After Donald Trump attempted to overturn his 2020 election loss, an advocacy group was created to take on the lawyers who aided him in his failed efforts, hitting them with more than 80 ethics complaints.
As Trump once again became the Republican nominee for president of the United States, his allies responded to this group, which he called Project 65. A pro-Trump nonprofit known as America First Legal accused Project 65 of engaging in a left-wing attempt to intimidate conservative lawyers, and filed a complaint at the time Earlier this week against Project 65’s lead attorney, Michael Teeter. The complaint filed on October 28 said Teeter was targeting attorneys “solely based on their representation of an undesirable client.”
Teeter said America First Legal’s move shows “fear among those who want to use the courts to subvert democracy.” A representative of the body that looks into allegations of attorney misconduct in Utah, where Teeter is licensed, declined to comment on the complaint against Teeter.
Dueling misconduct allegations underscore the critical role lawyers play once again as another election approaches. Some lawyers involved in Trump’s failed 2020 bid to stay in power, which was based on false claims of widespread fraud, have lost their licenses or been indicted.
Trump said he can’t lose this time unless Democrats cheat. This raises the possibility that he will challenge the results if Vice President Kamala Harris is declared the winner after the November 5 election.
The 65 Project, named after the number of failed lawsuits it says were filed challenging Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory, says its mission is to deter lawyers from making false election claims. In September, the group pledged to spend at least $100,000 on ads in legal journals in battleground states, warning lawyers against risking losing their law license by helping Trump.
America First Legal, a nonprofit founded by Stephen Miller, a former Trump White House aide, strongly criticized the ads on its website in announcing its complaint against Teeter. The group has increasingly focused on the election this year after previously filing lawsuits challenging diversity and immigration policies.
“Seeking the personal ruin and financial ruin of another attorney simply because of the client he represents or the case he pursues is contrary to the letter and spirit of the law that governs attorneys’ activities,” said Gene Hamilton, executive director of America First Legal. A statement announcing the filing of a complaint against Tatar. The group’s spokesman did not respond to requests from Reuters For further comment.
Among America First Legal’s election-related activities this year was filing a lawsuit in August seeking to force counties in battleground Arizona to investigate about 44,000 voters, about 1% of the statewide total who were allowed They can register without providing proof of nationality. A judge on October 11 declined to rule in favor of America First Legal before the election, which the group appealed.
Discipline and separation
Of the 65 lawyers targeted by the project between 2022 and 2023, at least four faced disciplinary action, bar and court records show. At least three complaints have been dismissed by disciplinary boards in Georgia and Pennsylvania, Teeter said.
A spokesperson for the Georgia State Bar Association confirmed that it dismissed two of the complaints after an investigation. Pennsylvania’s Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At least 12 lawyers against whom the 65 Project filed complaints have faced no discipline and are once again participating in voting-related lawsuits on behalf of Trump’s allies, according to the British Daily Mail. Reuters Review the group’s website and court records.
“It is disappointing that the bar associations are taking so long to review, investigate and complete these matters, but I do not see this as a setback for our work,” Teeter said.
America First Legal received $44.4 million in contributions in 2022, the last year its tax returns were available to the public. Project 65’s annual budgets are not publicly available.
Neither America First Legal nor Project 65 has disclosed their funding sources. Teeter said Project 65’s funding comes from “individuals and organizations concerned with ensuring that the legal system is not used and abused to subvert democracy.”
“Fake fears of foreign wrongdoing”
In the lead-up to Tuesday’s election, Trump and his allies have flooded courts across the country with lawsuits seeking to change the rules and purge voter rolls in what they say is an effort to make sure ballots are counted properly and people don’t vote illegally. .
Overall, the legal campaign is faltering: In the past three weeks, Trump allies have suffered at least 11 court losses in battleground states, court records show.
But they also achieved a number of victories. A Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday extended the deadline for some voters to request a mail-in ballot after the Trump campaign claimed that some voters seeking ballots had been improperly rejected.
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated Virginia’s purge of about 1,600 people from voter rolls who Republican state officials concluded were not US citizens, although President Joe Biden’s administration said actual citizens were among those affected. Virginia voters often lean Democratic, even though the state’s current governor and attorney general are Republicans.
Among the Republican setbacks is a lawsuit filed in federal court in Pennsylvania by attorney Eric Kardall on behalf of six Republican members of Congress, who sued in 2020 to try to block the certification of Biden’s win, resulting in a federal judge being referred to the Ethics Commission and the filing of 65 legitimate complaints. . .
Kardal’s lawsuit this year sought to change the battleground state’s procedures for verifying overseas voters, which Kardal said are vulnerable to fraud.
He argued on October 18 before a skeptical judge in a Harrisburg courtroom that Iranians could submit fraudulent ballots abroad unless rules were tightened. A little more than a week later, U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner dismissed the case, ruling that plaintiffs “could not rely on fictitious fears of foreign wrongdoing to justify their lack of diligence.”
Asked to comment on the chapter, Cardall provided Reuters With a statement from the Election Research Institute — a conservative nonprofit whose attorney Karen DiSalvo handled the case with him — saying prosecutors were considering an appeal, which DiSalvo confirmed.
Judge referral
Kardal’s latest defeat in court comes four years after he filed a challenge to Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory, a lawsuit that the presiding judge found opened a new tab “full of baseless claims of fraud and weak legal claims.” He referred Kardal to the Washington, D.C., board that looks into allegations of professional misconduct, without making a recommendation on whether he should be disciplined.
The Washington Disciplinary Committee declined to take any action, according to a Dec. 28, 2023, letter that Kardal provided to Reuters.
Project 65 also filed an ethics complaint against Cardall in his home state of Minnesota over the 2020 lawsuit and three similar lawsuits.
The director of the Minnesota Office of Attorney Professional Responsibility, which investigates complaints against lawyers in the state, declined to provide information about the complaint.
Kardal, who has twice successfully argued election cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, has denied violating any professional rules in any of his cases. “Over the course of my nearly 32-year career, there have never been any disciplinary complaints against me,” Kardal said in an Oct. 24 email. Reuterswhich found no evidence to the contrary.
“Attempt to intimidate”
In addition to Kardal, other lawyers against whom Project 65 has filed complaints include attorney Kenneth Klokowski, who the group said violated legal ethics rules in 2020 when he helped former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark try to block the certification of Biden’s victory in several elections. Countries.
The DC Bar Association did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the complaint regarding Klokowski. A Washington law commission recommended in August that Clark’s law license be suspended for two years. Clark denied violating the rules of legal ethics.
Ahead of the upcoming election, Klokowski is back in the game, representing the Trump-aligned First American Policy Institute in a challenge to Biden’s 2021 executive order aimed at increasing voter participation. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Another attorney, William Bradley Carver, represented the Republican National Committee in cases related to the 2024 election, after a 65 Project complaint was filed over his swearing-in as Trump’s elector in Georgia despite Biden winning the southern state in 2020.
The Georgia State Bar Association informed Teeter and Carver on December 27, 2022 that it denied the grievance in part because Carver was acting in his personal capacity and not as an attorney when he was sworn in as an elector, according to a letter Carver sent to Reuters.
A spokesman for the Bar Association confirmed that the complaint was rejected.
Carver said in an email dated October 31: Reuters “Teeter’s attack on me was merely an attempt to intimidate me and discourage young lawyers from preparing to represent the Republican Party. This is dangerous.”
Teeter described Project 65’s board of advisors as bipartisan, noting that it includes former lawyers in Republican administrations.
“Politics is not involved in this,” Teeter said in an October 31 phone interview. “Abuse of our legal system is the foundation of our work.”