Over the past few days there has been great attention paid to the Trump tweet in which the POTUS admitted to knowing about lies told to the FBI by Michael Flynn, a prominent member of his administration. Given Trump’s efforts to disrupt the investigation of Flynn at the time, this admission presumably will arise as a focus of future efforts by the Special Counsel to pursue the administration’s illegal actions. A preposterous claim by John Dowd, one of the lawyers for the POTUS, that he was the author of the tweet has raised even more concerns. Either Mr. Dowd has lied to the public in falsely claiming to have written the tweet to protect his client, or Mr. Dowd has used an official communication channel of the POTUS (as asserted by the White House previously) to make a statement under false pretenses that implicates his client in a crime. In either case the action is unbecoming a member of the District of Columbia Bar, and brings the legal profession into disrepute.
In order to stand up for lawyers in District of Columbia it is the duty of the DC Bar to open an investigation into the actions of John Dowd to determine if he has either lied to the public or falsified communications of the POTUS. We should encourage the DC Bar to open the requisite investigation of Mr. Dowd. Conveniently they provide the information about how to file a complaint against a lawyer of the DC Bar on their website. For convenience here are the key details:
...you may write your own statement in lieu of filling out a complaint form. To do so:
- Write your own statement
- Your statement should include your name and address, your attorney's name and address, and an explanation of the circumstances and details of your complaint
- Mail completed written statement to:
Office of Disciplinary Counsel
Board on Professional Responsibility
District of Columbia Court of Appeals
515 5th Street NW
Building A, Suite 117
Washington, DC 20001
Now you may be wondering if you have standing to file such a complaint. Given that the POTUS is our elected leader, actions by a DC lawyer to represent himself as the POTUS are damaging to our democracy and therefore all Americans have the right and IMO the duty to call upon the DC Bar to take action to discourage the actions of Mr. Dowd. Of course if he lied about writing the tweet that would be even worse.
I’ll be writing my complaint today. I hope you will join me in encourage the DC Bar to step up to their duties.