In an open letter, 1,500 attorneys slammed the Donald Trump campaign for seeking to overturn the will of U.S. voters and called on bar associations to investigate lawyers who filed lawsuits on Trump’s behalf.
The letter’s signatories include law professors, judges and local officials. They accuse Rudy Giuliani and other Trump campaign lawyers of violating their code of conduct by lying and filing baseless legal actions, calling their behavior a “disgrace.”
“More than 35 losses in election-related cases have made one thing painfully clear: President Trump’s barrage of litigation is a pretext for a campaign to undermine public confidence in the outcome of the 2020 election, which inevitably will subvert constitutional democracy,” states the letter, organized by Lawyers Defending Democracy.
It notes that Trump’s “primary agents and enablers in this effort are lawyers,” who are obligated by “oath and ethical rules to uphold the rule of law.”
Bar associations “need to condemn this abuse and bar disciplinary authorities need to investigate it,” the letter demands.
A “license to practice law is not a license to lie to the public on behalf of a client,” and is barred by the ethics rules of the American Bar Association, which polices the behavior of attorneys, the letter notes. The code of conduct for lawyers also bars them from filing frivolous, baseless lawsuits.
“Our profession needs to affirm that this behavior grossly deviates from the bar’s deep commitment to democratic institutions and the fact-based processes that maintain our democracy’s vitality,” the letter concludes.
Check out the entire letter here.