Those looking for accountability for those who plotted against the 2020 presidential election have limited options. Donald Trump’s Justice Department, for example, certainly won’t punish lawyers who tried to overturn the will of the voters, and congressional Republicans won’t take an interest in holding them responsible, either.
But bar associations are another matter entirely. In fact, Jeffrey Clark, a key figure in Trump’s 2020 crusade to remain in the White House, is facing possible disbarment in the nation’s capital as a result of an investigation from the District of Columbia Bar.
It’s against this backdrop that Trump’s DOJ this week filed a lawsuit against the D.C. Bar — not because it did something wrong, but because of its efforts to discipline Trump administration lawyers, including Clark. The New York Times reported:
The lawsuit defends Jeffrey Clark, a government lawyer in the first Trump administration who sought to undo the results of the 2020 presidential race, and Ed Martin, a current senior Justice Department official. The suit was filed by Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, and Stanley E. Woodward Jr., the No. 3 official at the Justice Department.
In accompanying statements, Mr. Blanche accused the D.C. Bar of acting as a “blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes.”
The same lawsuit goes so far as to say lawyers who work for the administration should necessarily be considered above scrutiny by legal ethics officials.
In case that weren’t quite enough, Benjamin Weiss at CourtHouse News noticed the same lawsuit against the D.C. Bar references the Supreme Court’s ruling that extended immunity to presidential “official acts,” suggesting Blanche and his team believe lawyers in Trump’s employ are also protected from punishments.
Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the case, but the fact that Blanche is pursuing such a case at all is a timely reminder that this guy really wants to be nominated for attorney general. His unsubtle moves in recent weeks includes: indicting people the president doesn’t like, advocating firing squads as a method of federal execution, releasing absurd reports critical of the Biden administration while gratuitously slamming Joe Biden himself and intervening in support of Trump’s ballroom crusade, which includes lobbying congressional Republicans to approve $1 billion in taxpayer money.
It’s hard to say whether Blanche, who used to work as a Trump defense attorney, is nailing the audition, but the president did say earlier this week, “We have a man who’s doing a great job, I’ll tell you. I knew it because he kept me out of jail for years. Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, he kept me out of jail.”
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