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California Would Disbar Ted Cruz And 18 Attorneys General If It Could


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 27, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/27/california-state-bar-would-disbar-ted-cruz-and-18-attorneys-general-if-it-could/

Ted Cruz bros out with Donald Trump
This is what happens when state bars use disciplinary proceedings to conduct lawfare against political opponents. 

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Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and the attorneys general from 17 additional states should all be disbarred, according to the reasoning of the disciplinary complaint the State Bar of California filed Thursday against former Trump campaign attorney John Eastman. That detail is one of many buried in the 35-page, 11-count disciplinary complaint made public yesterday in the latest lawfare attack on attorneys who deigned to represent Donald Trump. 

State Bar of California’s Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona announced on Thursday the filing of disciplinary charges against Eastman, allegedly arising from Eastman’s engagement “in a course of conduct to plan, promote, and assist then-President Trump in executing a strategy, unsupported by facts or law, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states.” The press release announcing the disciplinary charges further claimed that Eastman “made false and misleading statements regarding purported election fraud,” that provoked a crowd into assaulting and breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The 11 charges against Eastman prove troubling throughout, with the State Bar of California proposing to discipline Eastman for presenting legal analyses to his client, Trump, and for speaking publicly on his views about the election, with the bar even attempting to hold Eastman responsible any violence that occurred on Jan. 6. The disciplinary complaint also misrepresents numerous arguments Eastman and others made concerning the 2020 election, falsely equating claims of violations of election law with fraud.

But it is count two of the disciplinary complaint, charging Eastman with “seeking to mislead a court,” that exposes the California State Bar as a kangaroo court.

“On or about December 7, 2020, the State of Texas filed a Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint in the United States Supreme Court, initiating the lawsuit Texas v. Pennsylvania,” begins count two of the complaint against Eastman. The complaint then explains that in that lawsuit, Texas argued the defendant states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin “usurp[ed] their legislatures’ authority and unconstitutionally revised their States’ election statutes.” As a remedy, Texas sought an order from the Supreme Court to “enjoin the use of unlawful election results without review and ratification by the Defendant States’ legislatures and remand to the Defendant States’ respective legislatures to appoint Presidential Electors in a manner consistent with the Electors Clause.”

Eastman, on behalf of then-President Trump, sought to intervene in the Texas v. Pennsylvania case, and in that motion, Eastman “expressly adopted the allegations contained in the Motion for Leave to File Bill of Complaint filed by Texas.” In adopting the allegations Texas made, Eastman, according to the California State Bar, “misl[ed] the Supreme Court by an artifice or false statement of fact or law,” in violation of California’s “Business and Professions Code” that governs attorneys’ conduct in the Golden State.

Under the California State Bar’s reasoning, then, Texas’ attorney general who filed the motion likewise “misled” the U.S. Supreme Court, as did the attorneys general of the 17 other states that supported Texas’ motion for leave to file a bill of complaint. So too would have Sen. Ted Cruz, had the Supreme Court agreed to hear the motion, as he had agreed to argue the case on Trump’s behalf in that circumstance. 

While count two represents but one of the 11 distinct charges levied against Eastman, it most clearly exposes the logical conclusion reached when state bars use disciplinary proceedings to conduct lawfare against political opponents. 

To date, the bars have limited themselves to targeting just a few attorneys working for Trump, with the D.C. Bar pursuing Rudy Giuliani and Jeff Clark, in addition to the California State Bar’s attack on Eastman. But there is no limiting principle to prevent the bars in other states from pursuing any politician with a law license who happens to represent the wrong person. 

That is an extremely dangerous precedent, which is why tomorrow at a press conference called by Eastman’s legal team, some big legal names will condemn the move. The hastily called conference is expected to bring together former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III and John Yoo, a current professor of law at the University of California-Berkley, former general counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and former deputy assistant attorney general. Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and former California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, among others, are also expected at the conference.

Whether the legacy media will cover Eastman’s detailed response to the State Bar of California’s disciplinary complaint or bother to report on his press conference remains to be seen. But if Cruz and the attorneys general impugned by the California State Bar speak out, the corrupt press may not have any choice but to report on the ridiculous theories underlying the disciplinary attacks on Eastman.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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EXCLUSIVE: More Than a Dozen Republican AGs Demand Senators Reject Biden’s ‘Anti-Gun’ ATF Nominee


REPORTED BY GABE KAMINSKY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER | June 21, 2022

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2022/06/21/republican-attorneys-general-biden-atf-nominee/

President Biden Delivers Remarks In Buffalo After Mass Shooting Took 10 Lives
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
  • Attorneys general in 15 Republican states are demanding Senate leaders block President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), according to their letter to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • The nominee will “merely rubber stamp” Biden’s “partisan anti-gun platform,” the 15 chief legal officers wrote Wednesday, noting that Steve Dettelbach has a history of “activism to restrict” second amendment rights of Americans. 
  • “The U.S. Senate should oppose this dangerous and highly partisan nominee,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told TheDCNF. “Americans need an ATF Director who will crack down on criminals and enforce the law — not someone who will simply pander to the anti-gun left.”

Attorneys general in more than a dozen Republican states are urging Senate leaders to block President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), who they say, “will pursue an anti-gun political agenda under the guise of law enforcement.”

Steve Dettelbach will “merely rubber stamp” the president’s “partisan anti-gun platform,” the 15 attorneys general, led by Montana’s Austin Knudsen, wrote Wednesday to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a letter obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation. Dettelbach has a history of “activism to restrict” the second amendment rights of Americans, the attorneys general say, and is hostile toward gun rights.

“Steven Dettelbach is now the second person that this administration has backed as ATF Director who has a long history of anti-gun activism,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who signed the letter, told TheDCNF. “The U.S. Senate should oppose this dangerous and highly partisan nominee. Americans need an ATF Director who will crack down on criminals and enforce the law — not someone who will simply pander to the anti-gun left.”

Dettelbach, an Obama-era U.S. Attorney in Ohio, was nominated in April. Biden’s prior pick David Chipman, a gun lobbyist, had his nomination yanked after bipartisan backlash to his gun control positions. (RELATED: Biden’s ATF Nominee Represented White Collar Crooks Despite Railing Against Corruption)

“I’m a gun guy,” Knudsen told TheDCNF. “That’s what I do for a hobby. As someone who’s even slightly familiar with firearms, it doesn’t take listening to Joe Biden or anybody in his administration to figure out they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 11: U.S. President Joe Bidens nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Steve Dettelbach speaks during an event about gun violence in the Rose Garden of the White House April 11, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The attorneys general say Dettelbach, who as The Daily Caller reported has backed gun control measures in the past, “would likely continue or even accelerate the ATF’s attempts to restrict Americans’ rights and erode constitutional restraints on federal power.”

In May 2021, the ATF put forth a rule that critics, including the attorneys general, say overreaches on its authority under the Gun Control Act of 1968. The rule would shutter 35 businesses and would cost the bureau around $1.1 million, Republican attorneys general, including Knudsen, said prior.

ATF did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Dettelbach.

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/579207994/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-4gAsZU9L87hsXXA8rmcM

EXCLUSIVE: Republican Attor… by Gabe Kaminsky

Dettelbach, who has been opposed by a myriad of pro-gun group, including the Firearms Policy Coalition, said in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that “politics can play no role in law enforcement.” The nominee was notably endorsed by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control nonprofit Biden’s prior nominee Chipman worked for that is funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

With crime skyrocketing across the country, an ATF director must be tasked with keeping “citizens safe,” the attorneys general say. But they worry that Dettelbach’s “brand of political activism” will target “law-abiding gun owners.”

“Given that serious responsibility— and the current nominee’s track record — we ask you to reject Mr. Dettelbach to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives,” the attorneys general wrote. “As Americans continue to suffer from the crime wave, the ATF desperately needs a director who will crack down on violent criminals and organizations — not one who will pursue an anti-gun political agenda under the guise of law enforcement.”

Dettelbach’s nomination was advanced last week after the Senate Judiciary Committee discharged it.

In addition to Knudsen and Paxton, the letter was signed by chief legal officers in Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and West Virginia.

The White House declined TheDCNF’s request for comment and a spokesman for McConnell did not immediately respond. A spokesman for Schumer pointed TheDCNF to the senator’s remarks last week discharging Dettelbach’s nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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