A disciplinary counsel in Washington, D.C., argued that Donald Trump ally Jeffrey Clark should lose his law license. Clark argued that he shouldn’t be disciplined at all. Rejecting both contentions, the committee panel that heard evidence on the matter recommended Thursday that Clark should be suspended from practicing law for two years.
With such strikingly different positions on each side, how did the panel reach that conclusion?
While rejecting Clark’s claim that he essentially did nothing wrong, the panel said that, based on the evidence presented in the proceeding, his conduct wasn’t as egregious as that of Rudy Giuliani or John Eastman, whose respective disbarments were recommended in other proceedings for their 2020 election-related actions.
Specifically, the panel explained in a lengthy report that the disciplinary counsel proved “by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Clark attempted dishonesty and did so with truly extraordinary recklessness.” It recounted that Clark, an environmental and civil litigator during the Trump administration, had no criminal or election experience and yet:
At the eleventh hour of the Trump Administration, he sought to take over responsibility for investigations into election matters, and relying on what was, at best, a fraction of the information any reasonable attorney would expect to act on, to insist on sending a letter — with significant false and misleading statements — to officials in the State of Georgia, urging extraordinary action to intervene in the electoral process.
Distinguishing Clark’s matter from Giuliani’s, the panel wrote that Giuliani “abused his license to practice law and breached his core ethical duties” in the context of representing a client in court, while Clark’s misconduct “did not involve the courts” but rather “occurred in the context of high-level discussion and debate within the Executive Branch regarding the integrity of the 2020 election, and did not involve an attempt to mislead others within the Justice Department.”
Similarly, regarding Eastman, the panel noted that the California bar “found that, in connection with efforts to challenge the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, Dr. Eastman failed to support the Constitution and laws of the United States, and engaged in pervasive dishonesty, including knowingly false and misleading statements in court filings.”
The recommendation doesn’t mean that Clark necessarily will be suspended for two years. Politico reported that it “will now come before the D.C. Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility, which will make its own recommendation to the D.C. Court of Appeals. The full process could take another year to reach its conclusion.”
Clark also faces related criminal charges in Georgia, alongside Trump and others in a state indictment alleging 2020 election interference. Both Clark and Trump have pleaded not guilty in the case, which is currently tied up on a pretrial appeal seeking to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
If Trump wins the presidential election in November, he wouldn’t be able to pardon state charges. And rather than attempt a legally untested self-pardon for his federal cases if he retakes the White House, Trump might instead have his newly installed attorney general — possibly Clark himself — dismiss them.
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