Justice Department backs Trump ally Clark in ethics case over 2020 election

By David Thomas

Oct 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department urged an appeals court in Washington, D.C., to reject an effort to strip White House official Jeffrey Clark of his law license for trying help President Donald Trump overturn his 2020 election defeat, calling the attorney disciplinary proceedings against him an example of "ethics-complaints-as-lawfare."

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett Shumate argued in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Monday with the D.C. Court of Appeals that the effort to disbar Clark, a former DOJ official, could have a chilling effect and disrupt prosecutors' decision-making.

"This case exemplifies a recent and troubling trend: attempts by political opponents of the president's administration to weaponize the bar rules of this court and state supreme courts to impose personal costs on Department of Justice lawyers for discharging their federal responsibilities," the brief said.

The D.C. Court of Appeals, which has the final say on attorney disciplinary matters in the district, is weighing a July 31 recommendation from the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility that called for Clark's disbarment.

Clark, as a senior U.S. Department of Justice official during Trump's first term, was "prepared to cause the Justice Department to tell a lie about the status of its investigation" into the presidential election, a majority of the nine-member D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility found. Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election.

Three former Republican U.S. attorneys general — Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, who served under Trump, and Michael Mukasey, who served under George W. Bush — submitted a separate amicus brief arguing that attorney disciplinary officials had overstepped in the case because it involved Executive Branch communications and internal deliberations among federal lawyers.

Harry MacDougald, an attorney for Clark, called the briefs "a testament to how far off the rails the D.C. Bar has gone in this case."

Hamilton Fox, the head of the D.C. bar's Office of Disciplinary Counsel, declined to comment.

Clark currently leads the White House Office of Management and Budget division charged with vetting proposed executive branch rules.

In December 2020, Clark proposed sending a letter to Georgia's governor and top state lawmakers falsely asserting the Justice Department had "identified significant concerns" about the election in Georgia and other states, according to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

The letter urged state lawmakers to convene to investigate purported election irregularities and consider sending a slate of presidential electors for Trump despite Biden’s win in the state.

Justice Department leaders refused to send the letter. Trump backed off plans to name Clark acting attorney general when the leadership of the Justice Department and White House lawyers threatened to resign in protest.

Other Trump-aligned lawyers, including Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, have faced ethics complaints related to their legal work challenging the 2020 election. Chesebro and Giuliani have been disbarred in New York, while Eastman is fighting a disbarment effort in California. The D.C. Court of Appeals disbarred Giuliani in Washington last year.

The D.C. disciplinary counsel's office has long asserted a role in policing the conduct of Justice Department lawyers in Washington, home to DOJ headquarters and the largest U.S. Attorney's Office in the country. The DOJ in 2021 defended two of its prosecutors over claims that they concealed evidence stemming from a 2007 assault case.