Republican Louie Gohmert’s law license could be at risk after election shenanigans: report

Rep. Louie Gohmert has had a long legal career since graduating from Baylor Law School in 1977, but is now facing legal sanctions for his attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.

"A national lawyers group on Monday called for professional licensing bodies to investigate East Texas congressman Louie Gohmert and his attorneys for what it called a 'self-evident breach' of ethics rules for lawyers when they sued unsuccessfully last week to try to force Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election," The Dallas Morning News reported Monday. "Lawyers Defending American Democracy, a nonpartisan group that says it has the support of 5,000 lawyers across the country, said in a statement that Gohmert, Dallas lawyer William L. 'Lewis' Sessions and unnamed other lawyers should be sanctioned for egregious conduct."

"They and other plaintiffs and lawyers involved in the suit invoked the 12th Amendment: 'The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.' Lawyers Defending American Democracy said the amendment doesn't allow a vice president to pick which electoral votes to count for a given state," the newspaper reported.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle threw out the lawsuit on Friday. Judge Kernodle was appointed by Trump. The ruling was upheld by a federal appeals court on Saturday.

Gohmert served in the Judge Advocate Generals corps in the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of captain. He was subsequently elected a state district judge in Texas before then-Gov. Rick Perry appointed him as chief justice on Texas's 12th Court of Appeals.