How To Disbar Lawyer Obama
The Advocate
By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Obama administration’s witch hunts against Bush administration lawyers involved in writing legal opinions supporting enhanced interrogation techniques suggest Barack Obama and his people are willing to do almost anything for political advantage and political revenge and for the purpose of pleasing their radical left-wing base.
Republicans and most decent Americans would not play this game of banana republic, Soviet-style harassment of an outgoing administration, but the Democrats should realize they are playing a dangerous game, which they may one day be the target of. In fact, if someone wants to demonstrate the folly of the Democratic gambit, they don’t have to wait until the end of the Obama administration.
If someone wants to use the code of ethics of the legal profession to harass the Obama administration (as the Obama administration has misused it), they could start right now. Someone could file an ethics complaint with the Illinois Bar Association, as Mr. Obama has clearly violated the rule, applicable to all lawyers admitted in Illinois and elsewhere, that you are subject to legal discipline including suspension from the practice of law and even disbarment for lying or otherwise engaging in dishonest conduct.
The Illinois and Pennsylvania “Rules of Professional Conduct” on lying and dishonesty are written to apply to conduct that is within or outside the practice of law. Rule 8.4 of both the Illinois and Pennsylvania Rules of Conduct is titled “Misconduct” and prohibits attorneys from engaging “in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.” I submit it would be quite easy to prove that Mr. Obama, admitted to practice in Illinois, has violated this rule by a regular habit of lying, not just to one person, but also to the nation.
Here are just a few of the endless lies that should go into a pair of new Obama books titled The Audacity of Lies and Lies My Pastor Taught Me:
My favorite Obama lie is his claim that, after sitting in the pews of the church of Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright, Mr. Obama really wasn’t aware of his bigotry, racism and anti-American venom. If that’s not a lie, one is yet to be told.
Another favorite lie is Mr. Obama’s claim that he wasn’t bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia, but was merely trying to shake hands with him. Anyone who believes that handshaking claim better have a guardian appointed immediately, before they buy the Brooklyn Bridge and other offered bargains.
ABC News reported the president was “unaware of the tea parties.” They reported that on April 15, tax day, when most of Mr. Obama’s cabinet was probably lying to the IRS, now headed by Timothy “Tax Cheat” Geithner.
What about Mr. Obama’s claim that if the $790 billion stimulus package was not signed immediately, the country would suffer a catastrophe. Right after it was passed, Mr. Obama took off for a three-day vacation and only then did he sign the bill. What he should have said is, if the bill is signed at all, the country will suffer a catastrophe.
Mr. Obama said he wouldn’t have lobbyists in his administration. Then, in his first two weeks, he appointed 17 lobbyists, one of the few groups to outnumber the tax cheats.
Mr. Obama promised to consult Congress before creating exceptions to the omnibus spending bill. But two days after issuing these signing statement rules, he broke them.
Mr. Obama expressed his strong objections to pork barrel spending, and then almost immediately proceeded to sign a bill containing 9,000 chunks of earmarked pork barrel spending.
Mr. Obama said he would have a most transparent administration, but then had Congress pass his massive stimulus bill without even time to read it. He also said he would go over each spending item line by line, something he clearly didn’t do in the stimulus package, which he didn’t even draft. Instead, he left the drafting to Democratic Party congressional leadership.
He preaches we have to become a save-and-invest country rather than a tax-and-spend one, but then proceeds to run up more debt, more deficits and more spending than any president in history, with a heavy dose of new taxation on the way.
Mr. Obama said he doesn’t want to run the auto industry, but then fires the chairman of General Motors, talks of taking common stock in the company, and starts telling GM what kind of cars to build and how to run the company.
An industrious complainant could draft a 100-plus-item indictment and send it to the Illinois Bar, noting the violation of Rule 8.4 of the Illinois Code of Professional Responsibility. The disciplinary committees of the bar associations will be busy for years when the public understands lawyers aren’t supposed to lie or be dishonest even when outside of their practice, and if they are, they face disciplinary action.
This line of attack on Mr. Obama occurred to me as I was reading an article in a magazine published by the Nebraska State Bar Association, The Nebraska Lawyer (May 2009). Dennis Carlson, the counsel for discipline of the Nebraska Bar, wrote the article “Attorney Lies Outside of the Practice of Law — From ‘I Got the Job’ to “That Was a Close One!’”
He writes, “The general consensus seems to be that attorney conduct outside of the practice of law may constitute grounds for discipline if it reflects a lack of character or integrity on the part of the attorney.”
The Carlson article cites cases in which attorneys have been disciplined for dishonest conduct outside of the practice of law. In one bizarre case, an attorney who wanted to get another appointment from the governor as prosecutor faked an assassination attempt to get publicity as part of his reappointment campaign. The police figured out the assassinating attempt was a fake, and the attorney pleaded guilty to the crime of filing a false police report. The New Jersey Supreme Court disciplined him by suspending his license for two years.
In another case, the attorney was trying to deceive his wife into believing he had obtained some better paying jobs. To support a complicated pattern of deception, among other things, he forged his wife’s signature on a power of attorney. He piled up a deep stack of dishonest acts, before his wife got suspicious and the attorney husband confessed.
The two were divorced and the wife’s attorney suggested she report the husband’s misconduct to the disciplinary board. She did. The Supreme Court of Ohio suspended his right to practice law for two years.
Mr. Carlson concludes his article with this advice and warning to attorneys: “Though admittedly on the outer edge of attorney misconduct, the above cases illustrate the proposition that attorneys may be disciplined for conduct occurring outside of the practice of law if the conduct adversely reflects upon the attorney’s honesty or integrity. Attorneys have an ethical obligation to be truthful, regardless of the location, the parties, or the circumstances.”
I might add everyone has an ethical obligation to be truthful. But only attorneys and few others are subject to such stringent requirements and possible sanctions, as those imposed by these Codes of Professional Responsibility. So based on his record to date, President Obama may join President Bill Clinton, as the only two presidents that have been subjected to disciplinary action under the Code of Professional Responsibility. And this perhaps shows we must credit the profession that receives so much criticism, sometimes undue but often due, for imposing such unique ethical requirements. And all of you will breathe a sigh of relief knowing that attorneys are under a binding obligation to tell the truth in all matters.
Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at [email protected]