A District of Columbia disciplinary panel recommended on July 31 that former Attorney General Jeffrey Clark be disbarred for writing a proof-of-concept letter that said the Department of Justice had “identified significant concerns” about the 2020 presidential election.
Clark didn’t send the letter out. According to the Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility, Clark “was prepared to cause the Justice Department to tell a lie about the status of its investigation of an important national issue.”
“He should be disbarred as a consequence and to send a message to the rest of the Bar and to the public that this behavior will not be tolerated,” they wrote in their ruling.
Two members of the board disagreed, saying Clark should face only a three-year suspension, because his actions did not constitute “flagrant dishonesty.”
“We have not identified any case in which the Court disbarred a respondent over a single dishonest statement supported by a false citation,” they wrote in their dissent.
Clark will have another chance to avoid disbarment when his case heads before the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Trump appointed Clark as acting administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in March.
OMB Communications Director Rachel Cauley called the ruling “an injustice” in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.
“Jeff Clark has been harassed, raided, doxed, and blacklisted simply for questioning a rigged election and serving President Trump,” she said.
“He will not stop fighting for the truth and for America.”
The charges against Clark stem from a proof-of-concept letter he drafted to Georgia voting officials in the turbulent weeks following the 2020 election.
The letter, which was ultimately rejected by Clark’s superiors, requested the officials convene an emergency session with two sets of electors: one set to cast its votes for President Donald Trump and the other set for then-candidate Joe Biden.
The letter said the DOJ was investigating alleged election fraud and irregularities in Georgia’s Fulton County—Biden had won Georgia by just over 12,000 votes.
Then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen refused to send the letter to Georgia at that time.
This led to a shakeup at the DOJ when Trump nearly appointed Clark as acting attorney general to replace an uncompliant Rosen, but backed down after a heated Oval Office meeting on Jan. 3, 2021, where a number of DOJ officials threatened to resign.
The letter was shelved but came to light when it was leaked to The New York Times after President Biden took office.
This led to Clark facing charges of “attempted dishonesty” and “attempted serious interference with the administration of justice.”
Former deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin testified at Clark’s disciplinary hearing in March 2024 that there was internal conflict at the DOJ about Georgia’s elections, but he urged Clark “as a friend” not to send the letter or try to take Rosen’s place as attorney general.
He also said he believed that Clark had acted with sincerity.
“He felt essentially that he had a duty, where you think something wrong is happening ... and he was the one who was sort of put on the spot and had to do something about it,” Philbin said.
