Jeffrey Clark, Donald Trump, and Control of the Department of Justice - There’s a dissonance between Jeffrey Clark’s bar proceedings and the Supreme Court’s immunity decision

On Aug. 1, a hearing committee of the District of Columbia Bar recommended the suspension of Jeffrey Clark from the practice of law for two years with reinstatement to be conditioned on demonstrating his fitness to practice law. Clark, one will recall, is the former Trump assistant attorney general who briefly seemed to be designated by Trump as acting attorney general at the Department of Justice, as part of Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

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... the dissonance between the committee’s recommendation and the Supreme Court’s immunity decision in Trump v. United States is stunning. Clark is to be disciplined for conduct as to which the Court says Trump is immune. Though it is possible, logically, to resolve the dissonance without legal gyrations (if only on the ground that presidents are not their subordinates), the difference in outlook is, nonetheless, as stark a demonstration as possible of how differently the bar and the Court conceive of the law and the obligations of the president and the legal profession.

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