Court smacks down Trump co-defendant subpoena citing Fifth Amendment violation

Ex-Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark cannot be subpoenaed for "documents that might have justified his efforts to put the weight of the Justice Department behind efforts to overturn" the 2020 election in Georgia "and other states," according to a D.C. Court of Appeals ruling issued Monday, Politico reports.

Along with more than a dozen others — including former President Donald Trump — Clark faces criminal charges in Fulton County for election interference, and the reports notes he was also "identified as one of six key Trump co-conspirators by special counsel Jack Smith in a Washington, D.C., indictment also related" to his attempt to overturn the election.

Per Politico, "Officials with the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel — which enforces professional ethics for attorneys who practice in the nation’s capital — subpoenaed Clark last year and demanded he produce any documents that might have justified his efforts to put the weight of the Justice Department behind efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia and other states."

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Months later, the three-judge panel with the DC court ruled "the investigators’ effort to subpoena documents from Clark 'infringes on Mr. Clark's Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to be a witness against himself.'"

Politico notes the ruling is "the latest setback for bar authorities who have spent nearly two years attempting to discipline Clark for his role in Trump’s schemes," as the ex-Trump lawyer "has forced numerous delays in part by seeking to remove the case to federal court and rejecting the D.C. Bar’s authority over his conduct as a federal official."

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