President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has sued the Washington, D.C., bar association in a bid to block it from disbarring a former government lawyer who tried to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss.
The District of Columbia Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility voted last year to strip Jeffrey Clark, who served as an assistant attorney general during Trump’s first term, of his law license for attempting to make false statements about the election.
Clark had drafted an official letter falsely claiming the DOJ’s investigations into election “irregularities” had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted” the election’s outcome in Georgia and other swing states, and recommending that the state legislatures investigate.
He then spent nearly a week lobbying his superiors at the DOJ to send the letter to Georgia state officials. They refused, repeatedly telling Clark “in no uncertain terms” that the letter was not accurate, the board of professional responsibility found.
Clark nevertheless kept pushing for the letter to be sent, and during a meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 3, 2021, he unsuccessfully tried to convince Trump to make him acting attorney general so he could personally execute his plan.
He was later one of the defendants charged in a Georgia state criminal case accusing Trump and his co-conspirators of violating the state’s RICO Act. The case was dropped after Trump won re-election.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche—who was previously Trump’s personal defense attorney—alleged that the D.C. Bar had punished Clark for “preparing a deliberative and pre-decisional draft letter that was never issued.”
“D.C. disciplinary authorities may not punish a United States official for disagreeing with a superior or coworker or for sharing an opinion just because those disciplinary authorities disagree with it,” the suit argued.
The lawsuit is part of a broader push within the administration to rehabilitate Trump allies and supporters who were charged or accused of wrongdoing in connection with the president’s effort to subvert Joe Biden’s election victory.
That includes going to battle with state bar associations, which regulate the legal profession and enforce ethical codes of conduct. Two other lawyers involved in the election plot—Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman—have also been disbarred in New York and California, respectively.
“As our complaint and history make clear, the DC Bar has long acted as a blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes. No more,” Blanche said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the D.C. Bar for comment.
In its report recommending that Clark be disbarred, the professional responsibility board acknowledged that Clark personally believed the election results were the result of fraud.
But he was told repeatedly that the DOJ’s investigations had not “identified significant concerns,” meaning he knew the letter’s contents were false.
Given that the D.C. Bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit both making and attempting to make intentionally false statements, his conduct was punishable even though his superiors refused to send the letter, the board concluded.
The recommendation is currently pending before the D.C. Court of Appeals, which has final say over lawyer discipline. In the meantime, Clark’s license has been suspended.
