There’s a brand new authorized advocacy group concentrating on legal professionals who helped ex-president Donald Trump perpetuate election-fraud claims following the 2020 presidential election.
Led by some legal-industry heavyweights, The 65 Mission goes after these attorneys’ legislation licenses. And at the very least two are acquainted faces in Western Virginia: Reps. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt, and Morgan Griffith, R-Salem.
Griffith, who serves on the Home Vitality and Commerce Committee, was a state delegate and lawyer in personal apply till his election to Congress in 2010. Cline, who additionally served in Richmond, is a former assistant state prosecutor who labored in personal apply till 2018, when he received election to succeed former congressman Bob Goodlatte.
Each are additionally members of the Home Freedom Caucus, a bunch of far-right Republicans on Capitol Hill whose members embrace Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, Louie Gohmert, R-Texas (who’s retiring); Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia.
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“We’re contemplating submitting a bar criticism in opposition to any elected official who joined the Texas lawsuit who can be an energetic member of the bar, and that features Reps. Griffith and Cline,” mentioned Michael Teter, The 65 Mission’s managing director. He’s an lawyer and legislation professor in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah.
Filed Dec. 9, 2020, the Texas case was a last-ditch try and overturn the election earlier than the Electoral Faculty forged its ballots. It was purchased by Texas Legal professional Normal Ken Paxton, a Republican, and joined by attorneys common from at the very least 16 different states. The Trump authorized group and a complete of 126 Republican Home members additionally signed onto it.
It sought to overturn the 2020 election leads to Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which have been received by President Joe Biden. Texas argued that procedural voting adjustments in these states previous to the election have been unlawful and the outcomes had harmed Texas.
The U.S. Supreme Courtroom dismissed the lawsuit Dec. 11, 2020, ruling that Texas had no proper to sue. Three days later, on Dec. 14, 2020, electors in all 50 states met to forged their ballots for his or her presidential victors.
The 65 Mission takes its title from the variety of lawsuits filed by the Trump authorized group or its supporters within the wake of the 2020 election. All have been tossed out of courtroom, some by federal judges who’d been appointed by Trump.
Though the marketing campaign of frivolous authorized actions revealed no proof of widespread fraud or election irregularities, it helped give legs to sentiments that later exploded into tried rebellion in Washington lower than a month later, on Jan. 6, 2021.
Wednesday morning, I contacted spokesmen for each Cline and Griffith to hunt response to the The 65 Mission’s announcement. I received no reply by my 4 p.m. deadline.
A few of the of us behind The 65 Mission embrace folks with sturdy ties to Democrats, akin to former senator Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, and David Brock, who based the liberal media watchdog group, Media Issues for America.
Additionally on the group’s advisory board are Christine Durham, a former chief justice of the Utah Supreme Courtroom; Roberta Ramo, first feminine president of the American Bar Affiliation and Paul Rosenzweig, a former Division of Homeland Safety official within the final Bush administration and a member of the conservative authorized group, The Federalist Society.
Cline and Griffith aren’t the one Virginia legal professionals The 65 Group is concentrating on, Teter mentioned. After I requested for that record, he mentioned he would supply it sooner or later.
“Proper now, I can say that it seems to be like Virginia legal professionals participated in litigation in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. At the very least a kind of legal professionals has already had a bar criticism filed in opposition to her in Michigan — Emily Newman,” Teter mentioned.
Newman, of Northern Virginia, labored on a authorized group with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. Each have already been sanctioned for bringing a frivolous Trump authorized motion contesting Michigan’s 2020 election.
Proper now they’re among the many 111 legal professionals in 26 states who’re in The 65 Mission’s crosshairs. However that record can be curious for who’s not on it — akin to Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick.
Williams is a lawyer in Stuart and a freshman state delegate in Richmond. Within the 2021 GOP main, he efficiently unseated former Republican delegate Charles Poindexter, who’d mentioned he didn’t suspect widespread election fraud within the presidential election.
In contrast, Williams bragged repeatedly in the course of the marketing campaign that he’d volunteered on the Trump authorized group combating the Wisconsin election consequence. He did it in his marketing campaign literature, too.
On CNN, Williams gave an interview ballyhooing his service as “considered one of Donald Trump’s authorized attorneys within the 2020 election,” including, “that may be a nationwide function that I performed.”
In an announcement printed by the conservative on-line information web site “Nationwide File,” Williams mentioned his title was “President Donald J. Trump’s Deputy Authorized Counsel in Wisconsin.”
However Teter instructed me that The 65 Mission has by no means heard of Williams.
“Mr. Williams isn’t on the record of Virginia attorneys who we now have having appeared on courtroom paperwork for President Trump or in any of the litigation,” Teter mentioned.
“If he participated, he did so behind the scenes. Our efforts will proceed in searching for to undercover those that performed much less energetic roles and, if the scenario warrants, submitting bar complaints in opposition to these people, as properly.”
Tuesday, I despatched Williams an inventory of questions searching for to make clear the service he’d mentioned he carried out for the Trump authorized group in Wisconsin.
One was how Williams traveled there, one other was how lengthy he stayed, and I additionally requested the place he stayed and who lined his journey and lodging bills. And I posed these questions:
On which lawsuits difficult the 2020 Wisconsin presidential election does your title seem?
Who have been the attorneys you labored alongside in the course of the Wisconsin election problem efforts?
Have been you admitted professional hac vice to apply in Wisconsin? In that case, what was the date of that courtroom order? And what’s the title of the choose who signed it?
(Typically, a Virginia-licensed lawyer must search formal permission from a Wisconsin courtroom to apply legislation there, until the lawyer was additionally licensed in Wisconsin. Williams isn’t listed by the state bar of Wisconsin as a licensed lawyer there.)
Wednesday, I acquired Williams’ 783-word response, which answered precisely not one of the above questions.
The primary 483 phrases have been about election-integrity laws he sponsored in Richmond after his 2021 election.
Close to the tip of the assertion, Williams wrote: “I got here to know that election integrity is a severe subject after the November 2020 election, after I volunteered to help President Donald J. Trump’s authorized group within the Wisconsin recount.”
The group discovered greater than 200,000 ballots had been improperly counted or forged, the assertion added. However the courts disagreed.
“Our case in opposition to these improper actions was escalated to the Wisconsin Supreme Courtroom, the place it was kicked on a technicality by one vote,” Williams added.
“It’s important in any free republic that elections be truthful, safe, and reliable, and that our elections be ruled strictly by the legal guidelines handed by our elected officers. I preserve that this was not the case within the Wisconsin 2020 Normal Election.”
At no place in Wednesday assertion does Williams ever say he was bodily in Wisconsin whereas he was volunteering. That may clarify why The 65 Mission has by no means heard of Williams, or seen his fingerprints on any Trump election-lawsuit papers.
Quickly, Teter added, The 65 Mission “might be assembling groups of legal professionals within the jurisdictions the place these legal professionals are training and might be submitting bar complaints in waves.
“We’re additionally placing collectively a working group of preeminent legal professionals to assist draft mannequin guidelines {of professional} conduct that relate on to attorneys partaking in efforts to overturn democracy and utilizing the courts as a software for political propaganda.”
Legal professionals who want to volunteer can contact the group at data@the65project.com, Teter mentioned.
Contact metro columnist Dan Casey at 981-3423 or dan.casey@roanoke.com.