Ask Jordan: Can Trump DOJ lawyers be disbarred for election interference?

Justice Department lawyers who sued to intervene in Alaska's U. S. Senate race days before Election Day now face calls for sanctions, though professional discipline, if it comes at all, would take years. MS NOW legal analyst Jordan Rubin notes that disbarment is the harshest penalty and that milder options include reprimand or suspension.

The October 22 suit contends that a second candidate, Daniel J. Sullivan, entered the contest to confuse backers of Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, who faces Democrat Mary Peltola. It would stop Alaska from certifying results should the incumbent lose. Election law scholars across the spectrum have ridiculed the claim. UCLA professor Richard Hasen filed a brief collecting their criticism, and a coalition led by the League of Women Voters asked Judge Sharon Gleason to dismiss the case and consider Rule 11 sanctions against the signers: Stanley Woodward and Alaska prosecutor E. Bryan Wilson.

Woodward and Wilson then revised their filing, drawing on a New York Times story about Peltola's campaign and recruiters of the other Sullivan. That story also said such ballot tactics are common and generally legal, a point the revision omits.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →