Marc Elias, the controversial election fraud denying progressive election attorney who intervenes in election lawsuits and files bar complaints against conservative election attorneys, filed complaints with attorney regulation in Maryland and Washington D.C. earlier this month against Kari Lake’s attorney Kurt Olsen. Elias, who has been nicknamed a “Democratic superlawyer,” also released a video discussing successes in targeting conservative election attorneys.
Elias’s Democracy Docket stated in a press release on July 12 that Olsen “spread election lies while representing Election Deniers, including Kari Lake, in frivolous election lawsuits.” Gillian Feiner, Senior Counsel at the States United Democracy Center, said in the press release, “Kurt Olsen has abused his law license to spread lies about our elections in the courtroom time and time again, and his pattern of unethical conduct shows he’s not going to stop.”
Democracy Docket named Olsen’s role in the Texas v. Pennsylvania election lawsuit and his work representing Lake, citing “sanctions and discipline that Olsen already faces in Arizona for related conduct.” The State Bar of Arizona has not concluded its disciplinary case against Olsen.
The Arizona Supreme Court recently ruled that election attorneys should not be subject to discipline for bringing election lawsuits. The state’s highest court said in a unanimous opinion in May that there is some merit to election lawsuits, even if a “long shot,” and ruling against those who bring them for questioning an “election’s legitimacy” would have a “chilling effect.”
In a video entitled “Trump’s 2020 Lawyers are Getting Suspended and Disbarred,” posted to his almost 100,000 Democracy Docket subscribers on YouTube on June 24, Elias (pictured above) said, “More than three years after lawyers helped Donald Trump in his election subversion scheme, justice is coming for them.”
Elias declared that lawyers “cannot use your law degree as a shield to, basically, engage in insurrection.” However, no one — including both lawyers and J6 protesters — has been charged or convicted of insurrection for the events surrounding the 2020 presidential election.
Elias went on, “Frankly, I’ve been [disappointed] to see how slowly that process has moved, how slowly, frankly, the criminal cases have also moved. But it is heartening to see that in many places, the bar associations are catching up. They have started taking action, and that in time for 2024 they are sending a clear message that they will not tolerate the kind of anti-democracy actions, the kind of attacks on the American electoral system that we saw lawyers facilitate in 2020. … Without those lawyers, Donald Trump [would not have] gotten as far as he did in trying to subvert the election results.”
He praised the New York Appellate Court for suspending the law license of Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani seven months after the 2020 election. “I give a lot of credit to New York, which moved relatively quickly,” he said. “Very quickly, in fact, to suspend Rudy Giuliani in New York.”
Elias said bar associations shouldn’t allow lawyers to delay the process like criminal defendants can do. “Lawyers are not going to do the functional equivalent of what Donald Trump has done with criminal process, which is, delay, delay, delay, and in the meantime, you know, our democracy suffers.”
He urged state bars to take action without waiting for criminal charges, noting that “in many of these cases, what caused the bars to act was not just the underlying conduct, but was the criminal charges. And again, we cannot have a system that relies on criminal criminality, to be the only threshold for the bars to take effective action.”
Elias praised Trump’s former attorney Jenna Ellis for apologetically telling the Colorado Bar she “spread misrepresentations” about the 2020 election, and for making statements against Trump while pleading guilty to a felony in the Fulton County RICO prosecution.
“If I knew then what I knew now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges,” she said in court. “I look back on this experience with deep remorse.” Ellis also posted on X that Kari Lake was a “grifter” for continuing her appeal regarding Arizona’s gubernatorial race.
Elias said, “Of all of these people, the one person who I think has come closest to taking responsibility has actually been Jenna Ellis. So it’s probably appropriate that she already got a suspension.” Initially, the Colorado Bar merely censured Ellis after her admission. But after Fulton County DA Fanni Willis allowed her to accept a deal pleading guilty to aiding and abetting false statements, resulting in five years probation, the Colorado Bar suspended her license for three years.
Elias expressed concern that while in the past, “who is going to hire a reinstated lawyer who has been, who has pled guilty to the charges,” now those attorneys may be able to get around the destruction of their careers.
“Would it shock you if you saw that Donald Trump — if you were, if you were, God forbid, to be elected, that you might actually name some of these people into high positions in government?” he suggested. “I mean, you could face … John Eastman, being a convicted felon, a disbarred lawyer and the Attorney General of the United States.” Eastman was disbarred in California for his work advising Trump and challenging illegalities in the 2020 election.
Elias suggested that Giuliani could also resurrect his legal career. “You could see Rudy Giuliani, who is now like, been found, you know, has been suspended in disbarment,” Elias said. “He’s been criminally indicted. He has been — he’s bankrupt. He’s been found civilly liable for defamation. Like, would it shock you? Would it shock you if Donald Trump, if you were elected, appointed Rudy Giuliani to some high position in government? And the answer is no, and that just speaks to the course and the degrading of civil society and our governmental institutions.”
Elias’s co-host Paige Moskowitz brought up targeting Republican attorneys general. “I’m thinking of all those attorneys general who signed on to the lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s election results in 2020, for example, have they faced any consequences professionally or criminally for their actions?” she asked Elias.
He responded, “The Republican AGS have started to coalesce — or not started to — they have coalesced into a very extreme potent faction in the war against democracy … bringing all kinds of claims that are deeply, deeply offensive to notions of their play in democracy, and to free and fair elections and voting rights.”
Elias complained, “The bar associations have not touched the attorneys general around their role in the 2020 election, nor in some of the positions they are staking out since then.”
He singled out Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. “There’s probably no worse place to look to right now than Texas, right where Ken Paxton, the attorney general, has argued immunity, but he’s also become more of a folk hero,” Elias said. “He has become a more potent power, both inside the Republican Party in Texas. And also, and also nationally.” The State Bar of Texas is currently conducting disciplinary proceedings against Paxton.
Elias mused about the attorneys who continue litigating election illegalities. “Do they think it will lead to ruin, like it seems to have led to ruin for Rudy Giuliani, or do they think it is a springboard to higher office?” he asked. “Do they think they will be the next cause celeb of Donald Trump at his rallies?”
George Washington Law Professor Jonathan Turley compiled a list in May of improper behavior by Elias. Elias was sanctioned by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2021 for “misleading” filings in an election lawsuit. The court said he “unreasonably and vexatiously” drew out a lawsuit challenging a Texas law on marking ballots, and required him to pay the legal fees for the State of Texas. Elias failed to inform the court that he had filed a “nearly identical” motion previously in the case that was thrown out.
Elias was accused of lying about his role in the Steele dossier scandal by journalists and others, denying any involvement. The Democratic National Committee cut ties with him last year, after paying him $1.9 million in the election cycle leading up until then, and much more going back to 2009.
In one of Elias’s election cases, challenging a witness requirement for absentee voting in Wisconsin, the judge threw out his lawsuit and ridiculed him. U.S. District Judge James Peterson said,“Normally, the court would begin by searching for other textual clues in the statute. But in this case, the most obvious problem with plaintiffs’ interpretation is that it simply does not make any sense.”
Democracy Docket said it has also filed bar complaints against 2020 election attorneys Eastman, Ellis, Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark, and Kenneth Chesebro.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Marc Elias” by Democracy Docket.
