WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is suing the DC Bar for engaging in a “blatantly partisan” effort to disbar and discipline current and former Trump administration attorneys, including former official Jeffrey Clark.
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward filed a complaint in federal court Wednesday alleging that the DC Office of Disciplinary Counsel and the DC Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility were “punishing” Clark and “[w]eaponizing state bar discipline” against others.
“To permit these proceedings is to allow state bar authorities to control the Executive Branch. That is not the law,” Woodward wrote in the 25-page complaint.
The DOJ has asked the DC court to nullify the bar’s findings of fault against Clark, issue an injunction against the disciplinary board and pay federal attorneys’ fees.
“President Trump promised to put an end to the weaponization of the legal process, and today’s lawsuit against the D.C. Bar makes good on that promise,” Woodward added in a statement.
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“The DC Bar will no longer be permitted to probe sensitive Executive Branch deliberations and target Executive Branch officials with whom they happen to politically disagree, and federal attorneys will once again be free to share their candid legal advice with their bosses and colleagues.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche also said in a statement: “As our complaint and history make clear, the DC Bar has long acted as a blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes. No more.”
Clark served as assistant attorney general at the DOJ in 2020 and provided advice to Trump in the wake of the 2020 election on ways to probe potentially fraudulent votes — for which the DC Bar later initiated disciplinary proceedings to strip him of his law license.
The recommendations in a December 2020 letter from Clark included launching state-level investigations into election fraud.
A committee of the DC Bar’s Board of Professional Responsibility, in an August 2024 preliminary ruling, suggested that Clark’s law license should be suspended for two years.
That finding was appealed to the DC Court of Appeals, which has yet to issue a ruling.
Three former US attorneys general — including Trump’s ex-AG Bill Barr — submitted an amicus brief in September 2025, first reported by The Post, noting that Clark’s legal suggestions were “never intended to be released publicly” and punishing him for those would “set a dangerous precedent.”
In a May 4 post on X, Clark indicated that the DC Bar’s approach used against him could be weaponized against other DOJ officials, such as Blanche.
Members of the DC Bar named in the DOJ’s filing included Hamilton Fox and Jack Metzler, the latter of whom “posted dozens of ideological messages demonstrating his and the Office of Disciplinary Counsel’s bias and poor judgment,” Woodward wrote.
Among those were statements claiming it was “unethical to engage with anti-vaxxers and people who claim there is a debate about birthright citizenship,” both of which have been issues taken up by Trump’s DOJ, the filing noted.
Former interim DC US Attorney Ed Martin, who now oversees pardons at the DOJ, has also been targeted by the DC Bar for merely sending a letter to Georgetown University Law School for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in its coursework.
Reps for the DC Bar didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
