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03-11-2024
WASHINGTON/ HARRISBURG: After Donald Trump’s bid to overturn his 2020 election loss, an advocacy group was launched to take on the lawyers who aided in his doomed effort, hitting them with more than 80 ethics complaints.
With Trump again the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, his allies have fired back at this group, named the 65 Project. A pro-Trump nonprofit known as America First Legal has accused the 65 Project of engaging in a left-wing attempt to intimidate conservative lawyers, filing a bar complaint earlier this week against the 65 Project’s top lawyer Michael Teter. The Oct. 28 complaint said Teter was targeting lawyers “based solely upon their representation of a disfavored client.”
Teter said America First Legal’s move shows “the fear among those who would like to use the courts to subvert democracy.” A representative of the body that weighs lawyer misconduct allegations in Utah, where Teter is licensed, declined to comment on the complaint against Teter.
The dueling misconduct allegations underscore the critical role lawyers are once again playing as another close election looms. Some of the lawyers involved in Trump’s unsuccessful 2020 bid to remain in power, which was premised on false claims of widespread fraud, have lost their licenses or been indicted.
Trump has said he cannot possibly lose this time around unless Democrats cheat. This raises the prospect he would contest the results if Vice President Kamala Harris were declared the winner after the Nov. 5 election.
The 65 Project, named for the number of unsuccessful lawsuits it says were filed to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden’s win, says its mission is to deter lawyers from bringing false election claims. In September, the group pledged to spend at least $100,000 on advertisements in legal journals in battleground states warning lawyers not to risk losing their law license by helping Trump.
America First Legal, a nonprofit founded in 2021 by former Trump White House aide Stephen Miller, harshly criticized the ads on its website in announcing its complaint against Teter. The group has increasingly focused on the election this year after previously bringing suits challenging diversity and migration policies.
“Seeking the personal destruction and financial ruin of another lawyer simply because of the client he represented or the cause he took up runs counter to… the letter and spirit of the law governing the activities of lawyers,” America First Legal’s executive director Gene Hamilton said in a statement announcing the complaint against Teter. A spokesperson for the group did not respond to media.
Among America First Legal’s election-related activities this year was to file a lawsuit in August seeking to force counties in battleground state Arizona to investigate about 44,000 voters who were allowed to register without providing proof of citizenship.
Of the lawyers targeted by the 65 Project between 2022 and 2023, at least four have faced discipline, state bar and court records show. At least three complaints have been dismissed by disciplinary boards in Georgia and Pennsylvania, Teter said.
A spokesperson for the State Bar of Georgia confirmed that it had dismissed two of the complaints after investigation. Pennsylvania’s Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At least 12 lawyers against whom the 65 Project filed complaints have not faced discipline and are involved again in voting-related litigation on behalf of Trump allies, according to a media review of the group’s website and court records.
“It’s disappointing that the bar associations are taking as long as they are to review and investigate and complete these matters, but I don’t see it as a setback to our work,” Teter said. (Int’l News Desk)
