Campaign Targets 111 Trump-Linked Election Lawyers. Here’s Some Already Facing A Backlash.

Topline

The 65 Project launched Monday, a Democratic-linked dark money group that seeks to “shame” and hold accountable more than 100 attorneys who tried to overthrow the 2020 election, adding to an ongoing slew of consequences that post-election lawyers have faced for their efforts.

Attorneys Sidney Powell (C) and Rudy Giuliani conduct a news conference at the Republican National … [+] Committee on November 19, 2020.

CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Key Facts

Attorney Rudy Giuliani has had his law license suspended in New York and Washington, D.C., and state bar investigations into potential disciplinary actions have been opened against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and far-right attorneys including Sidney Powell and Lin Wood.

The California State Bar is investigating former Trump legal adviser John Eastman, it announced last week, and former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Bossert Clark is being probed by the DOJ’s Inspector General and the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel for aiding former President Donald Trump’s efforts, Reuters reports.

Powell, Wood and their co-counsel in a case trying to overturn Michigan’s election results were sanctioned, referred to their respective disciplinary boards and forced to undergo mandatory legal education; attorneys are now appealing the more than $175,000 in legal fees they’ve been asked to pay.

Voting machine companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic have sued Powell and Giuliani for defamation, along with other Trump allies, after the attorneys spread false conspiracy theories linking their voting machines to election fraud.

The Arizona Republican Party and lawyers representing the Trump campaign in Georgia were forced to pay defendants’ legal fees after their lawsuits challenging the election results failed.

A judge referred lawyer Erik Kaardal to a grievance committee for potential punishment based on his post-election lawsuit, and two attorneys were sanctioned in Colorado for a lawsuit the judge deemed “one enormous conspiracy theory.”

What To Watch For

The 65 Project will target 111 attorneys in 26 states, Axios first reported, seeking to have them disbarred and punished as well as “sham[ing] them and mak[ing] them toxic in their communities and in their firms.” The organization filed its first ethics complaints against 10 Trump-connected attorneys on Monday and will air ads in battleground states, with a goal of both punishing lawyers for their 2020 actions and dissuading attorneys from joining efforts to challenge future election results. Axios notes the group is linked to “Democratic Party heavyweights,” including fundraiser David Brock and Democratic consultant Melissa Moss.

Contra

A federal judge in Wisconsin denied Gov. Tony Evers (D) and local officials’ request to force the Trump campaign to pay its attorney fees in Trump’s post-election case in the state, ruling the defendants had waited too long to make their request.

Tangent

The Justice Department is reportedly conducting a criminal investigation that involves Powell’s fundraising group Defending the Republic and its fundraising practices, the Washington Post reported in November. The group and its political action committee helped to fund the far-right attorney’s legal actions trying to overthrow the election results.

Chief Critic

Many of the post-election attorneys have stood by their efforts and denied wrongdoing. Powell and her co-counsel in the Michigan case said in a February court brief they made “non-frivolous legal claims” and that “millions of Americans believe the central [voter fraud] contentions of the complaint to be true, and perhaps they are.” In a statement quoted by Axios, Eastman’s attorney said he believes the California State Bar’s investigation into him “will fully exonerate him from any charges.”

Key Background

Trump and his allies filed more than 60 lawsuits in the aftermath of the 2020 election challenging the vote count, ranging from disputes with minor voting provisions to wide-ranging accusations of fraud. The GOP-linked lawyers lost nearly every single case—including ones overseen by Trump-appointed judges—winning only one minor lawsuit in Pennsylvania that directed the state not to count some ballots missing proof of identification, which did not affect enough ballots to change the results. Many larger law firms tried to distance themselves from the efforts: law firms Porter Wright Morris & Arthur and Snell & Willmer withdrew from post-election cases amid public pressure, and Jones Day, which represented GOP lawmakers challenging a Pennsylvania voting law, released a statement clarifying it was not representing the Trump campaign or its voter fraud efforts. Conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell, who’s now being targeted by the 65 Project, also resigned from her firm Foley & Lardner after it was reported she had aided in Trump’s efforts, after the firm said it was “aware of, and are concerned by” Mitchell’s involvement.