Trump DOJ Challenges Leftist ‘Barfare’ With Lawsuit Targeting Jeff Clark’s DC Persecutors

The Trump Department of Justice advanced its defense against leftist “barfare” on Wednesday by suing the Washington D.C. Bar disciplinary entities that spent years trying to ruin the lives and careers of their political enemies, including Trump-era DOJ official Jeffrey Clark.

The 48-page complaint outlines in detail how D.C. Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III, the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC), and the D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility weaponized the legal licensing punitive process to unlawfully “chill the zealous advocacy and candor of Federal officials” like Clark simply because they disagree with him politically.

Doing so, the DOJ argues, violates the Supremacy Clause and Article II of the U.S. Constitution “by unlawfully regulating and discriminating against the Federal Government and interfering with Executive Branch functions.”

“D.C. disciplinary authorities may not punish a United States official for disagreeing with a superior or coworker or for sharing an opinion just because those disciplinary authorities disagree with it,” the suit states.

The D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility initially charged Clark in July 2022 with “attempted … conduct involving dishonesty” and “attempted … conduct that would seriously interfere with the administration of justice.”

The investigation seemingly stemmed from a report alleging Clark played a key role in a plot to “wield [the] DOJ’s power to override the already-certified popular vote” when he drafted a letter to Georgia officials noting the DOJ “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the [2020] election in multiple States” including the Peach State. Clark ultimately chose not to send the letter after objections from his DOJ superiors and a pivot from the president. Yet, the Bar pursued a years-long crusade to strip him of his legal license.

The chief counsel for oversight on the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee forwarded the 394-page document to ODC Counsel Fox in October 2021, months before the bar acted. The report was accompanied by a letter from Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin who declared that Clark’s actions “may constitute serious professional misconduct under the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct.”

The lawfare didn’t stop there. Democrats also named Clark as one of the 19 “co-conspirator” targets in their wide-ranging Georgia election indictment and the FBI even raided his house, despite the fact that he never committed a crime.

Clark fought against the DC Bar for years, but his defense was stonewalled by the Biden administration. He found some relief when the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in February 2024 that Clark did not have to comply with a DC Bar subpoena that would have deprived him of his Fifth Amendment rights. Not even that, however, stopped the ODC from skirting its own rules and due process and ignoring legal professionals’ warnings to recommend that Clark be punished and disbarred.

“As far as the United States is aware, Defendants have never punished a non-Federal Government attorney for drafting or attempting to disseminate a deliberative and pre-decisional draft document, or in any comparable circumstance,” the DOJ writes.

Much like former Attorneys General William Barr, Jeff Sessions, and Michael Mukasey noted in their September 2025 amicus brief supporting Clark, the DOJ cites the ODC’s reinstatement of convicted felon and former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith while he was still on probation as proof that the DC Bar is captured by politicization.

“Defendants imposed a harsher punishment on Mr. Clark than on Mr. Clinesmith even though Mr. Clinesmith suborned the unlawful surveillance of an American citizen in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” the DOJ writes.

To add to the argument, the DOJ emphasizes that one of the attorneys leading the partisan disbarment campaign against former Trump-era Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark “posted dozens of ideological messages” criticizing “Trump judges,” calling Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito a “natural born fool,” and that “every Justice except [Justice] Jackson is dead to [him].”

The DOJ points to Assistant Disciplinary Counsel Jack Metzler’s online activity, including his solicitation of “applications to join the Office of Disciplinary Counsel” on the same social media page, as an example of the “brazen partisan behavior” and “bias and poor judgment” that afflicts the ODC.

Clark isn’t the only victim of the DC Bar. The DOJ also notes that the ODC went after former interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Edward Martin, Jr. “on the theory that he violated his oath to support the U.S. Constitution” for questioning Georgetown University Law School’s race-based teaching.

The DOJ claims that the DC Bar’s persecution of Clark and Martin follows a nationwide pattern of “partisans,” “progressive activists,” and “legal activist groups” publicly threatening to weaponize the legal licensing system against their political enemies. One such example included in the lawsuit is former FBI Special Agent Michael Feinberg celebrating the California Bar disbarment of John Eastman for representing a client with views it dislikes and warning that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche “should watch his step.”

“Defendants are unlawfully attempting to regulate the Federal Government by leveraging the disciplinary process against Federal Government attorneys vis-à-vis other Federal Government attorneys differentially based on factors other than the disinterested administration of justice, like viewpoint and political affiliation,” the lawsuit concludes.

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Jordan Boyd is an award-winning staff writer at The Federalist and producer of “The Federalist Radio Hour.” Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.