[Dion]

Trump attorneys must face disciplinary action

“Lawyers are gatekeepers to filter out what gets presented to a court to ensure that the filings are not garbage,” said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor and expert on ethical rules governing lawyers and judges. “If bad claims come to courts, there is less time for other things, and so judges should — and I would hope they would — get appropriately incensed if Trump’s lawyers or any lawyers force them to spend time on rejected claims that never should have been filed in the first place.”

More than 1,500 lawyers — including law professors, retired judges, and former heads of bar associations — issued a public letter calling the actions of Giuliani and the other attorneys pushing these baseless claims “a disgrace.” The signees urged disciplinary bodies to investigate their actions, and bar associations to publicly condemn them.

“Giuliani’s aim is obvious: to fuel Mr. Trump’s campaign to delegitimize the outcome of the election,” the lawyers wrote in the letter, organized by the group Lawyers Defending American Democracy. “Attorneys take an oath to support the Constitution. Lawyers who lie to advance the partisan interest of a politician or any client dishonor the constitutional system they’ve sworn to uphold, the legal profession, and themselves.”

n addition, Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows courts to impose disciplinary sanctions against attorneys who file federal claims that are not “warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument” or without “evidentiary support.” Most state courts have similar provisions, and sanctions range from striking the offending pleadings to imposing monetary sanctions.

And though judges cannot issue disbarment orders on their own, court-ordered sanctions can provide a basis for state disciplinary boards to take action that could include suspension, censure, or disbarment, Gillers said.

It’s not as if judges don’t see these cases as the cynical PR stunts that they are. Another federal judge, ruling against Trump in a different case this week, wrote that the “lawsuit seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek . . . and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government.” But they’ve held back from any more formal reprimand.

With Rule 11 sanctions at their disposal, federal judges have the most power to act, and they should exercise it — setting the example for state judges to follow suit, and empowering attorney disciplinary authorities to launch their own probes to hold these lawyers accountable for the damage they have caused.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/polit...?ocid=msedgdhp