(TargetDailyNews.com) – Former Donald Trump attorney Jeff Clark, who has been criminally charged for his alleged role in what prosecutors claim was Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, had at least one court victory this week. A panel of three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on February 26th that investigators cannot force Clark to produce several documents because to do so would violate his Fifth Amendment rights.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that Americans cannot be compelled to incriminate themselves in court.
The Office of Disciplinary Counsel within the D.C. Bar—the association that accredits and disciplines attorneys in the capital—has tried to compel Clark to turn over documents relating to the 2020 election. They are seeking documents that lay out Clark’s reasoning for allegedly trying to get the Justice Department to help overturn the presidential election results in Georgia and other states.
Naturally, Clark objected, and his lawyers argued that the Bar’s subpoenas were really just an end-run around Clark’s Fifth Amendment protections. They said the Bar was trying to force Clark to disclose his thinking about the issue when he is already considered a co-conspirator in two criminal cases about the matter. This, they said, would be a way to get Clark to testify against himself.
The Court of Appeals panel agreed and ruled that the D.C. Bar may not enforce its subpoena. The three judges, John Howard III, Joshua Deahl, and Stephen Glickman, indicated they would issue a more detailed description of their reasoning soon. The initial succinct order from the panel said the Bar’s actions could not go forward as Clark cannot be forced “to be a witness against himself.”
The D.C. bar brought ethics charges against Clark for his participation in writing a letter to Georgia lawmakers asking them to appoint new presidential electors who, presumably, believed the Georgia results were improper and that Trump was the actual winner. The Bar claims Clark leaned on his own bosses to send the letter even though, they say, there was no evidence of election fraud.
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