For attorneys working with former President Donald Trump, legal risk is seen as an expected part of the job: More than 40 lawyers who worked to overturn the 2020 election on his behalf have been hit with claims ethics.
The New York Times reported Legal experts joke MAGA now stands for “Making Attorneys Get Attorneys,” based on the reputational risk of working with Trump.
“There’s no way to adhere to your ethical integrity and keep your job,” said Kimberly Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who has closely followed investigations into the Jan. 6 attack. 2021 against the Capitol. The New York Times of the dilemma facing Mr. Trump’s lawyers: “There’s simply no way not to get into a mess.”
The 65 Projecta bipartisan effort to hold attorneys allied to Trump accountable for filing 65 lawsuits in swing states in an attempt to overturn legitimate 2020 election results, filed more than 40 ethics complaints with their respective state bars against attorneys who participated in the scheme.
Among the complaints, including 17 filed last month, are ethical concerns raised against former Trump lawyers John Eastman, Cleta Mitchelland Jenna Ellis.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Eastman asked former Vice President Mike Pence’s legal counsel to break the law and halt proceedings to certify the 2020 election. He was still looking for ways to void the election at the time. where President Joe Biden took office.
Mitchell is currently leading a group of GOP scrutineers to challenge the midterm results. Ellis was ordered to testify before the special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, to investigate whether Trump and his associates attempted to interfere in the 2020 election.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former personal attorney, has also been named as a target in the Georgia investigation and his licenses to practice law in the District of Columbia and New York have been suspended due to his fraud allegations. electoral.
Another former Trump attorney, Sidney Powell, is being investigated for overseeing an effort to copy sensitive election data and coordinating a breach of Georgia election records.
Christina Bobb, a current Trump lawyer, is currently facing legal issues after she signed a letter stating that a “diligent search” had been conducted and that all material that was in Mar-a-Lago at the time had been returned to the US government, by filing in court. Two months later, the FBI raided Trump’s golf club in Florida and found 20 boxes of new material, including 11 sets marked as classified.
Michael Cohen, a former Trump lawyer sentenced to three years in prison in part for his role in the organization illegal hidden cash payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking out about her affair with Trump, Trump’s current legal team has warned to ‘defend themselves’, citing their own felony charges, including including tax evasion, campaign finance violations and bank fraud.
“At the end of the day, we want to show all the lawyers that the next time Sidney Powell or Rudy Giuliani call and say, ‘Hey, will you sign this’, they’ll say ‘no’, because they’ll realize that ‘There are professional consequences,’ said Michael Teter, director of Project 65. The New York Times.
