Allies of President Donald Trump are rallying behind Jeff Clark, a former senior Justice Department official now working in the White House, after the D.C. Bar recommended he be permanently stripped of his law license for his role in efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

In a Thursday decision, a majority of the nine-member D.C. Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility found that Clark “persistently and energetically sought” to pressure department leadership to make false claims about election fraud, concluding he had violated legal ethics by pushing for official action based on what they deemed to be knowingly false statements by Clark, according to a 104-page report.

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“Lawyers cannot advocate for any outcome based on false statements, and they certainly cannot urge others to do so,” the board wrote. “He should be disbarred as a consequence and to send a message to the rest of the Bar and to the public that this behavior will not be tolerated.”

Clark, who served as acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division during Trump’s first term, now holds a key post at the Office of Management and Budget, overseeing regulatory review efforts as acting head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Calling the D.C. Bar proceedings “100% politicized,” Clark said, “I know I did the right thing in 2020 and 2021 during the first President Trump Administration and wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I had not proceeded to internally raise the election questions I did.”

1/ Yesterday, I received disappointing news from a 100% politicized DC Bar process.

But I also received an outpouring of support from a host of my friends in the law, many thoughtful legal and political commentators, but most importantly, from thousands of ordinary Americans…

— Jeff Clark (@JeffClarkUS) August 1, 2025

The D.C. Bar’s majority decision, which now heads to the D.C. Court of Appeals, adds Clark to a growing list of Trump-aligned attorneys who have faced disciplinary actions since Trump began publicly challenging his loss to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

In the interim, Trump allies and conservatives have begun mulling how the administration can work to help Clark fight the threat of disbarment.

Calls for retribution

The decision against Clark has ignited calls from Trump allies for aggressive countermeasures, though questions remain about what exactly can be done by the Trump administration to help.

Speaking on War Room, Steve Bannon and Article III Project founder Mike Davis laid out a response strategy that includes challenging the bar’s authority, denying law firms associated with the ruling access to government contracts, and seeking legal reimbursements for Clark.

MIKE DAVIS: What they’re doing to @JeffClarkUS is un-American. He drafted a legal memo at DOJ that was never sent. Now left-wing radicals on the D.C. Bar are disbarring him. Bondi and her team are exploring every step to protect him, including legal fee reimbursement. @mrddmia pic.twitter.com/kFwdkQO1db

— Grace Chong, MBI (@gc22gc) July 31, 2025

“What they’re doing to Jeff Clark is un-American,” Davis said. “He drafted a legal memorandum that was never sent. Now, a bunch of left-wing radicals at the D.C. Bar are disbarring him.”

“We’re not going to leave dead allies on the side of the road like Jeff Clark,” Bannon said. “That’s not going to happen.”

The Trump administration has already engaged in punitive measures on Big Law firms with a track record of only representing liberal causes, threatening to block them from landing government contracts, including WilmerHale, which previously hired the president’s longtime foe, who oversaw the debunked Russian collusion inquiry against him, Robert Mueller.

For now, it remains to be seen whether the attorney general will make any efforts within the department to impugn the D.C. Bar over its recommendation for Clark. A spokesperson for the DOJ did not immediately return a request for comment.

But to allies such as Judicial Watch founder Tom Fitton, the DOJ should begin to hold the D.C. Bar and other state bars accountable for the “Left’s anti-Trump jihad.”

The DC Bar and other state bars have been weaponized as part of the Left's anti-Trump jihad. Their lawfare should be investigated, and their special privileges should be reconsidered. https://t.co/Emztan92BP

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) August 1, 2025

“Their lawfare should be investigated, and their special privileges should be reconsidered,” Fitton wrote in a post on X Friday.

Conservative attorney Will Chamberlain suggested that a query for the Trump administration could be whether the D.C. Bar is “engaged in unlawful political discrimination by handing out disparate punishments to Democrat and Republican lawyers,” thereby violating Clark’s rights under District of Columbia law.

What is Clark being punished for? An unsent 2020 election memo at center of dispute

Clark rose to prominence after the 2020 election, when, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report, he urged DOJ leadership to send a letter to Georgia lawmakers asserting that the department had found “significant concerns” about the state’s results. Although Clark drafted the letter, the DOJ never sent it.

When then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen refused to approve the letter, Clark took his pitch directly to Trump and suggested replacing Rosen with himself. The proposal sparked a tense Jan. 3, 2021, Oval Office meeting, at which several DOJ and White House officials threatened to resign if Trump carried it out. 

During the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary hearings over Clark’s case last year, officials who threatened their resignation such as Rosen and his deputy Rich Donoghue, were used by Hamilton Fox, head of the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, during testimony to portray Clark as a rogue agent hellbent on supporting Trump’s 2020 fraud claims in the final days of his first term. 

Clark’s attorney, Harry MacDougald, defended his client’s conduct during the disciplinary hearings as part of “routine legal debate” within the executive branch and warned that penalizing such internal deliberations would have a chilling effect on public service. “This is a pure thought crime and a travesty of justice,” MacDougald said.

Notably, two members of the nine-member board, Robert L. Walker and Leslie Spiegel, recommended only a three-year suspension. They said, despite Clark’s comments about the 2020 election and the abnormal context for his actions, they did not rise to the level of “flagrant” dishonesty warranting disbarment.

Clark just one of several Trump-aligned attorneys under fire

Clark, also under indictment in the indefinitely stalled Georgia 2020 election racketeering case brought by Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, is the latest in a string of disciplinary actions against attorneys who played central roles in Trump’s post-election legal efforts. While many of those targeted have defended their conduct as good-faith legal or political advocacy, state bars nationwide have increasingly imposed professional sanctions.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s top legal spokesman in the aftermath of the 2020 election, has been disbarred in both Washington and New York for advancing false claims of voter fraud, particularly in Pennsylvania. John Eastman, who crafted the core legal theory behind Trump’s efforts to contest the 2020 election results, has been suspended from practicing law in California while appealing a judge’s recommendation for disbarment. Jenna Ellis, a campaign legal adviser, received a three-year suspension in Colorado and pleaded guilty in Georgia to aiding and abetting false statements in the Georgia case. And Kenneth Chesebro, the author of legal memos supporting the alternate electors plan, surrendered his New York license as part of a plea agreement in the same Georgia case.

Conservative backlash builds

Clark’s defenders insist he is being targeted for his loyalty to Trump and his continued influence in the administration, and a growing list of administration officials and lawmakers are lining up in his defense.

“This is an outrageous weaponization of the bar ethics process,” said James Burnham, a former Trump DOJ official who now leads King Street Legal. “It could be turned against any lawyer serving in government at any time.”

The administration’s OMB communications director, Rachel Cauley, echoed that message, saying the ruling is “another chapter in the Deep State’s ongoing assault on President Trump and those who stood beside him in defense of the truth.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) was more direct, calling the board’s disbarment recommendation “outrageous lawfare.”

This is outrageous lawfare. @JeffClarkUS is being targeted because he's a conservative delivering regulatory reform for President Trump.

The D.C. Bar is a disgrace and everyone involved in this smear against Jeff should be held accountable. https://t.co/z3h1NMwnfX

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) August 1, 2025

“Jeff Clark is being targeted because he’s a conservative delivering regulatory reform for President Trump. The D.C. Bar is a disgrace, and everyone involved in this smear against Jeff should be held accountable,” Cotton added.

Complaints as political weapons?

Conservatives have long warned that left-leaning groups are increasingly deploying bar complaints and professional misconduct charges to sideline Republican lawyers. According to a New York Times report on Thursday, the Legal Accountability Center had begun to file bar grievances against three DOJ attorneys who represented the Trump administration in litigation involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The complaints, filed in Washington and other jurisdictions, alleged that the lawyers misled a federal judge. The Legal Accountability Center is supported by the Democracy Fund, a progressive 501(c)(3) that funds several left-of-center legal efforts, according to Influencewatch.com.

These disciplinary filings come as top DOJ officials have criticized what they see as other coordinated campaigns to punish attorneys for defending conservative policies.

For example, the recent effort by the Trump administration to nominate now-Judge Emil Bove to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit was marred by so-called whistleblower allegations that Bove, who previously held a ranking role in the DOJ, told attorneys in the department to be prepared to say to courts, “f*** you,” in response to unfavorable rulings. Bondi and other DOJ leaders decried these claims against Bove as unsubstantiated allegations by disgruntled leakers rather than good-faith whistleblower allegations.

Additionally, some critics of targeting Trump-aligned lawyers have pointed to the recent defeat of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother, Brad Bondi, in his bid to lead the D.C. Bar, as evidence of ideological bias within the institution now pursuing disbarment against Clark.

Ahead of the election in June, online posts emerged on Reddit and other online communities such as X, calling for members of the D.C. Bar to participate in this year’s election to stop any chance of Brad Bondi winning. Several top comments in an r/Lawyertalk thread on Reddit revealed users stating it would be their first time voting in the D.C. Bar leadership election.

A win for the attorney general’s brother could have gone a long way toward altering the liberal-dominated legal culture in the nation’s capital, although a record turnout of more than 120,000 lawyers led to a sweeping win for Diane Seltzer, an employment law attorney at the Seltzer Law Firm.

EX-DOJ OFFICIAL’S DISBARMENT TRIAL UNDERSCORES CENTRAL CHALLENGE OF TRUMP JAN. 6 CASE

What happens next

Under D.C. Bar rules, Thursday’s finding triggers an automatic suspension of Clark’s ability to practice law unless he petitions the D.C. Court of Appeals within 30 days to stay the order. The court will make the final decision on whether he will be permanently disbarred.

In the lead up to Clark’s future appeal and thereafter, Trump allies will continue to tie his plight to weaponization and halt the uneven application of discipline against Trump-aligned lawyers.