DOJ sues D.C. Bar to block Jeffrey Clark disbarment and Ed Martin discipline

The Justice Department filed a federal complaint on May 13, 2026, naming eight defendants including D.C. Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III, the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, the D.C. Court of Appeals, its chief judge, and the District of Columbia itself. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called the D.C. Bar "a blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes" and accused it of weaponizing the disciplinary process against federal attorneys.

The complaint seeks both a declaratory judgment that the D.C. Bar can't discipline federal attorneys for conduct during official duties and an injunction halting all pending proceedings against DOJ lawyers. The case was assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Case No. 1:26-cv-01658.

The lawsuit's primary target is the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility's July 31, 2025 recommendation that Jeffrey Clark be disbarred. Clark served as assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division from 2018 to 2021 and simultaneously as acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division in 2020-2021. In December 2020, Clark drafted a letter to Georgia officials falsely claiming the DOJ had "significant concerns" about the election's integrity and urging the state legislature to convene a special session to appoint alternative electors.

The Board voted 7-2 in favor of disbarment. Two members dissented, recommending a three-year suspension instead. The Board wrote that Clark "was prepared to cause the Justice Department to tell a lie" and that disbarment was needed to send a message that such conduct wouldn't be tolerated. The recommendation was forwarded to the D.C. Court of Appeals for a final decision, which hasn't been issued.

The DOJ's legal theory rests on the Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States, which held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for conduct within their "exclusive sphere of constitutional authority." The DOJ's complaint extends this logic to presidential subordinates, arguing that disciplining a government lawyer for advice given during official duties unconstitutionally interferes with executive branch deliberations.

Michael Frisch, ethics counsel at Georgetown University Law Center, told NPR the argument has a critical tension: the Supreme Court's 2024 opinion explicitly addressed only presidential immunity, not the liability of subordinates. 28 U.S.C. 530B, the McDade Amendment enacted in 1998, requires DOJ attorneys to follow the same state ethics rules as any other lawyer practicing in that jurisdiction. The DOJ's complaint doesn't acknowledge this statute by name.

The suit also defends Ed Martin, the DOJ's current pardon attorney, against ethics charges filed in March 2026 by the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Martin served as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in 2025 before being replaced by Jeanine Pirro after it became clear he couldn't win Senate confirmation. As interim U.S. attorney, Martin sent a February 2025 letter to Georgetown University Law Center accusing the school of teaching DEI, then imposed sanctions by barring Georgetown students from working at his office.

Martin followed up with a March 2025 letter to Georgetown's interim president and board chair threatening the school's "receipt of nearly $1 billion of federal tax money." The D.C. Bar's two-count petition accused Martin of "conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice" and of making unauthorized ex parte communications with a judge. The DOJ filed a "statement of interest" in Martin's case, urging that it be moved to a federal tribunal.

The lawsuit didn't arrive in isolation. On March 5, 2026, the DOJ published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would give the attorney general a "right of first review" over ethics complaints against current or former DOJ attorneys. Under the rule, state bars would have to suspend their own investigations while the DOJ conducts an internal review. If state bars refused, the DOJ would "take appropriate action to enforce this regulation." The comment period closed April 6, 2026.

The proposed rule drew sharp opposition. The Brennan Center for Justice submitted a formal comment urging the DOJ to rescind it, calling it a violation of the framework Congress created through the McDade Amendment. Two former senior DOJ officials writing for the Brennan Center warned that the rule would allow "the administration to abuse the DOJ's immense power with impunity."

State courts pushed back hard on the proposed rule. Judges from the Georgia Supreme Court wrote in a public comment that the rule "threatens significant federal overreach into an area exclusively reserved to the States" and told the DOJ that if it was dissatisfied with Congress's decision to subject DOJ lawyers to state bar rules, it should "take that up with Congress." The California State Bar raised similar concerns about federal overreach into state attorney oversight.

NPR reported that Democratic state attorneys general, the American Bar Association, former federal prosecutors, and legal ethics experts all warned the rule would erode long-standing state authority over attorney discipline, violating basic tenets of federalism.

Frisch told NPR the combined effect of the lawsuit and the proposed rule amounts to a broad attack on the concept that lawyers should be ethically accountable for their actions. He noted that existing disciplinary systems already have safeguards against politicized complaints, but acknowledged that "everything seems politicized" in the current environment.

The legal profession's self-regulatory model has deep roots. State bar associations have policed attorney conduct since the early 1900s. The ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct, first adopted in 1983, provide the template most states follow. The DOJ's lawsuit and proposed rule represent the first time the federal government has tried to exempt an entire category of lawyers from this state-based system.

The DOJ's complaint fits a pattern of the Trump administration challenging bar oversight of government attorneys. The ABA itself sued the DOJ in April 2025 after the department revoked grant funding one day after Deputy AG Blanche prohibited DOJ attorneys from attending ABA events. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in May 2025, finding the ABA's First Amendment injury was "concrete and ongoing."

In February 2026, the ABA House of Delegates adopted Resolution 510, urging the president and executive branch officials to safeguard DOJ independence by ensuring investigative and prosecutorial decisions remain free from political influence. The resolution passed after the ABA filed a second lawsuit challenging Trump administration executive orders that targeted law firms representing clients opposed to administration policies.

Conservative legal commentators framed the lawsuit as overdue pushback against what they called "barfare." The Federalist described the D.C. Bar's proceedings against Clark as a "leftist barfare" campaign designed to punish lawyers who served Trump. RedState argued the D.C. Bar "now finds itself on the receiving end" of litigation after years of targeting conservative attorneys.

The core conservative argument holds that internal executive branch deliberations deserve protection because lawyers who fear bar discipline won't give candid advice. The DOJ complaint stated directly that "weaponizing state bar discipline against Executive Branch attorneys chills them from giving candid legal advice to others in the Executive Branch, including the President and Attorney General."