One of the truly disturbing aspects of Donald Trump’s arrival on the U.S. political scene has been witnessing the parade of individuals willing to break or subvert the law in order to serve his interests. Possibly most remarkable among these are the many lawyers—particularly the ones Trump enlisted to assist in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results—who, on paper at least, should have known the consequences of their actions.
Of those lawyers, one in particular stands out: Jeffrey Clark.
While the others engaged in Trump’s conspiracies from their capacity as private citizens, Clark deliberately intended to use his status within the government to further Trump’s goal of overturning the election.
Last week, a three-person panel appointed by the Washington, D.C., Office of Disciplinary Counsel Bar recommended that Clark be disbarred, illustrating the specific type of person Trump plans to embed into our federal government at nearly every level in a second Trump administration.
The bar’s recommendation is not simply a verdict on Clark but a clear warning to Americans about the danger of a second Trump presidency.
For a brief, shining moment in early 2021, Clark, a relatively obscure attorney and Federalist Society member, stood on the verge of wielding more power than most lawyers could ever dream of. In the aftermath of Trump’s humiliating 2020 electoral defeat, he worked feverishly at Trump’s behest to find a way to invalidate those lawful election results. His dogged efforts were rewarded in January when the opportunity of a lifetime arose: He was to be selected by a vengeful, frustrated Trump to succeed the noncompliant Jeffrey Rosen as acting attorney general.
Clark’s plan was to launch an official Department of Justice investigation into the supposed electoral “irregularities” that Trump insisted had to exist. He would then plunge the nation into a post-election purgatory of chaos and confusion while the DOJ pressed Georgia and other state officials into servicing Trump’s cause. It did not matter to Clark that there was no legitimate evidence to support his theories, nor that he’d received intelligence briefings telling him that no fraud or tampering existed.
And that’s because Clark thought he knew better. He’d “done the research,” which convinced him that the voting machines that had awarded Joe Biden his electoral victory were somehow tainted, and thus the entire 2020 election should be investigated. It was his job—his calling, in fact—to spearhead that effort. When asked whether his scheme wouldn’t spark massive public protests, Clark’s purported, laconic reply was “that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”
To bolster his power bid, Clark drafted a letter to Georgia election officials, alerting them to the “irregularities” he’d researched, and demanding action by the Georgia legislature. And when others refused to sign it, he solicited Trump himself, advising that if only Trump would appoint him as attorney general, he would send the letter. “History is calling,” he purportedly told Trump.
Unfortunately for Clark, Trump abandoned this plan after other DOJ officials threatened to resign if he appointed Clark. Since such a mass, public resignation would certainly have spelled an ignoble and embarrassing end to Trump’s plans, Clark’s scheme to weaponize the DOJ against U.S. democracy went unrealized, and that letter to Georgia officials went unsent.
As the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Oct. 2021 report later attested, the country had been “only a half-step away from a full blown constitutional crisis as President Donald Trump and his loyalists threatened a wholesale takeover of the Department of Justice.”
Last August, Clark, along with Trump and others, was indicted in the state of Georgia for his efforts to overturn the election. But he still remained a lawyer in Washington, D.C., making him subject to the D.C. bar’s ethical rules and potential discipline for violating those rules, which brought him to the bar’s recommendation for disbarment.
The language the panel used in its recommendation is devastating:
It is not enough that the efforts of these lawyers ultimately failed. As a profession, 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.
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.
The bar’s findings are replete with specific examples of Clark’s behavior, detailing each of them in devastating, chronological order. They brook no excuses based on the supposed sincerity of Clark’s belief that the election was stolen from Trump, and they explicitly hone in on his invocation of the Insurrection Act against U.S. citizens:
Finally, it should be examined in the context of his callous indifference to the consequences of his proposed course of conduct—riots in every city—an indifference that exceeds mere recklessness. … Extremists are often sincere, and fanatics are the sincerest of all. Such sincerity is no virtue; it is evidence of how dangerous the true believer can be. And if sincerity is feigned, to disguise overweening ambition, that lawyer is arguably the most dangerous of all.
Perhaps most forcefully of all, the panel castigates Clark for betraying his oath to the U.S. Constitution:
The courts and the legal profession cannot tolerate a lawyer misusing his law license in this way. All of us practice law within the structure of a democratic form of government constrained by the Constitution. This structure has stood for more than 230 years, longer than any other democracy, but it is still an experiment in a form of government rarely seen in history. It will not survive if people lose faith in election results. 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.
Significantly, the panel concludes that disbarment is the only possible option for conduct rising to these levels. It specifically cites the recommendation of disbarment made by the State Bar Court of California against Clark’s fellow lawyer and indicted co-conspirator, John Eastman, for his actions in attempting to overturn the election.
Clark has until May 23 to respond to the panel’s recommendations. When finalized, it will be transmitted to the District’s Board of Professional Responsibility, and then to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
In the interim, however, Clark continues to figure prominently in Trump’s plans as he seeks re-election. As reported by Isaac Stanley-Becker last August for The Washington Post, Clark has become a celebrity and media star in Republican circles, speaking regularly on conservative podcasts and at pro-Trump events, including one last year specifically dedicated to hiring employees to staff a future Trump administration. At that time, Trump ally and convicted criminal Stephen Bannon declared Clark would be on the shortlist for attorney general should Trump be re-elected.
Clark has also been involved in drafting the provisions of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto that lay out Trump’s planned takeover of the DOJ. As reported last November by the The Washington Post, Clark has been tasked to outline Trump’s options for invoking the Insurrection Act and deploying the U.S. military to shut down any public protests to Trump’s policies or actions.
As Axios has reported, the Heritage Foundation’s donors have already allotted tens of millions of dollars in a comprehensive effort to recruit over 50,000 Trump loyalists to seed the federal government. Their intent is to muster an army of pro-Trump supporters who exhibit the same obedience that Clark displayed to Trump in the waning days of his first term.
It’s not clear what impact Clark’s disbarment would have on his future prospects for a second Trump term in office, but whether or not Clark survives, his actions provide a disturbing window into the type of government we could expect from a reanimated Trump regime.
