'Only sanction is disbarment': Trump lawyer Jeff Clark found to have broken ethics rules

On Thursday, a Washington, D.C. Bar disciplinary panel delivered a significant verdict, stating that former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark had violated ethics rules in a serious attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The panel's chair, Merril Hirsh, emphasized that the decision was non-binding and subject to change based on briefs. He then moved on to the sanctions phase of the trial.

"Percent of board rule 1111, the hearing committee convened an executive session to decide preliminarily whether we find that disciplinary counsel has proven at least one violation of any of the charge disciplinary rules," Hirsh announced. "And we have preliminarily and on a nonbinding basis concluded that disciplinary counsel has so approved, so we will move to a hearing, this is on an argument on potential sanction."

In the sanctions portion of the proceeding, disciplinary counsel Hamilton Fox III pointed to the seriousness of aggravating factors in Clark's violations.

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"Because of the stakes, because of the effect on the fundamental fabric of the democracy, which Mr. Clark had to know about, you throw out those cases and look at the effect of what he did," Fox said.

The counsel pointed to Clark's own character witness, who said he was an excellent lawyer, "who had to know what he was doing, who had to know the effect of what he was doing on our country, who had to know that he was participating in an existential threat to our constitutional democracy, and no lawyer who engages in such misconduct, whatever his motives may be, no lawyer ought to be permitted to hold a license to practice law in the District of Columbia."

"And I would submit to you that in the context of what he did, the only sanction is disbarment," he concluded.

The disciplinary panel said it would decide on Clark's sanctions later.