Left: Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark attends an event hosted by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., at the Capitol in Washington, June 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades). Right: Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal in New York, Friday, April 19, 2024. (Sarah Yenesel/Pool Photo via AP)
The District of Columbia’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel issued a recommendation this week battering the credibility of former Donald Trump Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark, saying Clark’s “dishonest attempt to create national chaos” in the run-up to Jan. 6 meant the only suitable sanction would be disbarment because, put simply, nothing else would do.
“It is not enough that the efforts of these lawyers ultimately failed,” the three-member disciplinary panel said of Clark and other Trump administration lawyers who contested the 2020 election on the former president’s behalf or, as the panel noted, at his “direction.”
“We must do what we can to ensure that this conduct is never repeated. The way to accomplish that goal is to remove from the profession lawyers who betrayed their constitutional obligations and their country. It is important that other lawyers who might be tempted to engage in similar misconduct be aware that doing so will cost them their privilege to practice law. It is also important for the courts and the legal profession to state clearly that the ends do not justify the means; that process matters; and that this is a society of laws, not men,” wrote disciplinary counsel Hamilton Fox III. “Jeffrey Clark betrayed his oath to support the Constitution of the United States of America. He is not fit to be a member of the District of Columbia Bar.”
Fox added:
As a member of the D.C. Bar, Mr. Clark swore an oath that he would ‘support the Constitution of the United States of America.’ As an officer in the Department of Justice, he undoubtedly took a variation of that oath. By attempting to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct in the ways he did, he betrayed those oaths and, in doing so, his country. Lawyers who betray their country must be disbarred.
Clark and his attorneys have until May 23 to reply and from there, his response will be considered by the disciplinary panel before a final decision follows at the Court of Appeals. The disciplinary counsel is an arm of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
