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| (Texas Lawyer) |
Conservative lawyers are being warned that they could face serious consequences in their professional lives if they help Donald Trump try to subvert the 2024 presidential election, according to a report at AlterNet. Under the headline "Why conservative lawyers 'cannot defensibly assist' Trump in efforts to subvert election: legal expert," Maya Boddie writes:
With less than [a week] until the presidential election, Donald Trump is expected to take legal action in case he's defeated by Kamala Harris — as he did [against Joe Biden] in 2020.
In an op-ed published recently by The New York Times ["Lawyers Should Not Assist Trump in a Potential Power Grab"], University of Pennsylvania law professor Kate Shaw submits that although Trump and his allies' "efforts failed spectacularly" in courts across the country, the former president "will most likely be, if anything, more determined to win at all costs — driven not only by desire for power but also by fear of what might come of the pending legal cases against him."
The MAGA hopeful "has a right to competent and effective counsel, and it is important that he be well represented," Shaw writes. "But the right to counsel guaranteed by our Constitution does not extend to efforts to subvert that very document."
Do lawyers understand that Trump poses a threat to their careers? To make sure, Shaw drives that point home, as Boddie writes:
Furthermore, Shaw emphasizes that many lawyers are well aware of the impact representing Trump could have on their reputations.
"Lawyers cannot, consistent with their ethical obligations, participate in devising litigation that is retrofitted to support the position Mr. Trump seems to hold — that the only 'real' Americans are those who cast their ballots for him and that those who vote against him are by definition engaging in fraud," the law professor writes.
"Attorneys at prominent law firms should already know that they cannot defensibly assist in Mr. Trump’s specious efforts," Shaw adds, noting that, "If they waver, their corporate clients should make clear they do not want their attorneys associating with a candidate who has already told usFurthermore, Shaw emphasizes that many lawyers are well aware of the impact representing Trump could have on their reputations.
"Lawyers cannot, consistent with their ethical obligations, participate in devising litigation that is retrofitted to support the position Mr. Trump seems to hold — that the only 'real' Americans are those who cast their ballots for him and that those who vote against him are by definition engaging in fraud," the law professor writes.
"Attorneys at prominent law firms should already know that they cannot defensibly assist in Mr. Trump’s specious efforts," Shaw adds, noting that, "If they waver, their corporate clients should make clear they do not want their attorneys associating with a candidate who has already told us he will not respect the will of the voters if they do not choose him."
Warnings about Trump are not just coming from academia. This is from a Times article under the headline "Legal Watchdog Group Warns Pro-Trump Lawyers Against Subverting Democracy in November; New ads running in legal journals are warning lawyers: “Don’t lose your law license because of Trump.”
Alan Feuer is a reporter covering extremism and political violence for The New York Times. He has been writing about crime and criminal justice for The Times since 1999, covering cases involving the Mafia, Mexican drug cartels, murders and corrupt police officers and politicians. Regarding Trump and any lawyers who might try to assist him with underhanded election tactics, Feuer writes:
After the 2020 election, legal watchdogs, outraged at some of their colleagues, filed scores of ethics complaints against lawyers who used their skills in questionable ways to help former President Donald J. Trump stay in power.
And in the past few years, the groups have had some notable successes, securing judgments that have led to pro-Trump lawyers like John Eastman and Rudolph W. Giuliani having their law licenses deactivated.
Now, one of these groups — the 65 Project — is taking a more proactive approach. The group’s organizers are running advertisements in legal journals published in swing states, reminding lawyers that they are ethically barred from bringing false claims on behalf of any client.
“Don’t risk your law license by joining an effort to subvert democracy,” one of the ads says. “We — and the public — are watching.”
The ads, initially set to appear in both print and online in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will be coming out just as Republicans and Democrats alike are gearing up for what could be an exceptionally bitter legal fight over the election.
Democrats are expecting an aggressive Republican effort to challenge voters, rules and, possibly, the results of the race. In preparation, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has assembled an expansive legal team of hundreds of lawyers and thousands of volunteers meant to be a bulwark against multiple certification battles and mass voter challenges.
Michael Teter, the managing director of the 65 Project, said he hoped the group’s ads would have a “deterrent effect” on any lawyers who might be inclined to take part in such efforts in a way that violated legal codes of ethics.
“Lawyers should know they’re risking their law licenses if they try to overturn free and fair elections,” he said.
A small army of lawyers went to work for Mr. Trump four years ago, helping him to launch an increasingly dubious series of attempts to overturn his defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Some filed lawsuits of questionable merit that claimed the race had been marred by widespread fraud or had been rigged by a conspiracy of plotters that included voting machine companies, the Chinese Community Party and George Soros, a Democratic financier.
Others mapped out plans to create slates of electors that falsely claimed Mr. Trump had won the race in states that were actually won by Mr. Biden. The plan was intended to culminate on Jan. 6, 2021, when Mr. Trump wanted his own vice president, Mike Pence, to use the fake electors as a pretense to delay the certification of the election or to throw the race his way at a proceeding at the Capitol that day.
Some pro-Trump lawyers, like Sidney Powell, were sanctioned by judges for filing lawsuits advancing a conspiracy theory that voting machines built by Dominion Voting Systems had been used to rig the election against Mr. Trump. Jenna Ellis, who was part of a team of lawyers who presented his fraud claims at legislative hearings in swing states, settled a disciplinary measure against her by publicly admitting that she had knowingly misrepresented the facts when she claimed that widespread voting fraud had led to Mr. Trump’s defeat.
The 65 Project takes its name from its tally of 65 lawsuits pro-Trump lawyers filed to try to overturn the 2020 results. It describes itself as a bipartisan group and receives funding from large grant-making foundations, Mr. Teter said. Its advisory board includes a former chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court, Christine Durham, and Paul Rosenzweig, a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security.
The group’s advertisements seek to capitalize on the penalties that pro-Trump lawyers faced for their work after the last presidential election. One of the ads bluntly states the potential consequences.
“Don’t lose your law license because of Trump,” it says.
For taking part in efforts like this, many pro-Trump lawyers have paid a steep price.
Mr. Eastman and Mr. Giuliani, for example, were not only barred from practicing law because of the work they did for Mr. Trump in 2020. They were also both indicted in separate criminal cases in Georgia and Arizona where they stand accused of conspiring with the former president to overturn the results of the race. They have both pleaded not guilty and Mr. Eastman is fighting the deactivation of his law license.
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