Deborah Daniels: Trump has eroded the Justice Department’s reputation

Disbarment of attorneys who engage in misconduct is an important function of state supreme courts, and I believe they should be aggressive about it.

I say that as a long-time member of the bar, understanding that to be disbarred essentially means that a lawyer loses his livelihood, as well as suffering considerable public humiliation if disbarred or even disciplined or temporarily suspended from the practice.

Here’s why it’s important.

I have served in the Department of Justice twice, under three Republican presidents. It has a well-deserved reputation for the nonpolitical pursuit of those who break the law, without animus or favor. The department, while reporting to the elected president, has always retained a degree of independence in order to maintain its credibility as an institution whose overriding interest is in defending the rule of law over political considerations. Its duty is to the country and the Constitution; it is not the president’s lawyer.

Former President Trump has deliberately eroded that principle and that reputation in two ways.

First, after losing the 2020 presidential election, then-President Trump sought to use the Justice Department to support his insistence that the election had been “stolen” from him, despite a clear lack of evidence supporting his claims. In his telling, there simply must have been fraud—otherwise, Trump would lose power and worse, be deemed the thing he hates most: a loser.

Second, he has repeatedly and vociferously claimed that the various criminal and civil cases brought against him by individuals, state jurisdictions and the Department of Justice are purely political and a Democratic plot and all the judges and prosecutors are “Trump-haters.” These unfounded allegations undermine the confidence of the public in the judicial system, a bedrock of our democratic society.

Several lawyers whose desire for personal power and influence eclipsed their commitment to the rule of law and their professional oath are now suspended from practice by the courts and/or facing imminent disbarment for supporting Trump’s unfounded theories. They include, among others, Rudi Giuliani, a former United States attorney and associate attorney general, and Jeffrey Clark, a department underling whom Trump very nearly appointed as attorney general simply because Clark, unlike his superiors, would go along with Trump’s dishonest scheme to claim the Justice Department had found evidence of voting fraud when that was not the case.

It is critically important that these lawyers, and others like John Eastman, also on the verge of being stripped of his law license, be disbarred for their mendacity. They have violated the basic principles underlying not only the work of the Department of Justice but also the oath that all attorneys take to deal honestly with the courts and to represent their clients zealously but within the bounds of the law.

Their disbarment is important because in a second Trump term, Trump would not hire lawyers of integrity to run his Justice Department. Having learned his lesson, he will hire only sycophants who will do his bidding. He states publicly that he will use the department to investigate state prosecutors who he claims are corrupt or who have investigated him. He intends to use the Justice Department to punish his enemies—in other words, he intends to do exactly what he falsely accuses the current administration of doing.

The only way to keep this from happening is to ensure all lawyers understand that if they comply with his desires in violation of their oath as attorneys, they risk their livelihoods, their reputations and their fortunes.

The preservation of our democracy may depend on it.•

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Daniels is a retired partner of Krieg DeVault LLP, a former U.S. Attorney and assistant U.S. attorney general and former president of the Sagamore Institute. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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