LDAD learned earlier this week that the District of Columbia Office of Disciplinary Counsel has declined to investigate the complaint filed by LDAD and prominent DC lawyers—including four former DC Bar Presidents —against the now former U.S. Attorney General William Barr. 

LDAD learned of the decision when it contacted the Office of Disciplinary Counsel to determine why it had not received written acknowledgment of the ethics complaint it filed last July. We were informed that the original complaint had been rejected last August via email. That email did not identify the Disciplinary Counsel as the sender and did not come from an email address that identified the sender and was treated as junk mail.

Putting aside the inadequate communication about a serious matter, the grounds for the rejection are deeply disturbing for the reasons that one of the signers of the complaint, Michael Frisch, described in a post on the Legal Profession blog.  

The original complaint describes serious professional misconduct by Mr. Barr, as our chief law enforcement officer, and aspects of that misconduct were sharply criticized recently in an opinion by a federal district court judge. 

The Office of Disciplinary Counsel wrote that it was declining to investigate because it “will not intervene in matters that are currently and publicly being discussed in the political arena,” because Barr is a “public figure,” and because complainants “lack personal knowledge of the facts or allegations concerning Mr. Barr.”  

To review the DC ODC letter declining to investigate, please click here.
 
Signed,
The Steering Committee of Lawyers Defending American Democracy