The Daily Fuckup

The Justice Department on May 13 filed a complaint in federal court against D.C. disciplinary officials, taking aim at the machinery that has handled the Jeffrey Clark case for years. The defendants include D.C. Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III, the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, and the D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility. The department says the local process was used to regulate the official acts of federal lawyers and seeks to nullify the D.C. Bar’s action against Clark. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-complaint-against-dc-bar-disciplinary-authorities-over-their))

That timing matters. Clark’s discipline case did not start with this lawsuit. A hearing committee recommendation was issued in 2024, and the Board on Professional Responsibility followed with a 2025 report and recommendation that Clark be suspended for three years with a fitness requirement. The new federal complaint lands after that sequence, not before it. ([dcbar.org](https://www.dcbar.org/ServeFile/GetDisciplinaryActionFile?fileName=JeffreyBClark22BD039.pdf))

The underlying facts are old, but the legal fight is not settled. The bar case concerns Clark’s conduct in late 2020 and early 2021, when he pushed Justice Department leaders to back a draft letter that cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election. In its own filing, the Justice Department says the complaint is part of an effort to stop what it calls the weaponization of bar discipline against federal attorneys. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-complaint-against-dc-bar-disciplinary-authorities-over-their))

The practical effect is to move the dispute from the D.C. disciplinary track into federal court. Whether the complaint survives or not, it does not erase the record already built in the bar proceeding. It just gives the fight a new venue, with the same underlying conduct still sitting at the center of it. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-complaint-against-dc-bar-disciplinary-authorities-over-their))