliminary ruling, with a disciplinary panel ruling in August he should be suspended from practicing law for two years—Clark was also criminally charged in Georgia.

Sidney Powell: A judge dismissed an attempt by the Texas State Bar to discipline Powell in February after the bar alleged Powell’s post-election efforts had violated rules for professional conduct, though she now faces a separate disciplinary investigation in Michigan after being sanctioned for her post-election lawsuit in that state. After advising Trump and bringing her own post-election lawsuits in four states, Powell also still faces defamation lawsuits from Dominion and Smartmatic, a reported federal investigation into her organization’s fundraising arm and was criminally charged in Georgia, though she later reached a plea deal.

Michael Cohen: Trump’s longtime attorney served a three-year sentence in prison and home confinement for tax evasion and campaign finance-related crimes, after he orchestrated a series of “hush money” payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal over allegations they had affairs with Trump.

Alina Habba: Habba, who’s representing Trump in many of his post-presidency legal battles, has been sanctioned multiple times in Trump’s failed lawsuit against Hillary Clinton; she was first ordered to pay with her co-counsel $50,000 in sanctions and $16,274 in attorneys’ fees to one defendant in the case, and she and Trump were then sanctioned in January for nearly $1 million payable to Clinton, her campaign and other Democratic operatives.

Cleta Mitchell: Mitchell, who participated in Trump’s phone call in which he urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the state’s election results, resigned from her law firm Foley & Lardner in January 2021, saying she left the firm due to a “massive pressure campaign” against her from the left to oust her over her associations with Trump.

Other Georgia Attorneys: Attorneys Ray Smith and Robert Cheeley were also indicted as part of the Georgia case against Trump and his allies, after Smith worked on behalf of the Trump campaign in Georgia and Cheeley pushed false claims of election fraud at a legislative hearing in the state.

Pending Complaints: Ethics complaints urging state bars and disciplinary boards to investigate attorneys have been filed and remain pending against multiple Trump lawyers who aided his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including Mitchell and Boris Epshteyn, though court records show another complaint against Trump attorneys in New Mexico was dismissed.

Attorneys’ Fees: Trump and his campaign have been ordered to pay attorneys’ fees in a number of failed lawsuits—though it’s unclear if his attorneys have been forced to personally shoulder any part of those costs—including more than $20,000 to two Georgia counties over post-election litigation, $1.3 million to former White House advisor Omarosa Manigault and more than $54,000 to Daniels.

What To Watch For

Giuliani, Eastman and Bobb have all pleaded not guilty in Arizona, and their cases will still continue as Ellis’ charges are dropped. It’s unclear how long it will take for the criminal cases in Arizona and Wisconsin to play out. No trial date has yet been set for the defendants in Georgia who haven’t taken plea deals. (Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, Smith, Cheeley and other defendants have all pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.)

Crucial Quote

“The seriousness of [Giuliani’s] misconduct cannot be overstated,” a panel of New York appeals court judges wrote in their July ruling disbarring Giuliani—which formed the basis of the Washington, D.C. decision—arguing he “flagrantly misused his prominent position” as Trump’s personal attorney and “repeatedly and intentionally made false statements ... in which he baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country’s electoral process.” “In so doing, respondent not only deliberately violated some of the most fundamental tenets of the legal profession, but he also actively contributed to the national strife that has followed the 2020 Presidential election, for which he is entirely unrepentant.”

Tangent

A number of lawyers who aided Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but did not directly represent him in court or advise him, have also faced punishments. Powell’s co-counsel in the Michigan case—in which Trump was not a plaintiff—were all sanctioned and jointly forced to pay more than $175,000 in attorneys’ fees, as well as ordered to undergo legal education and referred to their respective state bars for potential discipline. Attorney Lin Wood, who was involved with the Michigan litigation along with other post-election lawsuits, has been under investigation by the State Bar of Georgia for his efforts since even before the Michigan order was issued. He ultimately retired before the State Bar could formally discipline him.

Chief Critic

Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman has not yet responded to a request for comment, but previously called the former mayor’s disbarment in New York a “politically and ideologically corrupted decision” in a statement, adding they “will be appealing this objectively flawed decision in hopes that the appellate process will restore integrity into our system of justice.” Giuliani has previously opposed his other punishments, with Goodman calling the Arizona case an effort to “eviscerate” the justice system and saying the former New York City mayor is “proud to stand up for the countless Americans who raised legitimate concerns surrounding the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.”

Trump’s attorneys have largely denied wrongdoing and opposed the efforts to punish them, with the exception of Cohen, who pleaded guilty to his crimes, and the attorneys who have taken plea deals. In a statement after she pleaded guilty in Arizona, Ellis said she had agreed to cooperate with the investigation and was told she wasn’t a target before being indicted, but “neither the AG nor I control the grand jury.” “So both sides are just following through with our original agreements: I’m telling the truth and they’re not prosecuting me.”

Powell still denies the defamation allegations against her, and told Forbes the sanctions against her in Michigan set a “dangerous precedent to stand that puts at risk every lawyer who represents an unpopular cause or client.” In a statement after the ruling on his disbarment, Eastman’s lawyer said the attorney “maintains that his handling of the legal issues” over whether the 2020 election could be overturned was based on reasonable legal precedent and that Eastman was following “the same process taken by lawyers every day and everywhere.” He also opposed Eastman not being able to practice law to pay his legal fees while he faces the charges in Georgia, saying, “That is not justice and serves no legitimate purpose to protect the public.”

Surprising Fact

After the court ordered sanctions in the Clinton case against Trump and Habba, Trump and Habba went on to voluntarily withdraw two cases stemming from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud litigation against the Trump Organization, which courts had suggested could be viewed as frivolous and result in sanctions.

Key Background

Trump and his allies filed approximately 60 court cases in the aftermath of the 2020 election seeking to change its outcome, ultimately losing all but one case, which was a minor dispute in Pennsylvania that did not impact the overall results. Since leaving office, Trump has continued to be deeply ensnared in legal issues, as he’s faced numerous lawsuits over his alleged role in the January 6 riot at the Capitol building, four criminal cases, James’ civil fraud case against him and his company and two defamation lawsuits from writer E. Jean Carroll. The fraud and Carroll cases have resulted in Trump being ordered to pay a combined $540 million to James and Carroll, though the former president has maintained the cases against him are “witch hunts” designed to harm his presidential campaign, and has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges against him.

About damn time': Experts celebrate Giuliani losing law license in DC for election denial

Giuliani disbarred while facing 'mounting legal battles and financial ruin'

an 7 24

hawking coffee 6 24

rudy sells condo $ 8 23

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over the past four years, U.S. courts and state bar associations have taken action to protect the integrity of the U.S. judicial system by penalizing attorneys who filed meritless lawsuits claiming – without evidence – that the 2020 presidential election results were invalid.

Despite aggressive litigation by attorneys denying wrongdoing, over time the U.S. legal community has exercised the oversight needed to hold most of them accountable for misusing U.S. courts.

Most lawsuits challenging the 2020 presidential election results were filed in federal courts. Federal judges not only dismissed the claims for lack of evidence, but some also penalized the attorneys who filed them.

Judge Linda Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan acted first, ruling in August 2021 that a lawsuit filed by nine lawyers was “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.” In a 110-page opinion, she wrote that the abuses included:

“proffering claims not backed by law; proffering claims not backed by evidence (but instead, speculation, conjecture, and unwarranted suspicion); proffering factual allegations and claims without engaging in the required prefiling inquiry; and dragging out these proceedings.”

“Print, television, and social media” are where the attorneys could have made their “protestations” and “conjecture,” Parker wrote. But “such expressions are neither permitted nor welcomed in a court of law.”

The judge imposed three penalties on the attorneys: US$175,000 in defendant legal costs; 12 hours of mandatory instruction on pleading standards and election law; and referrals to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission and their home state disciplinary authorities for possible suspension or disbarment.

Appeals to the 6th Circuit and Supreme Court to reverse the sanctions failed. After three years of litigation, the Michigan-ordered penalties still stand.

A federal court ordered Donald Trump, right, and his lawyer in a 2016 election-related lawsuit, Alina Habba, left, to pay defendants’ attorney fees totaling $938,000. Both are appealing. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File

‘Fantastical’ claims

Courts in other states have taken similar action to hold accountable attorneys who filed abusive or frivolous lawsuits challenging presidential election results:

Colorado: A federal district court penalized two attorneys, Ernest Walker and Gary Fielder, for filing a complaint seeking $160 billion in damages from 19 defendants for alleged misconduct related to the 2020 presidential election. After finding its claims were “fantastical” and “filed in bad faith,” the court ordered Walker and Fielder to pay defendants’ attorney fees totaling $187,000. Appeals to the 10th Circuit and Supreme Court failed.

Arizona: A federal district court imposed similar sanctions on three attorneys – Andrew Parker, Kurt Olsen and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz – who challenged the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona. The court found their complaint contained “false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions” and “did not have an adequate factual or legal basis.” It ordered the attorneys to pay defendants’ attorney fees totaling $122,200. The attorneys have appealed.

Florida: One federal district court even confronted a 193-page lawsuit filed by Donald Trump in 2022, claiming 31 defendants disseminated false information about him to rig the 2016 presidential election. The court wrote: “This case should never have been brought. … No reasonable lawyer would have filed it.” The court ordered Trump and his lead counsel, Alina Habba, to pay defendants’ attorney fees totaling $938,000. Both are appealing.

These cases create a solid body of precedent for inflicting penalties on attorneys who file abusive pleadings challenging election results.

Suspension and disbarment

In addition to courts penalizing attorneys for inappropriate filings, bar association disciplinary authorities in multiple states have initiated proceedings to suspend or disbar those attorneys from practicing law in their jurisdictions. Despite lengthy procedures involving multiple steps met by aggressive litigation in opposition, those disciplinary proceedings are nearing final action.

In New York, the key disciplinary authority found “uncontroverted evidence” that Rudy Giuliani, who served as legal counsel to President Trump and his campaign, “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public.” It ordered his immediate suspension from the practice of law in New York pending further proceedings. The D.C. Bar Association, relying on the New York action and without conducting its own fact-finding, did the same in the District of Columbia.

While no further proceedings occurred in New York to permanently disbar Giuliani, the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary authority issued a 2024 report recommending his disbarment in that jurisdiction..

Focused on his actions in Pennsylvania, the 2024 report states that he violated the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Responsibility by filing a lawsuit seeking “to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania voters without the slightest factual basis for doing so.” It concludes “disbarment is the only sanction that will protect the public, the courts, and the integrity of the legal profession, and deter other lawyers from launching similarly baseless claims.” The disbarment recommendation is now under review by the D.C. Bar’s final disciplinary authority.

In similar proceedings against another attorney, the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary authority issued a preliminary finding that Jeffrey Clark, former acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, also violated D.C. ethics rules and should be sanctioned. The move was in response to Clark’s alleged efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election results.

Comparable disciplinary actions have taken place in other states.

The California Bar’s disciplinary authority recommended disbarment of John Eastman, a law professor who filed abusive pleadings and engaged in other unethical conduct while representing President Trump and the Trump campaign.

The California Bar’s disciplinary authority recommended disbarment of John Eastman, a law professor who filed abusive pleadings and engaged in other unethical conduct while representing President Trump and the Trump campaign. Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic via AP, Pool

When the Georgia State Bar’s Disciplinary Board asked Trump campaign attorney Lin Wood to undergo a mental health evaluation, he sued to prevent it. A federal district court dismissed his suit, and his appeal failed. In 2023, Wood announced his permanent retirement from the practice of law.

The Michigan Attorney Disciplinary Board denied multiple motions by the attorneys who filed abusive suits there to dismiss pending disbarment proceedings.

Not all state disciplinary authorities prevailed. Sidney Powell, who represented Trump and his campaign, won dismissal of ethics charges brought against her in Texas. However, she still faces possible disbarment in Michigan and pled guilty to criminal charges in Georgia relating to the 2020 presidential election there.

Judicial system integrity

Many attorneys who filed abusive pleadings challenging the 2020 presidential election have paid a price, incurring litigation costs, judicial condemnation and reputational damage. Some no longer practice law.

The legal community’s tough oversight should make attorneys think twice before misusing U.S. courts, but still unknown is whether past disciplinary efforts will deter any potential misconduct following the 2024 presidential election.

What is known is that the integrity of the U.S. judicial system is only as strong as its commitment to the facts.

Elise J. Bean, Director of the Washington Office of the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, *Wayne State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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'I was wrong to be involved': Ex-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis' license suspended

'I was wrong to be involved': Ex-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis' license suspended - Alternet.org

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former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate and 2024 Senate hopeful Kari Lake's lawyers were sanctioned last May to pay $2,000 by the Arizona Supreme Court for making "'unequivocally false' claims that 35,000 falsified ballots were accepted by Maricopa County during the 2022 midterm election.

Arizona Mirror reports that Brian Blehm — one of the two sanctioned lawyers — failed to attend a Tuesday, May 21 disciplinary hearing that could've left him without a law license.

Blehm, according to AZ Mirror, instead gave the Arizona State Bar "a middle finger."

Per the report, the state "Supreme Court found that Olsen and Blehm provided no evidence of the claim and sanctioned Lake and her team for making 'false factual statements to the Court.'"

State Bar of Arizona attorneys told the judge Tuesday "that Blehm’s license should be suspended for six months and one day for lying to the Supreme Court, as well as for his refusal to take responsibility for his actions and to even show up for the hearing."

AZ Mirror reports:

*[Presiding Disciplinary Judge Margaret] Downie asked the State Bar attorneys to justify such a lengthy proposed suspension, and she contrasted it with the punishment given earlier this year to election attorney and Republican State Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who was only put on probation for his role in lawsuits challenging the 2020 election. Among other things, Kolodin was an attorney on the infamous 'kraken' lawsuit that made implausible and evidence-free claims of massive election fraud.

[Senior Counsel for the Bar Hunter] Perlmeter answered that, unlike Blehm, Kolodin was never accused of lying to the courts and that he was credited for having a cooperative attitude throughout the disciplinary proceedings.*

*Kolodin also voluntarily entered into an agreement with the Bar, under which he accepted being put on probation, paid a fine and agreed to participate in continuing legal education ethics courses.

Ahead of the May 21 hearing, the report notes instead of notifying the court that he planned to be absent, "on Sunday evening, Blehm sent an email to the State Bar of Arizona, informing them that he needed to 'depart for Colorado' on Monday and wouldn’t be able to attend in person. Blehm did not inform the court directly through the email address that he was told to use for correspondence regarding the case, but instead copied a court employee who is currently on leave."

Blehm posted a video via X (formerly Twitter) just a couple of hours after the hearing "saying he couldn’t make the hearing and was on his way to take care of some personal business."

The attorney claimed the State Bar was trying to 'isolate the most active MAGA attorney in the State of Arizona during the entirety of the 2024 election."

Claiming the State Bar "was attempting to disbar him," the report notes that "Perlmeter insisted in the hearing that the claim was a lie, and while it isn’t technically true, the way the suspension is structured could allow it to be much longer than just six months — and possibly permanent."

According to Robert McWhirter, a Phoenix criminal and constitutional attorney, "a suspension of six months and one day carried with it much more severe consequences than a suspension of only six months. After a suspension of six months or less, an attorney’s license is reinstated automatically."

READ MORE:[McConnell says GOP shouldn’t 'get too excited' about chances of winning Senate

*Arizona Mirror's full report is available here.

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Three attorneys who participated in former President Donald Trump's plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election are now facing disciplinary charges by the Washington, DC bar that could result in them permanently losing their ability to practice law in the nation's capital.

According to a Friday report in Politico, lawyers Judi Haller, Brandon Johnson and Lawrence Joseph are all now accused of making statements to the court that they knew to be false in filing election challenges on Trump's behalf, and could ultimately be disbarred over their actions. Haller and Johnson worked alongside fellow Trump lawyer Sidney Powell (one of the former president's co-defendants in the Fulton County RICO trial who has since pleaded guilty) on her post-election lawsuits in swing states that then-candidate Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Joseph is being investigated for a suit he helped Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) file against then-Vice President Mike Pence for pressuring him to declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election while presiding over the US Senate's certification of Electoral College votes. That suit was ultimately thrown out by an appeals court panel after being denied by a federal district judge.

Politico additionally reported that following her work with Sidney Powell, Judi Haller went on to defend several participants in the January 6 insurrection, including Kelly Meggs — a member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia in Florida who was eventually sentenced to 12 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. Haller now works at America First Legal, which is led by former Trump adviser (and outed white nationalist) Stephen Miller.

Haller, Johnson and Joseph are merely the latest Trump-affiliated attorneys at risk of losing their law licenses. Former Trump attorney John Eastman – who authored the infamous "Eastman Memo" that laid out the strategy for Pence to hand the election to Trump — just completed a lengthy disciplinary hearing in California, where a final decision is expected by late February.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani had his law license stripped as a result of his efforts to subvert the election. And former assistant attorney general Jeffrey Clark is in the midst of his own disbarment proceedings, where Trump has threatened to invoke executive privilege and trigger what could be months of litigation. Both Giuliani and Clark are also defending themselves against felony charges in Fulton County.

A DC bar committee will conduct an initial hearing into the charges against Haller, Johnson and Joseph, and could recommend a range of penalties, including suspension and disbarment.

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california State Bar Judge Yvette Roland on Wednesday ruled that former Donald Trump lawyer John Eastman violated ethics rules when he helped to orchestrate the ex-president's ploy to overturn the 2020 election, Politico reports.

Per the report, "Though Eastman may appeal Roland’s decision, including to the state Supreme Court, the ruling forces his law license into 'inactive' status while any review is pending, meaning he can no longer practice law in California."

Brookings Governance senior fellow and States United Democracy Center co-founder Norm Eisen shared the news via X (formerly Twitter), writing, "The CA Bar just delivered an important 2020 accountability outcome – recommending John Eastman for permanent disbarment. Kudos to our team @statesunited who filed the initial ethics complaint against him in 2021, along with me & dozens of bipartisan signers."

Adam Klasfeld reported, "A blistering line from John Eastman's disbarment recommendation: The Bar finds that the 'scale and egregiousness' of Eastman’s 'unethical actions far surpasses the misconduct' by Nixon henchman Donald Segretti, who coined the word 'ratf***ing' for political dirty tricks."

CNN's Zachary Cohen noted, "All signs pointed to this being the decision. Eastman has still avoided criminal charges except for in Georgia."

Former federal prosecutor and legal analyst Renato Mariotti commented, "One of Donald Trump’s lawyers will no longer be a lawyer. It is rare for lawyers to be disbarred for acts of moral turpitude, dishonesty, or corruption. But Eastman’s legal advice — to overturn an election and subvert our democracy — were unprecedented."

Jim Roberts, publisher at The 74, wrote, "Good."

Mother Jones DC Bureau Chief David Corn said, "I’m sure Trump will compensate him."

MSNBC's Katie Phang wrote, "Taking away the ability for Trump to abuse the legal system with the help of (disbarred-) lawyers like Eastman and Jeff Clark is critical to protecting our democracy."

Environmental lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who the former president wanted to take over the Justice Department in the days before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a disbarment hearing Wednesday," according to NBC News.

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Jeffrey Clark — a senior official at former President Donald Trump's Department of Justice — may have committed a major verbal error while testifying under oath at his disbarment hearing.

The Associated Press reported that Clark, who was acting head of the DOJ's civil division in the waning days of the Trump administration, reportedly had inappropriate and unsanctioned contact with Trump behind the backs of his superiors. According to the AP, Clark maintained that there was rampant and widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and urged the DOJ to take action to intervene in various battleground states that Trump lost — like Georgia, where Clark is a co-defendant in the Fulton County RICO case — to void President Joe Biden's victory.

Acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy, Richard Donoghue, made it clear to Clark that while there may have been a few isolated incidents of fraud scattered across various states, it wasn't nearly enough to make a difference in who won the election. They also learned that Clark had direct contact with Trump, which was a violation of DOJ policy as to who had contact with the White House. Even though Rosen and Donoghue told Clark to cease his contact with Trump, Clark continued to communicate with him in direct violation of DOJ rules.

“My first reaction was, and I said it out loud: ‘You violated the White House contacts policy,’” Donoghue testified during Wednesday's hearing. “I was taken aback... I said, ‘Do not violate it again.’”

During Clark's disbarment proceedings in Washington, DC this week, the lead investigator questioned him under oath about his time at the DOJ in the aftermath of the 2020 election. While Clark spoke generally about his legal background and experience, he invoked a number of privileges to get around answering most questions. But when Clark invoked attorney-client privilege, he may have gotten himself in even more trouble.

"Mr. Clark, you asserted a number of times attorney-client privilege," DC bar committeewoman Patricia Matthews asked. "For whom were you the attorney?"

Clark then responded that his client was "President Trump, the head of the executive branch, the sole head, the unitary head of Article Two, the executive branch of the United States government."

This prompted Clark's lawyers to interject and urge their client to plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating himself.

"I would respectfully request my client to invoke questions about the basis for attorney-client privilege because those answers would be intimidating to them as well,” Clark's attorney, Harry MacDougald, said. "So respectfully, I would ask him to invoke [the Fifth Amendment]."

Clark's disbarment proceedings will continue on Thursday, with a three-person committee expected to issue its recommendation on whether Clark can keep his law license to a professional responsibility board after proceedings conclude.

Meanwhile, at his own disbarment hearing in California, a committee recommended that former Trump attorney John Eastman's law license be revoked in relation to his attempts to help Trump overturn the election. Like Clark, Eastman is also under felony indictment in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' RICO case.

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former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark is getting a last-minute assist from former President Donald Trump in his disbarment proceedings that may derail the entire process.

According to a Tuesday report in Politico, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche recently sent a letter to Clark's attorneys asking him to keep silent about any private conversations with the former president while he was in the White House. Blanche asserted that those conversations could be protected by "Trump’s executive privilege and other related privileges, including law enforcement privilege, attorney client privilege and deliberative process privilege." He added that the ex-president reserves the right to "intervene in any litigation involving these privileges."

Should Trump decide to assert executive privilege in Clark's disbarment proceedings, Politico legal correspondents Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein wrote that it could "force months of litigation on the matter."

Clark is currently defending his law license in Washington, DC, where he is in the midst of a disciplinary hearing that could result in his disbarment over his efforts in helping Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election. He is also one of the co-defendants in Fulton County, Georgia district attorney Fani Willis' sprawling RICO case against Trump and his associates for alleged election interference in the Peach State.

The former Trump DOJ official had previously sought to have his Georgia case moved from Fulton County to Washington, DC in an effort to have a friendlier venue, arguing that he was acting in his capacity as a federal government employee in DC. The judge who shot down Clark's bid to change the venue for his case also rejected former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows' attempt to relocate his trial from Georgia to DC.

Jeffrey Clark isn't the only Trump aide to face potential disbarment. John Eastman — author of the infamous "Eastman Memo" that laid out the plan to challenge electors and install Trump for a second term — is in the midst of his own disbarment proceedings in California. State bar officials have brought 11 disciplinary charges against Eastman as part of his attempts to subvert election results. A decision is expected by February 29. Eastman is also facing felony RICO charges in Fulton County.

After his failed attempts to move his Georgia trial, Clark and Eastman will both stand trial along with the former president in Fulton County, where they will each serve up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. Willis has requested an August trial date.

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Former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark is getting a last-minute assist from former President Donald Trump in his disbarment proceedings that may derail the entire process.

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Trump's ally and attorney Sidney Powell is among those who Friday largely lost their bid to overturn sanctions related to frivolous claims made in election fraud lawsuits challenging the 2020 results in Michigan.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that a lower court mostly got it right when it sanctioned Powell and other attorneys in connection with false claims made in an attempt to reverse the election in favor of Trump. The news comes a month after Powell and other attorneys were hit with a lawsuit by a Michigan attorney regulations agency alleging they committed professional misconduct.

The Sixth Circuit ruling explained how the attorneys refuted their own made-up positions:

"Three voters and three Republican nominees to the electoral college in Michigan brought this suit in a bid to overturn the results of the state’s 2020 presidential election. The complaint plausibly alleged that Republican election challengers had been harassed and mistreated during vote counting at the TCF Center in Detroit, in violation of Michigan law. But the complaint also alleged that an international 'collaboration'—with origins in Venezuela, extending to China and Iran, and including state actors in Michigan itself—had succeeded in generating hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes in Michigan, thereby swinging the state’s electoral votes to Joseph Biden. Many of those allegations—particularly the ones concerning Dominion voting machines—were refuted by the plaintiffs’ own exhibits to their complaint."

The news was also picked up by Libertarian magazine Reason.com, which explained that the "court concluded that a few of the allegations were not sanctionable, and that two attorneys were sanctioned who should not have been, but otherwise affirmed the district court's conclusions, and reduced the financial award by a modest amount."

"I expect Powell, et al., will file further appeals, but I doubt additional filings will produce different results," the magazine wrote on Friday.

You can read the full opinion by clicking this link.

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Trump’s post-election 'elite strike force' has been facing a 'legal reckoning': ex-federal prosecutor

Alex Henderson July 26, 2023

In late 2020 and early 2021, Donald Trump had an entire team of attorneys who enthusiastically promoted his false and repeatedly debunked claim that the presidential election was stolen from him. Among them were Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The lawyers were not successful. On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden — the legitimate winner of the election — was sworn in as president. But the Big Lie and the January 6, 2021 insurrection raised troubling questions about the fragility of U.S. democracy.

In an article published by Politico on July 26, attorney and former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori examines the repercussions that some of Trump's 2020 lawyers have been facing.

READ MORE: 'Shot down in court': Report details the legal headaches dogging Trump’s allies

Giuliani, Ellis and Powell, according to Khardori, described themselves as Trump's "elite strike force team" after the 2020 election but are now experiencing "modest signs of a reckoning within the legal profession."

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"Giuliani had his law license suspended in New York, and early this month, a disciplinary committee in Washington, D.C., recommended that he be disbarred for 'frivolous' and 'destructive' conduct," the attorney observes. "A federal appeals court recently upheld court sanctions against Powell for making 'entirely baseless' claims and 'frivolous allegations of widespread voter fraud.' And in March, Ellis was censured by a judge in Colorado for making false claims 'on Twitter and to nationally televised audiences' that 'undermined the American public's confidence in the presidential election.'"

Khardori adds that another pro-Trump lawyer, Georgia residentLin Woods, "formally retired from" his practice in Georgia "in an apparent bid to avoid being disbarred." And former law professor John C. Eastman, who wrote an outline for overturning the election results, is facing possible disbarment in California.

"This is to say nothing of the fact that most — if not all — of these lawyers appear to be under scrutiny by federal prosecutors at the Justice Department, as well as by local prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia," Khardori explains. "Against this backdrop stands the65 Project, a legal advocacy group that was created to pursue accountability for the lawyers who sought to subvert American democracy in the 2020 election."

READ MORE: DC legal committee calls for Rudy Giuliani’s disbarment over election interference: report

The 65 Project was co-founded by Media Matters' David Brock.According to Khardori, the group "secured" the "disciplinary action" against Ellis.

The former federal prosecutor notes, "The group was watching closely during the 2022 midterms, and it's now gearing up for plenty of fights in the courts ahead of another potentially chaotic national election as Trump, the current frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination, desperately fights for both his political and corporal lives."

READ MORE: 'Brutal': Rudy Giuliani mocked after blistering takedown from the D.C. Bar Association

Ankush Khardori's full article for Politico is available at this link.

A deafening silence from Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s Black football players

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Trump's White House ethics lawyer is looking at seeing his livelihood taken away over accusations that he tried to influence staffer Cassidy Hutchinson from giving truthful testimony to House Jan. 6 investigators.

According to a report from the Washington Post, Stefan Passantino is facing an onslaught of accusations from multiple sources that could lead to his disbarment if not worse.

It was previously reported that Passantino tried to get Hutchinson to withhold information about what was going on behind the scenes at the White House up to and after the Capitol insurrection.

Speaking to the House select committee, she was upfront about her belief that she felt he was more interested in protecting the former president before she retained her own counsel.

Her claims have come home to roost for the attorney in a new legal filing.

According to the Post, "a 22-page complaint filed on Monday with D.C.’s Board on Professional Responsibility, prominent lawyers accused Mr. Passantino of the crimes of subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and bribery. The latter referred in part to Ms. Cassidy’s allegation that his advice to say little to the panel was accompanied by assurances that she would get a 'really good job in ‘Trump world.'"

The complaint alleges, "The Office of Disciplinary Counsel should promptly initiate an investigation of Mr. Passantino’s conduct and, if the facts described above are confirmed, seek his disbarment.”

The report adds that the former White House staffer told investigators, "when Mr. Passantino announced he was her lawyer, he would not initially disclose who was paying him. He then sought to influence her testimony, she said, like by advising her to say she did not remember incidents even if she did remember some facts about them."[raed more]

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Republican Donald Trump is the first former president in United States history to run for office again despite having been impeached twice and despite facing a variety of criminal and civil investigations when he officially announced his campaign. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis are simultaneously investigating Trump's actions after the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

In a March 1 column, Never Trumper and Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubinstresses that Trump isn't the only Republican who deserves accountability for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump's "enablers," she writes, must also face consequences for the former president's "assault on our democracy."

"There's never would have gotten far, or even off the ground, without the participation of right-wing media executives, lawyers and pliant state officials," Rubin argues. "Without holding these enablers accountable, democracy and the rule of law will remain at risk."

Rubin goes on to cite some specific examples of Trump allies facing consequences but writes that there needs to be a lot more of them.

"Progress has already been made," Rubin observes. "John Eastman, the architect of the coup plot, faces disciplinary charges from the California state bar. The D.C. bar has similarly filed ethics charges against Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official whom Trump attempted to appoint as acting attorney general. And Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani has been suspended from the New York bar."

Rubin calls for "discipline" for any pro-Trump attorneys "who played a part in the coup attempt" of late 2020 and early 2021.

"(Pro-Trump lawyers) filed more than 60 bogus challenges to the 2020 election on behalf of the Trump campaign; devised the phony elector scheme; and assisted Trump in attempting to strong-arm state election officials," Rubin notes. "For the sake of accountability and to deter other lawyers from similar efforts in the future, those involved must be disciplined. If they committed crimes, they must be prosecuted."

Read Jennifer Rubin's full Washington Post column at this link (subscription required).

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eastman the far-right attorney, disgraced former law professor, former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and current chairman of the anti-LGBTQ National Organization For Marriage (NOM) is facing eleven counts of alleged ethics violations, and disbarment, by California state bar regulators. Among the allegations, “intentional acts of moral turpitude, dishonesty, or corruption.”

As The New York Times reported last fall, “after the November election, Mr. Eastman wrote the memo for which he is now best known, laying out steps that Vice President Mike Pence could take to keep Mr. Trump in power — measures Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans have likened to a blueprint for a coup.”

So has the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, which late last month referred Eastman – in the same breath as Donald Trump – to the Dept. of Justice for possible prosecution on criminal charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

\u201c"We believe that the evidence described by my colleagues today and assembled throughout our hearings warrants a criminal referral of former President Donald J. Trump, John Eastman, and others..." \u2014 @RepRaskin #January6thCommitteeHearings\u201d

— Defend Democracy Project (@Defend Democracy Project) 1671477014

On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported California state bar regulators “say they willseek to strip” Eastman of his law license.

“The Notice of Disciplinary Charges alleges that Mr. Eastman violated this duty in furtherance of an attempt to usurp the will of the American people and overturn election results for the highest office in the land — an egregious and unprecedented attack on our democracy — for which he must be held accountable,” the State Bar of California’s Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona said in a statement. “Eastman has not been charged with any crimes to date.”

“The 11 charges arise from allegations that Eastman engaged in a course of conduct to plan, promote, and assist then-President Trump in executing a strategy, unsupported by facts or law, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states,” the State Bar of California’s statement adds.

Law & Crime’s Adam Klasfeld further explains that Cardona “intends to seek Eastman’s disbarment for alleged violations of Business and Professions Code section 6106, which punishes making false and misleading statements that constitute acts of ‘moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption.'”

Last week The New York Times described Eastman as “a chief architect of Donald Trump’s effort to reverse his election loss,” but it is his fellow Republican attorneys who delivered the judgment on his skills.

“Many White House lawyers expressed contempt for Mr. Eastman, portraying him as an academic with little grasp of the real world,” The Times reported. “Greg Jacob, the legal counsel to former Vice President Mike Pence, characterized Mr. Eastman’s legal advice as ‘gravely, gravely irresponsible,’ calling him the ‘serpent in the ear’ of Mr. Trump. Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer, recounted ‘chewing out’ Mr. Eastman. Pat A. Cipollone, the chief White House counsel, is described calling Mr. Eastman’s ideas ‘nutty.'”

It wasn’t just Republican attorneys in the Trump White House.

During the January 6 insurrection, Eastman, certainly no silent architect, stood at the same podium Donald Trump would speak at, and delivered a fiery speech alongside Rudy Giuliani. Six days later his colleagues at Chapman University demanded his firing[vid?]

the disbarment may be the least of Eastman’s self-inflicted woes.

“He has been drawn into the criminal investigation into election interference in Atlanta, which is nearing a decision on potential indictments,” according to The Times, also adding that the “F.B.I. seized his iPhone.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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The judge overseeing New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million civil lawsuit against former President Donald Trump said he is prepared to sanction his attorneys if they don't stop their bad-faith delay tactics.

Judge Arthur Engoron refused to dismiss the case against the Trump Organization for business and tax fraud, saying he was unmoved by the arguments repeatedly given by Trump attorneys Alina Habba, Christopher Kise and Clifford Robert.

Habba in particular has "found herself in this judge's sights, after repeatedly trading barbs with him in court in a manner rarely seen in the profession—frequently interrupting him on the bench, accusing him of unfairly siding against the former president, and making snide remarks about his law clerk," The Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery reported.

Trump's own legal team has quietly criticized Habba's behavior, urging her to cut the theatrics and save it for her many appearances on right-wing TV channels, according to the report.

Legal ethics scholars say it's unusual for legal proceedings to be this dramatic. New York University law school professor Stephen Gillers told The Daily Beast that a situation such as this is "quite rare."

"The lawyers have to worry not only about monetary sanctions, which may not be as much of a worry, but also court discipline that can lead to a public censure, license suspension or disbarment," Gillers said.

In an email to Trump's attorneys on Wednesday, Engoron said he "is considering imposing sanctions for frivolous litigation" over Trump's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. On Friday, he issued an order rejecting their request to dismiss the case, noting that a "sophisticated defense counsel should have known better."

Engoron made clear he is growing tired of the lawyers' delay tactics, writing in the email that "reading these arguments was, to quote the baseball sage Lawrence Peter ('Yogi') Berra, 'Deja vu all over again.'"

New York Law School professor Rebecca Roiphe told The Daily Beast thatTrump's lawyers' repeated claims are a "signal to the court that they are acting in bad faith."

"Courts do sanction lawyers when they believe the lawyers are abusing the courts in this way,"the legal ethics expert said.

While Engoron's email was a strong warning of what is to come, he did not explicitly name the lawyers or their possible punishment.

James celebrated the news in a statement on Friday, pointing out how Trump's delay tactics are nearing their end.

"Once again, Donald Trump's attempts to evade the law have been rejected," James said. "We sued Mr. Trump because we found that he engaged in years of extensive financial fraud to enrich himself and cheat the system."

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after the January 6 Select Committee delivered its 845-page final report in December, countless articles by legal analysts focused on the possible repercussions for former President Donald Trump. The committee gave four criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which has the option of either following those recommendations or not following them.

During the months it spent conducting its in-depth investigation, the January 6 Committee not only examined Trump’s actions during the late 2020/early 2021 lame duck period, but also, the actions of Trump’s allies and associates — including attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John C. Eastman, both of whom were major promoters of Trump’s false, thoroughly debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Liberal Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent, in his January 5 column, lays out some reasons why Giuliani and Eastman may face “accountability” in 2023.

“You are probably familiar with the term ‘mob lawyer,’” Sargent explains. “It might now be time to inaugurate another, similar term: ‘coup lawyer.’ John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani were instrumental to the plotting and execution of President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow his reelection loss, and they corruptly abused their knowledge of the law to that end. Will they ever face real accountability?”

The columnist continues, “Eastman and Giuliani are facing disciplinary proceedings and might even get disbarred. But if they are disciplined on overly narrow grounds — say, for making false statements — it would be a highly insufficient outcome. They should also face professional discipline that declares in some way that their efforts to undermine our constitutional order were central features of their unscrupulous professional misconduct.”

Giuliani has practiced law in New York State and the District of Columbia, while Eastman is licensed to practice law in California. But Sargent argues that in light of their efforts to help Trump overturn perfectly legitimate presidential election results in 2020, neither of them should be practicing law anywhere.

“In Giuliani’s case,” Sargent notes, “a New York court temporarily suspended him from practicing law for making false statements in court — his lies about the 2020 election — and the D.C. bar appears focused on that charge as well. In Eastman’s case, it is unclear what misconduct the California bar is weighing. But the option exists for disbarment on a broader basis, according to advocates urging this course of action. In California, New York and D.C., ethics rules provide for sanctions on the grounds of fundamental unfitness for the legal profession and deep contempt for the rule of law. Disbarment decisions should cite both lawyers’ efforts to help Trump subvert democracy as the basis for those violations.”

Giuliani wasn’t always the far-right MAGA Republican he is now. When he was serving as mayor of New York City during the 1990s and early 2000s, Giuliani (an ex-Democrat) had a reputation for being a moderate Republican who was pro-choice on the abortion issue, was favorable to gay rights, believed that the evangelical Christian Right was harmful to his party in swing states, and had no problem working out bipartisan deals with Democrats. In fact, Giuliani was featured as a speaker at the in order to make then-President George W. Bush appear more moderate.

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12 22

rudy

https://www.alternet.org/giuliani-2658974089/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/12/federal-judge-orders-sanctions-for-kari-lakes-legal-team-in-voting-equipment-lawsuit/

After Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs defeated far-right MAGA Republican Kari Lake in Arizona’s 2022 gubernatorial election, conservative Republican Gov. Doug Ducey congratulated her and said he looked forward to helping with the transition from a Ducey Administration to a Hobbs Administration. But Lake, a conspiracy theorist and Big Lie promoter who falsely claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump, has refused to concede to Hobbs. And her campaign, in a lawsuit, questioned “the validity of the election results.”

Lake has also been in court attacking the electronic vote-counting equipment used in Arizona. But a federal judge, John J. Tuchi, disagrees with Lake’s claim that the equipment is problematic. And on Thursday, December 1, Tuchi ordered sanctions against Lake’s legal team.

Attorney/journalist Aaron Keller, reporting for Law & Crime on December 1, explains, “The attorneys being sanctioned are not directly named in Thursday’s order, but according to the court docket, Harvard Law School Prof. Alan Dershowitz is Lake’s lead attorney in the matter. Also on her legal team are co-lead attorneys Andrew D. Parker, Jesse Hersch Kibort, and Joseph Alan Pull of Minneapolis. Further listed as a member of her legal team is attorney Kurt B. Olsen of Washington, D.C.Parker, Olsen, and Dershowitz signed the original complaint, an amended complaint, and (an) opposition to a request for sanctions.”

Another far-right MAGA Republican who lost an election in Arizona, State Rep. Mark Finchem, joined Lake as a plaintiff in her lawsuit attacking Arizona’s voting equipment.In the 2022 midterms, Finchem ran for the position that Hobbs presently holds: Arizona secretary of state. And like Lake, he has aggressively promoted the Big Lie and Trump’s debunked voter fraud conspiracy theories. But Finchem lost to Democrat Adrian Fontes. Arizona was once a deep red state, but in 2023, it will have a Democratic governor (Hobbs), a Democratic secretary of state (Fontes) and two Democratic U.S. senators: Mark Kelly (who was reelected in November) and Kyrsten Sinema.

Dershowitz, however, stressed to Law & Crime that he is not questioning the election results in Arizona. And Keller points out that Lake and Finchem’s initial lawsuit questioning Arizona’s electronic voting machines goes back to April.

Dershowitz told Law & Crime, “I have not challenged the results of any Arizona elections. I have given legal advice about the future use of machine counting by companies that refuse to disclose the inner workings of their machines. I support transparency in elections.”

Keller explains, “The Lake/Finchem lawsuit as a whole, according to its opening salvo, sought to question the Grand Canyon State’s use of electronic ballot-counting devices. The case was filed in April, and — as Dershowitz noted — that was long before the results of the November 2022 midterms…. The lawsuit elsewhere bemoaned what it called ‘glaring failures with electronic voting systems’….U.S. District Judge John J. Tuchi rubbished the lawsuit in August— again, before the midterms — and on Thursday ascertained that sanctions were appropriate. Tuchi, a Barack Obama appointee, noted in August that Arizona election equipment is rigorously tested before it is used to count votes.”

Tuchi laid out the ways in which Arizona’s voting equipment undergoes extensive testing.

Tuchi wrote, “Before a single vote is cast, Arizona’s election equipment undergoes thorough testing by independent, neutral experts. Electronic voting equipment must be tested by both the Secretary’s Certification Committee and an Election Assistance Commission (“EAC”) accredited testing laboratory before it may be used in an Arizona election…. In addition to the equipment certification process, Arizona’s vote tabulation results are subject to four independent audits — two audits occur before the election, and two audits after.”

The judge continued, “The first of these audits is a logic and accuracy test, which is performed by the Arizona Secretary of State on a sample of the tabulation equipment…. The second required audit also takes place before election day. For the second audit, Arizona counties must perform a logic and accuracy test on all of their tabulation equipment.”

Tuchi wrote that Lake’s claims were “too speculative to establish an injury in fact.” Keller notes that the sanctions Tuchi has ordered only apply to the attorneys, not to plaintiffs Lake and Finchem.

The judge also wrote, “The Court shares the concerns expressed by other federal courts about misuse of the judicial system to baselessly cast doubt on the electoral process in a manner that is conspicuously consistent with the plaintiffs’ political ends.”

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sorta

https://www.alternet.org/2022/12/us-district-judge-aileen-cannon/

bench slapped

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Federal District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks issued harsh sanctions against multiple lawyers representing Donald Trump in a Florida lawsuit.

"A Florida judge has ordered Trump lawyers Alina Hanna, Peter Ticktin (Trump childhood classmate) and their associates to pay $50k in sanctions and fees and costs to a defendant Trump named in his unsuccessful RICO suit against Hillary Clinton," New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman reported.

"This kind of sanction is why so many Trump advisers and lawyers were distressed about his decision to file a suit against the NYAG in Florida," she added.

The 19-page ruling was also against attorneys Michael Madaio, Jamie Alan Sasson along with Habba, Madaio & Associates and The Ticktin Law Group.

Correspondent Andrew Feinberg of The Independent reported, "Judge Middlebrooks is all but saying [Alina Habba] and other lawyers who filed the ridiculous Trump vs. Clinton lawsuit should be disbarred."

The judge said the "conduct was willful, not simply negligent" and cited things Habba had said while being interviewed by Fox News personality Sean Hannity.

Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime described the ruling as a "brutal takedown."

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an 10 22

On Thursday, POLITICO reported that former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark is struggling to fend off disciplinary actions, and potentially the loss of his law license, as the Washington, D.C. bar investigates his role in the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

"Jeffrey Clark appeared for a lengthy proceeding Thursday that is a prelude to a disciplinary hearing on claims he violated legal ethics in his persistent efforts to undercut the legitimacy of the 2020 election," reported Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein. "The heart of the issue: Did Clark merely offer up unwise suggestions to his superiors — hardly the basis for disciplinary action — or did his persistence in the face of a lack of evidence of fraud render his conduct so inappropriate that he should be punished?"

Clark allegedly gave the White House advice on how to fight the election results, in violation of DOJ communication policies, and in particular wanted to send a letter to officials in Georgia advising them on nonexistent "irregularities" in their vote count. Trump had wanted to appoint him as Attorney General in the final days of his presidency, but officials warned the former president there would be if that appointment was made.

"Phil Fox, chief of the D.C. Bar Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which brought the complaint against Clark earlier this year, agreed that 'It is generally not a disciplinary violation to make a stupid suggestion,'" said the report. "But Fox said Clark went further by repeatedly seeking to get the Justice Department to send a letter warning of significant signs of fraud and urging state legislatures to reconvene and consider appointing new presidential electors. 'He came back and used coercive methods or means to attempt to get the letter sent even though he had no additional information' about fraud, Fox said during the videoconference session."

According to the report, Clark's attorney resisted this logic, saying, “They’re saying it’s OK to make a suggestion, but it’s not OK to persist in a suggestion.”

In addition to professional sanctions, Clark is facing a criminal investigation as part of the broader probe into Trump allies' plots around the election. In June, federal law enforcement officials came to his home and executed a search.

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note victim, always reluctant, 1776

mma 922 law lic suspend dc chryon]

LARRY KLAYMAN (FOUNDER, JUDICIAL WATCH): Here's what we're talking about right now. It's a full-court press. It's not an insurrection, it's an inquisition by the left to destroy all opposition to their total takeover of this country. And the place they really are most interested in is destroying conservative lawyers who can't fight back in court. So where does that leave us? I don't want to see this. But we're headed into revolution. And that's why we're doing what we're doing. We're trying Biden before citizens' grand juries and citizens' trials for the bribery from communist China, Ukraine, and Russia.

You can see that at our website at FreedomWatchUSA.org. We're trying Fauci, he talked about COVID-19. He's responsible for the death of 6 million people and counting worldwide. He gave the virus to the communist Chinese, the seeds of it, the SARS virus, with $3.7 million of grants from the Obama-Biden administration. So this is where we are. And I relish the fight because we're trying to do it peacefully and legally, but we are not far off. I mean, January 6 will look like a warm-up act. In fact, that wasn't violent. It was peaceful, by and large. A few people on either side, that's it. But next time it's going to be like the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, in France. That's where, regrettably, wemay be headed. And you, and I, and One America News, and others are trying to prevent that, but it looks inevitable at this point almost.

ADDISON SMITH (HOST):Well, it's just, you know, when we don't have a justice system anymore. When we don't have a justice system in place that's actually impartial and that actually is protecting the civil liberties and the rights of both sides, where else can you turn to, Larry? Conservatives can't turn to the justice system anymore. They can't turn to lawyers like you for help because they're just going to suspend your license. They can't turn to Trump because Trump's getting raided and decimated by the FBI. So conservatives have nowhere to turn to. Our own justice system has betrayed us.

KLAYMAN: Well, it's not true in all the states, by the way. I mean, D.C. and New York are the exceptions, OK? They're highly leftist, they're borderline socialist-communist, I mean, actually they're socialist for sure, borderline communist in their approach. But yes, this is an attempt across the board. And it's not gonna stop me from filing cases, I still can do it even in my own personal capacity. But the country needs to understand that we are at war. Biden declared war on us a few weeks ago. MAGA, you know, Make America Great Again. We are white domestic terrorists. That's what we are, white male domestic terrorists, primarily. Women can be domestic terrorists, too, in his estimation. But he has declared war. And we have not declared war on him. It reminds me of the days leading up and the actual day itself of July 4, 1776. Our Founding Fathers did not declare war on the king. They simply said we're going our own way. We've had it. When in the course of human events, I'm paraphrasing from the Declaration of Independence, the sovereign no longer represents the people. The people have a right under the laws of nature and nature's god, not the law of the state, not the law of the king, to alter or abolish that government and to form a new government by and for the people with equal rights for everyone in pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. That's the Declaration of Independence.

...

Do you think we can survive another two years with Joe Biden? We're already on our knees. We're on our back, gasping for air. This guy has destroyed the country in just two years.So consequently, we need to form a new government. Take immunity away from judges. Take immunity away from federal government officials. Make them accountable to the rule of law. Give the American people more standing to bring lawsuits in honest courts. Elect judges, don't appoint them. Now they're appointed through legalized bribes called campaign contributions. Is it no wonder that even Trump's own judges are throwing the January 6 protesters in prison?

...

It takes a counter-revolution. Wake up America. Wake up America. If you care about your kids, grandkids, future generations as our Founding Fathers did, get up off the couch if you're retired, stop counting your shekels, your money, and [SEND IT TO US AT] join us at FreedomWatchUSA.org. Or if you're middle-aged or young, you're going to have no country left. You almost have no country left right now. So we're trying to do it in the peaceful and legal way. The American people own our legal system, not the political hacks on the federal bench and some bar disciplinary counsels and other places in this country. We will rise up, and with God's divine providence, we will prevail as our Founding Fathers did.

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an 9 22

A federal judge in Florida delivered a sharp, strong, and devastating 65-page rebuke as he dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and more than two dozen others including the Democratic National Committee and, initially, five former FBI officials who were later dropped from the $24 million suit. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said the lawsuit was so weak he agreed with the defendants who described it as “a fundraising tool, a press release, or a list of political grievances,” and added, “it has no merit as a lawsuit.”

The lawsuit was filed by Alina Habba, who “previously worked as general counsel at a parking garage company.”

It “blamed Hillary Clinton and others for conspiring to malign his character,” Bloomberg reports, and “accused more than two dozen defendants of orchestrating ‘a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.’ It was filed in March under the civil version of a racketeering law normally used against organized crime.”

Judge Middlebrooks, in tossing Trump’s suit, wrote: “At its core, the problem with plaintiff’s amended complaint is that plaintiff is not attempting to seek redress for any legal harm; instead, he is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this court is not the appropriate forum.”

The lawsuit claimed Trump suffered “injurious falsehood,” “malicious prosecution,” “violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” “theft of trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016,” and “violations of the Stored Communications Act,” along with “various conspiracy charges and theories of agency and vicarious liability.”

Calling it “a scathing dismissal,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney notes Judge Middlebrooks “says the Alina Habba-led suit was devoid of facts, premised on nonsense legal claims, and late.”

Middlebrooks blasted Trump’s attorney, writing, “Plaintiff’s theory of this case, set forth over 527 paragraphs in the first 118 pages of the Amended Complaint, is difficult to summarize in a concise and cohesive manner. It was certainly not presented that way.”

At one point Middlebrooks writes, “the claims presented in the Amended Complaint are not warranted under existing law. In fact, they are foreclosed by existing precedent, including decisions of the Supreme Court. To illustrate, I highlight here just two glaring problems with the Amended Complaint. There are many others. But these are emblematic of the audacity of Plaintiff’s legal theories and the manner in which they clearly contravene binding case law.”

“What the Amended Complaint lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” Middlebrooks added.

Former FBI officials James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and Bruce Ohr were named as defendant in the original lawsuit but later dismissed.

Judge Middlebrooks was so angered by the fact the lawsuit was even filed he noted, “I reserve jurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions” against Trump’s attorneys.

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https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2022/07/22/ex-doj-official-jeffrey-clark-charged-with-ethics-violations-over-georgia-election-letter/

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The Epoch Times

- Mar 16

New Cancel-Culture Group Aims to Disbar Pro-Trump Lawyers

The Epoch Times: "In an interview with The Epoch Times, Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, said, 'The election is over.'

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Brock is 'doing this just to destroy the lives of the attorneys who defended Trump,' but 'everyone, even people that David Brock hates, deserves vigorous legal representation.'

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'It is certainly at odds with both the First Amendment and the right of all Americans to have legal representation. It’s just bully tactics' and 'a particularly vicious streak of cancel culture,' Levey said.

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The nonprofit describes itself as 'devoted to restoring the Founders’ vision of a federal judiciary governed by the rule of law and anchored by the Constitution.'"...

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a longtime Hillary Clinton ally’s new cancel-culture group announced it plans to spend millions of dollars to disbar 111 lawyers in 26 states who defended the Trump campaign in post-election litigation, or were involved in efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.

According to an Axios report, The 65 Project, founded by longtime Democratic Party operative David Brock (pictured above), has begun filing bar complaints against attorneys and plans to run ads in battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The group also intends to lobby the American Bar Association and state bar associations to create rules forbidding some election challenges, and to adopt model language stipulating “fraudulent and malicious lawsuits to overturn legitimate election results violate the ethical duties lawyers must abide by.”

Brock, an erstwhile conservative journalist who switched sides and became a fundraiser for Democrats, founded Media Matters for America and the American Bridge 21st Century super PAC. The “65” refers to the number of lawsuits the group claims were filed that were aimed at invalidating the 2020 election results.

Brock told Axios the purpose of The 65 Project is to “not only bring the grievances in the bar complaints, but shame them and make them toxic in their communities and in their firms.”

“I think the littler fish are probably more vulnerable to what we’re doing,” he said. “You’re threatening their livelihood. And, you know, they’ve got reputations in their local communities.”

The article states that the project “hopes to deter right-wing legal talent from signing on to any future GOP efforts to overturn elections—including the midterms, or 2024.” The group is the brainchild of Melissa Moss, a Democrat consultant and former senior Clinton administration official.

Although the media outlet reports the group intends to spend around $2.5 million in its first year, and will operate through an existing nonprofit called Law Works, The 65 Project’s website is asking for donations to be made to it through another nonprofit, Franklin Education Forum, which provides debate and media training for left-wing activists.

Texas lawyer Paul M. Davis, who is being targeted by The 65 Project, told Axios the group’s effort “is nothing more than a desperate attempt by leftist hacks and mercenaries.”

Davis said the project’s goal is “to neutralize anyone on the right with the ability to stand in the way of the left’s efforts to hide malfeasance in the 2020 elections and to clear the path for a repeat of similar malfeasance in the 2022 mid-terms.”

Three attorneys contacted by The Epoch Times were critical of The 65 Project to varying degrees.

High-profile attorney Sidney Powell, who is appealing sanctions imposed on her by a federal judge for filing a supposedly frivolous election-related lawsuit, said The 65 Project is “unconstitutional, un-American, abusive, and hateful.”

Referring to Brock, she said by email: “I can’t even imagine how soulless and sick he and his comrades have to be to dedicate themselves and millions of dollars to try to destroy the lives and livelihoods of others. Those dollars could be spent instead to build Habitat homes or shelters for the homeless. Brock and his ilk don’t solve problems; they create them. Pathetic.”

In an interview with The Epoch Times, Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, said “the election is over.”

Brock is “doing this just to destroy the lives of the attorneys who defended Trump,” but “everyone, even people that David Brock hates, deserve vigorous legal representation.”

“It is certainly at odds with both the First Amendment and the right of all Americans to have legal representation. It’s just bully tactics,” and “a particularly vicious streak of cancel culture,” Levey said.

The nonprofit describes itself as “devoted to restoring the Founders’ vision of a federal judiciary governed by the rule of law and anchored by the Constitution.”

Former Department of Justice civil rights attorney J. Christian Adams told The Epoch Times by email that, on the one hand, The 65 Project is “another reason not to get involved with flimsy legal theories, and only bring cases with merit.”

On the other hand, “it shows the Left is swimming in so much cash that they can implement any thuggish program they choose to,” said Adams, who is president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF).

The foundation describes itself as “the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity.” The nonprofit organization “exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity, and fight against lawlessness in American elections.”

The 65 Project website highlights the bar complaints it has filed so far against pro-Trump lawyers for their involvement in post-election lawsuits or activities.

The attorneys targeted so far are: Davis (pdf); Cleta Mitchell (pdf); Jenna Ellis (pdf); Joseph diGenova (pdf); Boris Epshteyn (pdf); William McCall Calhoun (pdf); William Bradley Carver (pdf); Daryl Moody (pdf); and James Troupis and Andrew Hitt (pdf). Carver, Moody, and Hitt are accused of falsely claiming to be presidential electors. Troupis is accused of coordinating false elector slates.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias is leading a related effort to disqualify Republican candidates for allegedly supporting an insurrection against the United States by backing then-President Donald Trump in congressional votes at the end of the 2020 election cycle. Those challenging the candidates cite an obscure post-Civil War constitutional provision intended to keep Confederacy supporters from public office.

So far, allies of Elias have tried to have two pro-Trump Republican congressmen kicked off the ballot for voting not to certify the electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania during a joint session of Congress Jan. 6 and Jan. 7, 2021. During the session, U.S. Capitol security was breached and the disturbance delayed certification of then-candidate Joe Biden’s election victory by several hours. Some of those activists who entered the Capitol are being prosecuted for attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. Some of those held in pretrial detention in the D.C. jail have complained of beatings and torture by guards.

The effort to remove Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) by invoking the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment was unanimously rejected Feb. 18 by the bipartisan Indiana Election Commission, as The Epoch Times reported. The challenge to the candidacy of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) is still pending. More candidate challenges are expected.

Elias is a central figure in the “Russiagate” conspiracy.He represented the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, hiring Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. That research effort culminated in the now-discredited 35-page dossier written by former British spy Christopher Steele that purported to tie Trump to the Russian government.

Brock, through his Media Matters for America website, which purports to combat “conservative misinformation,” has promoted the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory and Clinton for years. Funded by left-wing financier George Soros, Media Matters has, in turn, funded the Franklin Education Forum.

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared March 8, 2022, in The Epoch Times.

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Jenna Ellis, Other 'Big Lie Lawyers' Face Ethics Complaints (lawandcrime.com)

no lnx doc

Advocacy Group Files Wave of Ethics Complaints Against Jenna Ellis and Other ‘Big Lie Lawyers’ Who Tried to Overturn Election for Trump

ADAM KLASFELDMar 7th, 2022,

Former President Donald Trump’s lawyer Jenna Ellis and nine other attorneys received ethics complaints for their participation in the wave of litigation seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, an advocacy group announced on Monday.

Sent to courts, bar associations and disciplinary committees across the United States, the wave of 10 complaints was the debut action taken by the non-profit group The 65 Project against attorneys they describe as “Big Lie lawyers.”

Aside from Ellis, the other nine attorneys facing complaints for their efforts either representing Trump or supporting his election-subversion bids are:

Cleta Mitchell, who participated in Trump’s phone call urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to “find 11,780 votes” to tip the election in his favor;

Former Sinclair Media Group talking headBoris Epshteyn,who reportedly had a phone call with Trump on the morning of Jan. 6;

Former U.S. AttorneyJoe diGenova,who said that Trump’s ex-cybersecurity czar Chris Krebs should be “taken out at dawn and shot” for finding the 2020 election was secure;

Texas attorney Paul Davis, who filed and dropped his so-called “Gondor” lawsuit seeking the wholesale replacement of two branches of the U.S. federal government;

Georgia lawyer William Calhoun, who allegedly boasted about storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6;

Fellow Peach State lawyers William Carver and Daryl Moody, who claimed to be Trump “electors” in Georgia, even though President Joe Biden won there handily by more than 12,000 votes;

Fake Wisconsin elector Andrew Hitt, who purported to represent Trump voters in a state Biden won by more than 20,600 votes;

Trump’s lawyer in Wisconsin Jim Troupis, whom a state Supreme Court justice roasted for bringing a lawsuit that “smacks of racism.”

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The 65 Project, so-named after the number of lawsuits seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election, claim that initial wave of complaints represents a fraction of what they have plan. The group announced plans to target a “list of 111 lawyers across 26 states” for possible disbarment for “violating their oaths as officers of the court and failing to follow ethical rules.”

Several pro-Trump lawyers already have been facing blowback for their participation in post-2020 election litigation. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had his law license suspended in New York and Washington, D.C., following his disastrous turn seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania. In August, a federal judge in Michigan sanctioned nine lawyers associated with the so-called “Kraken” lawsuit there, including Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and others.

“This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process,” U.S. District Judge Linda Parker wrote in her opinion and order at the time. “It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election. It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here.”

Judge Parker referred all of the lawyers to their respective disciplinary committees for potential discipline or disbarment. The lawyer who pursued that sanctions order—the city of Detroit’s lawyer David Fink—is now a consulting counsel for The 65 Project. So is his son, Nathan Fink. The group’s managing director is Yale Law School graduate Michael Teter.

Describing itself as bipartisan, The 65 Project appears to lean Democratic. The first member of its advisory board, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), served as a majority and minority during his decades-long career in the U.S. Senate. Democratic Party activist David Brock is a senior advisor.

Read the ethics complaint against Ellis, below:

[image via screengrab/Centennial Institute/YouTube]

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