Donald Trump supporters outside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, Wikimedia Commons
Hailing it as a "truly heartening" decision while Donald Trump acts with almost total impunity, legal expert Steven Lubet commended the disbarment recommendation against a MAGA lawyer for taking part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Writing for The Hill on Monday, Lubet, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law and prolific writer on the subject of legal ethics, relayed the story of Georgia-based lawyer, William McCall Calhoun Jr. Last month, Lubet explained, the state's nine Supreme Court Justices, including eight Republican appointees, unanimously issued an opinion that Calhoun must be disbarred for his participation in the Capitol Riots.
While Trump issued a mass pardon for all Jan. 6 participants when he returned to the White House, and while he himself acts with "total immunity" granted to him by the U.S. Supreme Court, Lubet held up the ruling against Calhoun as an example of meaningful consequences for "law-breaking" committed in the name of the MAGA movement.
"There have been few if any lasting consequences for crimes or malfeasance in Trump world," he wrote. "It was, therefore, truly heartening to see a group of Republicans acknowledge that law-breaking must be meaningfully penalized, even if committed under the MAGA banner."
Calhoun was arrested not long after his participation in the Capitol riots back in 2021, and was ultimately convicted on four misdemeanors and one felony charge. In addition to being sentenced to serve 18 months in prison, his law license was also suspended.
Despite his conviction being wiped away by Trump last year, Calhoun remained disbarred in Georgia, a fact he petitioned to have overturned. The state's bar disciplinary counsel decided that the petition had merit and that only “a public reprimand was warranted.” Last month, however, the state's Supreme Court denied the petition.
“Pardons do not prevent disbarment for the underlying activity that formed the basis of the crime," the court's ruling detailed, concluding that it was "hard … to see how anything less than disbarment can be accepted."
”The Republican-led state Supreme Court has now exemplified the same integrity by disregarding Trump’s blanket pardons and recognizing the true nature of the Jan. 6 attack," Lubet wrote. "It was not a 'day of love' or a 'normal tourist visit,' or even a 'political protest that got out of hand.' Jan. 6 was an insurrection, and insurrectionists will not be practicing law in Georgia any time soon."