'Threatening their livelihood': Democrats target pro-Trump attorneys for disbarment

Democratic operatives are working behind the scenes to expose and disbar more than 100 attorneys who worked on Donald Trump's election-related lawsuits.

The 65 Project, a dark money group with ties to Democratic Party donors, plans to begin filing complaints this week and airing TV ads in battleground states to prevent other right-wing lawyers from working on future Republican attempts to overturn election losses, reported Axios.

"I think the littler fish are probably more vulnerable to what we're doing," said the project's adviser David Brock, a Hillary Clinton ally who founded Media Matters for America and the super PAC American Bridge 21st Century. "You're threatening their livelihood and, you know, they've got reputations in their local communities."

The project was devised by Democratic consultant Melissa Moss, and other advisory board members include Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), conservative attorney Paul Rosenzweig, former Utah Supreme Court justice Christine Durham, and Roberta Ramo, the first woman to serve as president of the American Bar Association.

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"With great power comes great responsibility," said Rosenzweig, a member of the Federalist Society. "Lawyers have a special role in and special obligation to society. It is all the worse, then, when they use their special position to attack the foundations of the rule of law.”

The group takes its name from the number of lawsuits filed to overturn Trump's election loss in 2020, and the project is targeting 111 attorneys in 26 states who were involved in some way with those legal challenges.

"This is mostly important for the deterrent effect that it can bring so that you can kill the pool of available legal talent going forward," said one person involved in the project, who asked to remain anonymous.

The group plans to spend $2.5 million in its first year and will operate through an existing nonprofit called Law Works, and the project will push the ABA and every state bar association to put in place rules prohibiting certain election challenges and adopt model language covering "fraudulent and malicious lawsuits to overturn legitimate election results."

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The project has ranked three categories of targets, from Trump's inner circle -- including lawyers Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell -- to other lawyers who signed on as "alternate electors" and then licensed attorneys who participated in or were present during the Jan. 6 insurrection.