April 5 (UPI) — Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark violated ethic rules when he supported former President Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election and could be disbarred, a Washington, D.C., discipline panel said.
Clark was acting assistant head of the Justice Department’s civil division under the Trump administration and was a supporter of his former boss’ false claims that the general election of 2020 was stolen.
As part of efforts to subvert the election, Trump considered replacing then-Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Clark who would forward his plan, but later declined to name him head of the department after being informed doing so would ignite mass resignations.
The three-member lawyer disciplinary committee in Washington, D.C., has been considering charges brought against Clark by the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel in July 2022, accusing the former federal lawyer of engaging in dishonest conduct and attempting to interfere with the administration of justice.
On Thursday, following a trial during which Clark declined to testify, the three-member panel issued a preliminary ruling that Clark did violate at least one attorney ethic rule though it did not elaborate.
The ruling opens Clark up to disciplinary measures, including disbarment.
“The board’s preliminary finding today is another step toward holding Clark accountable for undermining democracy and the rule of law when he worked to help Trump overturn a free and fair election,” the nonprofit States United Democracy Center, which seeks to protect elections and democracy, said in a statement.
In the charging document, Clark is accused of seeking to interfere with the election vote count in Georgia, which Trump lost by 11,779 votes.
The document states Clark in late December 2020 drafted a letter to Georgia officials stating the Justice Department had “significant concerns” about the state’s election despite the federal department being aware of no issues with the contest.
The letter recommended that Georgia’s governor call the state’s legislature into special session to consider replacing electors that supported Biden with those that were in favor of Trump.
Rosen and Richard Donoghue, the deputy attorney general, both refused to sign the letter over its inclusion of false claims. After it became known that Trump planned to name Clark attorney general, Donoghue informed the then-outgoing president that if he did so, all assistant attorneys general would resign, with the White House counsel also threatening to step down.
The letter was never sent to Georgia, and Trump decided against appointing Clark attorney general.
Clark is also separately being tried along with Trump and 17 other defendants in a criminal case in Fulton County, Ga., as well as in a federal election case that was brought against the former president.
The ruling comes after a similar panel in July recommended former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani be disbarred over his effort to help the former president overturn the election.
