A legal watchdog trying to punish attorneys who brought false allegations by former President Donald Trump about voter fraud in US courts has asked the Texas Bar Association to revoke Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s license to practice law for his involvement in “frivolous” Suspend elections or quash processes in Pennsylvania and Texas.
The group, known as The 65 Project, on Wednesday sent a complaint to the Texas Bar Association’s Chief Disciplinary Counsel’s office, calling for an investigation into Cruz’s work on behalf of Trump and Pennsylvania Republicans in the weeks after Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The complaint alleges that through his actions, Cruz implicates him in supporting criminal conduct and defending and reinforcing “unlawful allegations” and “unsubstantiated allegations (rather, unwarranted speculation, conjecture and suspicion)”. what the group said “violated numerous Texas disciplinary codes of professional conduct.”
Cruz was one of eight Republican senators who voted against confirming Biden’s victory in the Electoral College on Jan. 6, 2021, the day a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, hoping to prevent Congress from to make his defeat official.
The Texas senator had tabled a proposal for a “commission” to look into the myriad allegations of fraud brought forward by Trump and his allies, hoping to keep him in the White House against Trump’s wishes. American voters.
But the group, whose members include a former chairman of the Texas State Bar Complaint Committee and a former chairman of the board of trustees of the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism, said de Cruz “leadership” in trying to nullify the 2020 election was “obviously different” from other senators in that he “chooses to take on the role of attorney” in driving the Pennsylvania Republicans in Kelly v. Pennsylvania and Texas Republicans in Texas vs. Pennsylvania, two cases aimed at voiding swing states electoral votes won by Biden.
Cruz publicly disclosed his involvement in the first case on Dec. 7, 2020, after Pennsylvania Republicans announced they would appeal a decision dismissing his allegations to the U.S. Supreme Court. The next day, Trump said he had Cruz asked to intervene in the State of Texas lawsuit, and Cruz agreed.
“In doing so, Mr. Cruz went beyond his position as a United States Senator and sought to use more than his Twitter account and media appearances to support Mr. Trump’s anti-democracy mission. Cruz brought the value of his attorney’s license to the effort,” the group said.
While Trump and his allies hoped the conservative-leaning court, including three of his own appointments, would step in to prevent Biden from taking office, the court threw out both cases within three days.
The group claimed that Cruz’s legal work in both cases and public statements made while serving as counsel in Trump’s election-cancellation efforts violated the professional rules for Texas-licensed attorneys, which state that an attorney ” may not introduce or defend”. to conduct any proceeding or to assert or contest any issue therein, unless the attorney reasonably believes there is no frivolous basis for doing so” or “not knowingly making a false statement of any material fact or statute to any third party person will do”.
“The allegations and motions of the Pennsylvania Republicans in Kelly v. Pennsylvania and by Mr. Trump in Texas vs. Pennsylvania was reckless, which is why the United States Supreme Court denied the motions in short orders,” they said.
Cruz is not the first of Trump’s former attorneys to face disciplinary action for representing the disgraced former president in his bid to remain in office despite losing his re-election bid.
Trump’s former personal attorney and former Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, had his own license suspended by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court after concluding that he had “made grossly false and misleading statements to the courts.” , lawmakers and the public largely in his capacity as counsel for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed 2020 re-election efforts,” concluding that his conduct “immediately threatens the public interest and … the suspension of practice had justified law.”
“Just as Mr. Giuliani was sanctioned for his conduct, so should Mr. Cruz be sanctioned,” the group said.
They also noted that a federal judge in California recently ruled that Trump’s efforts “likely” violated federal law by constituting a criminal conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ efforts to certify the 2020 election.
That finding, they said, could mean that Cruz violated a third Texas rule that prohibits an attorney from “assisting or advising a client to engage in conduct that the attorney knows to be engaged in.” is criminal or fraudulent,” and answered a question as to whether the Texas senator’s attorney “assisted in criminal or fraudulent endeavors” had “already been affirmed” by the court.
“Mr. Cruz chose to offer his professional license to Mr. Trump’s arsenal amid this ongoing assault on our democracy. He cannot protect himself from the consequences of this decision simply because, unlike Trump’s other attorneys, he holds high public office,” they said.
It’s unclear whether the complaint against Cruz will jeopardize his ability to practice law, but a spokesman for the Texas senator didn’t seem concerned when asked by The Independent for comment.
“The 65 Project is a far-left, dark-money libel machine run by a shameless Democrat leader,” the spokesman said. “You are not a credible organization and your complaint will not be worth the paper it is printed on.”