‘Creating a One-Party System’: Conservatives Warn of Consequences and Need to Counter Left’s Weaponization of Legal System

Conservatives are pushing back against the Left’s effort to discipline lawyers for the clients they represent, in what is being called “barfare,” with threats of disbarment or other actions.

During a conference Wednesday near Capitol Hill on the topic, Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., praised the effort to fight back.

“We need smart people who have been through the fire to lead and show the people on the other side of this, they are going to try to intimidate you and show them that the only way out is through,” Schmitt said when asked during a question-and-answer session about the Oversight Project’s new law firm.

Schmitt noted that his “coming of age” was as Missouri attorney general, defending the state in litigation over the Biden administration’s COVID-19 rules, and censorship.

“It turned out that there actually weren’t that many attorneys general at the time who understood the stakes and were willing to fight back with everything and suffer the consequences,” Schmitt said. He added, “We have to play offense.”

Later at the event, former assistant U.S. attorney general Jeff Clark spoke.

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Clark is being targeted for advocating for President Donald Trump during the disputed 2020 election outcome, but he noted there have been many more targets.

“This lawfare and barfare effort is about creating a one-party system. It is about totally destroying our competitive system, government, and our entire republic,” Clark, now the Oversight Project vice president of litigation, said at a conference Wednesday near Capitol Hill titled, “Barfare: Stopping Bar Discipline as Political Warfare.”

“That’s what’s at stake. If you do not defeat this barfare effort and the lawfare effort more broadly, then the United States is going to be taken over entirely.”

The Oversight Project, a watchdog group, launched a law firm specifically aimed at defending targets of lawfare, whether through weaponized government agencies, through politicized litigation, or by threatening to revoke law licenses.

“There’s a lot more that can be done, and we intend to hire lawyers more interested in public service who are interested in fighting for the cause,” Clark said.

He added, “If you cede all that territory to the Left, then when these politicized warfare cases get filed, there are no conservatives on these boards, and we have to fight back. We have to provide alternatives and remedies to that, and that’s what we’re going to do in the new Oversight Project law firm.”

The law firm expands the Oversight Project’s existing legal staff and combines it with its investigative team.

The group notes the Left has long had the infrastructure to successfully turn political differences into legal disputes. The group says it will be a “public defender for the right.”

Other speakers noted the group of liberal nonprofits, many with overlapping staffs and funders, that worked directly with federal and state prosecutors to launch a barrage of criminal and civil complaints.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the third-highest-ranking official at the Justice Department, noted state bar actions seem to target only one side.

“What if 600 days ago, Kamala Harris became president? The same Biden DOJ would be allowed to keep doing what they were doing,” Woodward said during morning remarks at the event.

“State bars across the United States only investigate Republicans. Do you mean to tell me there were no controversies from the Merrick Garland Justice Department?” Woodward asked rhetorically.

Beyond what side is targeted, Woodward noted a larger principle: opposition to the targeting of lawyers for representing the “wrong” clients.

“Lawyers have to be free to represent unpopular cases,” Woodward said.

“John Adams represented the redcoats after the Boston Massacre. Our Constitution was founded on the belief of advocacy. Abraham Lincoln represented controversial clients as a lawyer.”