Attorney in Trump case fights to keep his law license
ATLANTA — An attorney charged in Georgia for aiding Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election faces another challenge this week: holding on to his law license.
The disciplinary trial of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark begins Tuesday in Washington. The bar complaint against him says Clark attempted to convince Georgia officials to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory on false pretenses — an attempt that went nowhere but led to a dramatic White House showdown and the resignation of Trump’s U.S. attorney in Atlanta.
Clark isn’t the only Trump associate fighting for a law license. Dozens of lawyers have faced ethics complaints for their roles in Trump’s push to stay in power despite losing to Biden. Among them are seven of the 19 people charged last August in the Georgia election interference case.
“Our effort is really to hold accountable those who fought to overturn the election,” said Michael Teter, an attorney and managing director of The 65 Project, a watchdog group that has filed numerous election-related complaints against lawyers across the country. “But, more importantly, it will deter future abuse of the American legal system to undermine elections.”
Critics say the complaints are politically motivated and — like the criminal charges in Georgia — could discourage lawyers from aggressively representing their clients.
“Everybody is entitled to zealous representation,” said John Malcolm, a former federal prosecutor now at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “Anything that puts a chill on that is bad for lawyers and bad for anyone wrapped up in the legal system.”
Four years ago, Trump used several strategies to try to reverse Biden’s victory. He and his supporters filed scores of lawsuits challenging the results in Georgia and other states, saying the election was rife with fraud. Investigators found no evidence to support the fraud allegations, and judges rejected the lawsuits.
Trump also sought to convince state legislators to name him the winner. He tried to enlist the Justice Department to intervene on his behalf. And he pressured Congress and Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results Jan. 6 — leading a Washington rally that devolved into an attack that disrupted congressional certification of Biden’s victory for hours.
Aiding Trump in these various efforts were numerous attorneys who now find themselves under scrutiny.
Clark was a senior Justice Department official who tried to get DOJ to intervene in the election on Trump’s behalf.
He drafted a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp and legislative leaders, asking them to convene a special session of the General Assembly to consider naming Trump the winner. He said the DOJ had “serious concerns” about voting fraud that justified the move.
But DOJ had no such concerns. The FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta had investigated numerous allegations of voting fraud in Georgia and other states and found nothing to them.