Ads are running in legal journals and online in several swing states warning lawyers, “Don’t lose your law license because of Trump.”
The ads refer to efforts from election law attorneys who may wish to challenge the results of the 2024 election. A far-left legal group, the 65 Project, which participated in getting Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman disbarred for their advocacy for Trump after the 2020 election, is placing the ads.
“Don’t risk your law license by joining an effort to subvert democracy,” one of the ads says. “We — and the public — are watching.”
Who decides whether a legal challenge is "an effort to subvert democracy"? The 65 Project, of course.
This thinly disguised threat against pro-Trump lawyers is the latest sign that Democrats are going to pull out all the stops to deny Donald Trump a victory if the former president ends up ahead after the votes are counted.
The Harris campaign has assembled a team of hundreds of lawyers and thousands of volunteers to represent voters and state parties in what's expected to be multiple certification battles and massive voter challenges.
“Lawyers should know they’re risking their law licenses if they try to overturn free and fair elections,” said Michael Teter, the managing director of the 65 Project. Teeter hopes that the ads will have a "deterrent effect" on pro-Trump lawyers who are being put on notice that their law licenses are at risk if they are too aggressive in their advocacy.
The ads, which are initially set to appear in both print and online in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will be coming out just as Republicans and Democrats alike are gearing up for what could be an exceptionally bitter legal fight over the election.
Democrats are expecting an aggressive Republican effort to challenge voters, rules and, possibly, the results of the race. In preparation, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has assembled an expansive legal team of hundreds of lawyers and thousands of volunteers meant to be a bulwark against multiple certification battles and mass voter challenges.
The 65 Project is named after the number of lawsuits that Trump attorneys filed to try and delay or decertify the presidential election in 2020. Were they all "frivolous"? Some stretched the limits of reality, but that's not for anyone but a federal judge to say. To attempt to place a damper on legal efforts to challenge the election is about as anti-democratic as it gets.
Donald Trump and his attorneys are free to launch any legal challenge to any aspect of the 2024 election that they wish to. The burden of proving that they're not sincere in their efforts is on the 65 Project.
A small army of lawyers went to work for Mr. Trump four years ago, helping him to launch an increasingly dubious series of attempts to overturn his defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Some filed lawsuits of questionable merit that claimed the race had been marred by widespread fraud or had been rigged by a conspiracy of plotters that included voting machine companies, the Chinese Community Party and George Soros, a Democratic financier.
There were also completely genuine challenges to various aspects of the counting, the certification, and the electors that were based on the law. It's the courts who decide what is genuine and what isn't, not the 65 Project or any other liberal group.
The 65 Project claims to be "bipartisan." Influence Watch tells a different story.
Though the 65 Project claims to be bipartisan, it is not targeting any Democratic-aligned attorneys who have challenged election laws or results in the past, and is advised exclusively by Democrats and Democratic allies. Texas attorney Paul Davis has described the project as “a desperate attempt by leftist hacks and mercenaries” and an effort “to neutralize anyone on the right with the ability to stand in the way of the left’s efforts to hide malfeasance in the 2020 elections and to clear the path for a repeat of similar malfeasance in the 2022 mid-terms.”
The 2024 presidential election may not be settled for months after the voting. If that happens, there will be challenges to the Electoral College vote taking place on December 14, which means that the new Congress taking office in January would decide who will be president.
Maybe all of this will be unnecessary and Trump will win in a landslide. The 65 Project would still find a way to challenge the results.
