Former U.S. attorneys general are throwing their support behind Trump 45 Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, calling out the corrupt D.C. bar for attempting to strip him of his law license.

In August, the D.C. bar recommended that Clark, who now leads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the White House, be disbarred for drafting legal advice regarding voting irregularities that was not distributed in 2020.

For that, a member of the bar’s disciplinary counsel said it was the “‘second greatest internal threat’ to democracy, behind only the Civil War.”

In their 23-page amicus brief supporting Clark, former Attorneys General William Barr (George H.W. Bush and Trump 45), Jeff Sessions (Trump 45), and Michael Mukasey (George W. Bush), said that while those words were “undoubtedly spoke[n] from the heart,” they show that “something is off the hinges here.”

The brief was filed with the D.C. Court of Appeals, which ultimately will make the decision on whether to remove Clark’s law license.

“This case involves an unprecedented attempt to punish purely internal and deliberative discussions that took place at the highest levels of the Department and the White House,” the trio wrote. “Disciplining Mr. Clark would open the door to charging federal lawyers with ‘dishonesty’ or ‘attempted dishonesty’ for statements made during oral arguments, theories in briefs, legal advice provided in memoranda, or even (as here) proposals in privileged internal draft documents and discussions.”

Noting that the bar intended to punish Clark for drafting legal advice that was “never intended to be released publicly,” and that doing so would “set a dangerous precedent,” the attorneys general added, “Such acts of political retribution would severely discourage lawyers from serving in the federal government and invite extraordinary dysfunction as federal lawyers constrain the advice they provide for fear of political retaliation by the Bar.”

Disciplining Mr. Clark sends an obvious message that agency lawyers should keep their mouths shut — even in the Oval Office, DOJ conference rooms, and other places reasonably viewed as sanctuaries for candid opinions and advice — at least if they think their opinions might offend the disciplinary counsel of a bar to which they belong. This will lead federal attorneys to self-censor their views on crucial matters like the credibility of allegations, the sufficiency of evidence, and the need for additional investigation. It is grossly naïve to believe, as the Board apparently does, that in a fast-moving, high-pressure environment, where there was a multitude of claims related to the 2020 election, what is “fact” and what is “true” is so obvious to all honest lawyers as to preclude differing views.

Law firm Boyden Gray PLLC submitted the brief on behalf of the former attorneys general.

“Can you imagine disbarring a lawyer for a first draft of potential legal arguments and internal debates with their own colleagues?” the law firm said in a social media post. “Punishing federal lawyers for confidential advice would discourage candor, politicize the bar, and cripple executive decision-making.”

The attorneys general said the bar would effectively be trying to assert itself into official deliberations in presidential administrations, threatening punishment if its political preferences were not followed.

“The District of Columbia Board on Professional Responsibility (Board), as an adjunct of the District of Columbia judiciary, has no business — indeed, no authority whatever — in policing internal deliberative discussions and documents exchanged within the federal Executive Branch for containing purportedly ‘dishonest’ (yet somehow also ‘sincere’) ideas or assertions,” they wrote. “Disciplining Mr. Clark will send a biting chill throughout the federal government, causing federal attorneys to improperly restrain the advice they provide their clients for fear of offending Disciplinary Counsel’s political sensibilities.”

Fundamentally, the attorneys general say that the punishment of Clark would violate the separation of powers between branches of government, as it would allow the board and the appeals court, “both of which are ultimately creatures of Congress,” to “police the internal discussions of Executive Branch lawyers … while brandishing the power of disbarment.”

Executive branch discussions are protected from disclosure because officials would not be able to communicate candidly if they feared those communications being discovered.

“Without sufficient assurances of continuing confidentiality, Presidents and their advisers would be chilled from engaging in the full and frank deliberations upon which effective discharge of the President’s duties depends,” the trio wrote, quoting Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The brief also noted the remarkable dichotomy between how the D.C. bar treats favored and disfavored attorneys. While it weaponized its own process to attack Clark, it barely disciplined Russiagate felon Kevin Clinesmith, who was convicted of lying on a FISA warrant to illegally spy on Carter Page.

“Indeed, this proceeding itself strongly suggests that something other than disinterested administration of justice is at play when compared to another recent high-profile political disciplinary matter, that of Kevin Clinesmith,” they wrote. “Despite admitting to ‘a criminal act that reflected adversely on his honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer,’ deemed ‘a serious crime …’ and ‘engag[ing] in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation,’ the Board retroactively suspended Mr. Clinesmith for just one year and restored his license even before he completed his term of probation.”

“The contrast with Mr. Clark’s case is striking,” the former attorneys general continued. “The Board seeks to disbar Mr. Clark, not merely suspend his license, despite the absence of any criminal conviction or false statement made to any court,” while “Mr. Clinesmith … was welcomed back in ‘good standing’ with the Bar for his service as a loyal foot soldier against President Trump.”

The attorneys general said they could not find a comparable case anywhere in which official internal discussions were the subject of discipline.

“Politicizing, or appearing to politicize, disciplinary proceedings will be noticed. Public trust in ostensibly neutral institutions is hard to build but easy to lose,” the trio said. “And if others perceive that the District of Columbia Bar uses disciplinary proceedings as a political weapon, then state bars with different ideological perspectives will predictably follow suit.”