“Lawyer”
On Monday President Trump’s campaign lawyer and former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova said that fired Trump cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs should be executed for saying that the election was the “most secure in United States history.”
DiGenova, appearing on the Howie Carr show, which simulcasts on Newsmax, took aim at Krebs as an aside during a wheels-off segment full of false claims about how the United States election had been rigged.
“Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said.
This is not just a random Parler troll trying to get attention. This is an attorney speaking on behalf of the President of the United States’ re-election campaign. And while it may read like a macabre joke, the direct nature of diGenova’s comments make it impossible to interpret as anything other than a real wish/threat against a public servant for offering truthful testimony.
Not normal, not okay.
Even Ken White, who is pretty dogmatic about free speech and pretty sceptical about claims lawyers should face disciplinary claims for wild talk, has said this is a prime case for a Bar complaint. A lawyer saying that a potential witness in a case he is involved in should be killed.
Even that aside, State Bar’s need to up the standard of behaviour expected from the legal profession.
They should, but don’t hold your breath.
Remember Orly Taitz? The California dentist/lawyer who filed a kazillion frivolous lawsuits about Obama being born in Kenya? Who suborned perjury, acted without her client’s permission in at least one instance, and called a federal judge a “traitor”?
Her disciplinary record with the State Bar of California is spotless. Not so much as a reprimand. (She was fined $20,000 by a federal court, though.)
Or consider this report about a lawyer just suspended from the federal SDNY bar pending a full hearing* Wait, Screechy, doesn’t that disprove your point? Well, in the sense that yes, if you manage, in the course of just a couple of years, to be formally sanctioned NINETEEN times — which doesn’t include all the admonishments and reprimands, or the cases he dismissed to avoid the threat of sanctions — then yes, eventually the federal judges of the Southern District of New York will have had enough of your shit. But the first 18 or so violations are for free, I guess.
I’m not sure why exactly it is. Perhaps it’s out of a desire to give a wide berth to “zealous advocacy.” Perhaps it’s because bar associations have their resources stretched thin dealing with the cases of lawyers pilfering trust funds or ignoring their duties. Perhaps it’s because they’re chickenshit and only take slam-dunk cases that won’t earn them any political flak or enemies. You might well say that, I couldn’t possibly comment.
But I will lay large odds that no bar association is going to lay a finger on a former U.S. Attorney unless and until they’re convicted of a crime. (Which is also highly unlikely.)
*– Most attorney discipline is handled by state bar associations, who have disciplinary courts and investigators/prosecutors. But technically, each federal judicial district, as well as each circuit court of appeals, has its own bar membership and a separate discipline system, run by the judges of that district or circuit. Not sure if the NY state bar is doing anything to Liebowitz yet. Since he apparently is a copyright troll, and copyright cases are filed exclusively in federal court, they’re the ones bearing the brunt of his antics.