Lawyer Facing Disbarment Has DEEP THOUGHTS About Kamala Harris’s Legal Chops
(Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Earlier this year, a disciplinary committee concluded that former Trump DOJ flunky Jeff Clark violated ethics rules, bolstering the DC Disciplinary Counsel’s effort to disbar Clark for good. Clark, a DOJ environmental lawyer, tried to convince Trump to appoint him Acting Attorney General so he could shoot out a bunch of phony voter fraud claims under official letterhead and give state legislatures cover to toss their election results and bless Trump elector slates.
This effort ran aground when ACTUAL GROWN UP LAWYER Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue infamously told Clark, “You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.”
Unsurprisingly, his actions sparked an ethics inquiry that he tried to circumvent by claiming that DC ethics rules just don’t apply to him. The court was not sympathetic.
In any event, Clark is using this liminal zone as he awaits the other shoe falling in his disciplinary case to offer his “expert” opinion about Kamala Harris’s legal career.
So the California Attorney General and the California Solicitor General are two different jobs? Checkmate libs!
There is a hint of personal beef driving this incredibly stupid mission:
I note that I find it an insult that she sat in judgment on the second Senate Judiciary Committee vote on my nomination to join the leadership of the Justice Department in early 2018 (she voted against me, but I still got out of Committee).
Chuck Grassley chaired that committee and didn’t even go to law school which both seems like much more of a professional insult and helps explain why he voted for Clark’s nomination.
By the way, if you’re looking for a free lesson in bad legal research, Clark shows his work!
Eh? A transcript might have been entered into PACER. Crackerjack work.
There aren’t habeas cases that go into blasting the trial prosecutor by name? That’s… not actually weird. If anything, it speaks well of how she handled the trial phase of cases.
Someone with basic legal competence pointed out how completely stupid this inquiry was and Clark, true to form, doubled down:
What an absolute frigging ding dong.
Bailey and Kobach argue nonsensical and embarrassing positions that even this Supreme Court routinely kick to the curb. Maybe not the best models for this effort.
And DA offices certainly argue appeals, but they have whole departments dedicated to appeals. Perhaps this is why Harris, the head of the office, wouldn’t be the one going to the courthouse for oral argument.
Now, one of our two major parties has nominated Kamala to be President. She wasn’t qualified to sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, let alone be Commander in Chief or Magistrate in Chief, or to select future Supreme Court Justices — which she will select an awful lot of if she gets elected and then packs the Supreme Court, as she has said she plans to do.
But, like, magistrate in chief isn’t a job. Notably Donald Trump hasn’t argued an appeal either — though he has given an ersatz closing argument at trial — so I’m curious how he passes Clark’s imaginary magistrate in chief bar.
This doesn’t even make sense as some sort of resume GOTCHA since Harris isn’t campaigning on winning appeals, she’s campaigning on running successful prosecutorial offices. Nothing about Clark’s “Wikipedia Brown Junior Detective” nonsense undermines that.
So she didn’t micromanage one of the biggest legal offices in the country? Cool story.
Oh… one more thing!
In retrospect, maybe we shouldn’t call this guy when there’s an oil spill either. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s a final sanction decision on your disciplinary case.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
