Blanche Is Targeting the D.C. Bar to Remove Ethical Guardrails for the Justice Department

(Scott Cummings – Just Security) At the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in November, now Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called the District of Columbia Bar “one of the most activist, obnoxious bars when it comes to going after conservative lawyers,” threatening to take it “out of the picture”. Blanche has now delivered on this promise in a lawsuit filed last month against the D.C. Bar to shut down disciplinary action against Jeffrey Clark, who served in the Department of Justice during the first Trump administration. In July, the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility recommended Clark be disbarred under D.C. Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(a) for “attempt[ing] to make intentionally false statements” in a letter designed to help overturn the 2020 presidential election. The DOJ suit calls the D.C. Bar’s case against Clark another example of “weaponization” (used to mean any legal action against the president or his allies), making the claim at the same moment the DOJ unveiled a $1.8 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund to compensate people, such as Clark, whose actions have harmed American democracy. It would be easy to dismiss this complaint as another instance of petty retaliation from the Trump administration—an attack on the bar for seeking to discipline a loyalist. It is partly that. But the stakes of this case are much higher—and Blanche knows that. – Blanche Is Targeting the D.C. Bar to Remove Ethical Guardrails for the Justice Department