A legal panel made a preliminary determination that former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark violated rules of professional conduct and should be professionally disciplined after a hearing on his efforts to overturn the 2020 election on Thursday.
In the waning days before Jan. 6, 2021, Clark, then serving as acting assistant attorney general for the civil division at DOJ, sought to be appointed as acting attorney general in order to carry out former President Donald Trump’s orders to open investigations into false claims of voter fraud.
The recommendation of professional discipline followed multiple days of testimony about Clark’s efforts on behalf of Trump to overturn the 2020 election before a three-member committee of the District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility, which oversees ethics cases for lawyers barred in the city.
The committee’s ruling is a preliminary finding that Clark violated at least one ethics rule for lawyers barred in the District. The next step in the disciplinary process is the issuance of a sanction letter proposing punishment. The full D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, as well as a D.C. appeals court, must then approve that letter for the punishment to be finalized.
Clark could face disbarment or the suspension of his legal license. The investigators prosecuting the case against him have advocated for his disbarment.
This isn’t the only legal trouble Clark faces for his role in Jan. 6. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted him on RICO charges for allegedly engaging in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. He pleaded not guilty to those charges in September 2023.
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