The Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit on May 13, 2026, against D.C. Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III, the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, the D.C. Court of Appeals, and the District of Columbia itself, seeking to nullify ongoing bar disciplinary proceedings against former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark [1][2]. The complaint asks a federal court to block those proceedings from advancing toward Clark's disbarment [1].
Clark served as a senior DOJ official during the final weeks of the Trump administration and drafted internal communications in late 2020 urging state officials to delay certification of presidential election results [2]. D.C. disciplinary authorities opened proceedings against him based on that conduct, and the Board on Professional Responsibility subsequently recommended disbarment [2][3]. The DOJ complaint frames the disciplinary case as an impermissible state-level intrusion into internal executive branch deliberations, arguing that advice an administration attorney provides to senior officials in an official capacity falls outside the jurisdiction of state bar authorities [1]. The complaint invokes separation-of-powers principles and the Supremacy Clause as the basis for federal preemption of the D.C. proceedings [1].
The lawsuit was filed under the direction of DOJ leadership that includes Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin, both of whom were appointed during the current administration [2]. Clark is represented by Stanley Woodward [2]. The complaint names the full chain of D.C. disciplinary authority as defendants, a structural choice that signals the DOJ intends to contest the institutional framework of bar oversight as applied to federal executive attorneys, not merely the outcome in Clark's individual case [1][2].
No federal court has previously entertained a government-initiated suit seeking to preempt a state bar authority's disciplinary jurisdiction over a former administration official on separation-of-powers grounds, making the legal theory largely untested [1][2]. D.C. bar authorities have not yet responded publicly to the complaint. The presiding federal court has not set a schedule for briefing or preliminary injunctive relief as of the filing date. If the court agrees to hear the preemption argument on its merits, the ruling could establish or foreclose a broad class of similar disciplinary proceedings against former and current federal attorneys.