by Charlotte Hazard
While illegal activities often target Republican Party politicians, the tactic is spreading to the legal profession as a group called “Project 65” on social media vows to attack the licenses of lawyers who choose to work for former President Donald Trump.
Project 65, which launched earlier this year as a “bipartisan” watchdog encompassing both prominent Democrats and Republicans, announced it has launched digital and print ads in swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan with a stark warning: “Don’t lose right license because of Trump.”
The project’s managing director said 86 attorney complaints have already been filed against lawyers who filed election lawsuits on Trump’s behalf after the 2020 election.
“Across the country, lawyers who lent Donald Trump credibility as officers of the court to file factually and legally baseless claims seeking to overturn lawful election results have been investigated by state bar associations, fined, had their licenses suspended and even disbarred. their right to practice their profession. ” managing director Michael Teter (pictured above) he said.
After the 2020 election, Trump claimed that the election was stolen, and multiple lawsuits were filed in various states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania.
While many lawsuits have been unsuccessful, legal actions against lawyers working for Trump or handling other election integrity cases have been successful.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who represented Trump in the Georgia election process, was disbarred from practicing law in Washington last month. This happened just a few months after his death lost obtained his law license in New York. The panel that decided his license should be suspended Giuliani wrote it “claimed there was massive voter fraud but had no evidence.”
Project 65 has a list of lawyers against whom he has filed ethics complaints, including against former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, who worked on the Arizona election overturning case, Kurt Olsen, who represented Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in her 2022 voter fraud case, and Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz.
Dershowitz said Only News in a statement that what the group is doing is “pure McCarthyism.”
“They have already filed a complaint against me,” he said. “This is pure McCarthyism. And unethical. And that discourages some lawyers.”
“Project 65 is a bipartisan effort to protect democracy and preserve the rule of law by deterring future attacks on our electoral system,” said The 65 Project said in a statement. “We are holding accountable huge lie lawyers who bring fraudulent and malicious lawsuits seeking to overturn lawful election results, and we are working with bar associations to revitalize the disciplinary process so that lawyers, including public officials, who undermine democracy are punished “.
Trump argued that he faced legal problems at the federal level over lawsuits unrelated to election integrity but related to his personal life and business.
Dershowitz said earlier this year on an episode of the show Only news, no noise A TV show that advises lawyers not to work for Trump or they would suffer the consequences.
“I know lawyers who have been asked to defend Donald Trump on First Amendment grounds,” Dershowitz said. “Normally they would take this case, but they say, ‘We can’t afford it for our family because they want our law license.'”
Dershowitz said he is seeing the return of “McCarthyism” and it is being pushed by the younger generation.
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 counts of first-degree falsifying commercial records in connection with the restitution of $130,000 that his then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump argued that this lawsuit and lawsuits against other states are part of a political witch hunt by other GOP politicians and even some on the left echoed.
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Charlotte Hazard is a reporter for Just the News.
Photo “Michael Teter” by Project 65.
