Without a whisper, David Brock once again took his seat in that deep club chair, the one upholstered in battered oxblood leather and steeped in quiet menace. He reached for his tailor-crafted inner pocket, drawing from it a fresh Davidoff 702 Double R. The oily Ecuadorian leaf caught flame with practiced ease, releasing those same familiar notes of dark chocolate and café crema. Nearby, a Baccarat tumbler appeared in a silent ritual of service, filled just so with Pappy Van Winkle, as though it had always been there. This wasn’t just habit. It was stagecraft, and the man in the chair was directing a performance with constitutional consequences.
There was no need for preamble. Those in the room knew why they were there. Brock was about to reintroduce the legal profession to its own velvet-clad nightmare. His audience, a quiet circle of left-wing patrons and media barons, leaned in as he explained the next phase of his campaign, not against Donald Trump per se, but against anyone daring to offer him or his allies a legal defense. This wasn’t about winning court cases. This was about ensuring those cases were never filed at all.
The 65 Project, Brock explained, was not an electoral effort. It was not a messaging campaign. It was war. A war against the 6th Amendment, that slender but essential clause guaranteeing every American the right to legal counsel. Its aim? To deprive Republicans, particularly those challenging elections or government orthodoxy, of any capable legal defense.
Run through Brock’s network of nonprofits and housed under Law Works, the 65 Project deployed seasoned political operatives to file bar complaints, ethics charges, and sanctions motions against Trump-affiliated attorneys. The power of the model lay in its asymmetry. A single complaint, even meritless, could cost an attorney tens of thousands of dollars and a year or more in disciplinary review. And even if dismissed, the stain was permanent.
In 2025, this campaign has not slowed. In February, the 65 Project filed a high-profile complaint against Edward Martin, then the interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia. His offense? Alleged conflicts of interest tied to representing January 6 defendants before his federal appointment. The complaint cited violations of Rule 4-1.7 of professional conduct, a detail blasted across the headlines of friendly media outlets. As of June, there is no word on whether the complaint succeeded, but that isn’t the point. The accusation is the punishment.
Incredibly, the 65 Project also targeted the sitting Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi. On June 5, 2025, a coalition including the 65 Project, Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and Lawyers for the Rule of Law filed a 23-page ethics complaint with the Florida Bar, accusing Bondi of “serious professional misconduct.” The complaint alleged that Bondi threatened DOJ lawyers with discipline or termination for failing to pursue President Trump’s political objectives, particularly via a February 5 “zealous advocacy” memo. It claimed her actions led to resignations and firings in violation of DOJ norms and Florida Bar rules. Yet, on June 6, the Florida Bar summarily rejected the complaint, citing a policy against investigating sitting officers appointed under the US Constitution. It was the third such complaint against Bondi, and the third rejection. Critics like DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle called the filings “vexatious” and politically motivated. That the 65 Project would go after a sitting Attorney General at all illustrates the sheer audacity, and absurdity, of their campaign. They have announced they will be filing more complaints against Bondi.
Even more outrageous, the same coalition named two additional Trump administration officials in their June 5 complaint: Emil Bove, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General and Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General. The complaint accused them contributing to a culture of unethical conduct within the Justice Department by pressuring career lawyers to ignore professional responsibilities and instead pursue political objectives at the behest of President Trump. The goal was clear: not just to intimidate one leader, but to undermine the credibility of an entire legal team working within the bounds of the law.
This complaint, like so many others, underscores the project’s enduring mission: to ensure lawyers think twice before defending Trump or any of his associates. Public defenders and private litigators alike have been swept into the net. Whether you were in court for Giuliani, or simply filed an amicus brief on election integrity, the 65 Project likely has your name on a list.
This strategy, weaponizing legal ethics as a partisan bludgeon, would have made Boss Tweed grin from ear to ear. Backroom operators like Col. George Brinton McClellan Harvey would recognize it instantly. Harvey, managing editor of the Democratic Party’s press empire at the turn of the 20th century, orchestrated conventions from smoke-filled rooms in Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel, where policies were written not in law books, but on cocktail napkins between puffs of Havana cigars. Brock, in many ways, is his spiritual heir, using legal bureaucracy the way Harvey used ink and influence.
The Biden-appointed judiciary has not resisted. In Michigan, Democratic activists succeeded in convincing a federal judge to sanction every lawyer who filed election-related litigation for Trump in 2020. Among them: Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, and Stefanie Junttila. Each was ordered to pay legal fees to Democratic Party groups and attend re-education courses, under the euphemism of continuing legal education. The court referred them for possible disbarment, fulfilling Brock’s vision.
Michael Teter, managing director of the 65 Project, has filed complaints against more than 100 attorneys across 26 states. The targets include high-profile figures like Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, and Cleta Mitchell. And while many of these complaints were dismissed by mid-2023, the damage to reputations and client relationships lingers.
The project’s tactics have drawn sharp rebuke. Congressman Lance Gooden, in April 2025, called the 65 Project a “political hit squad” and demanded a Justice Department investigation. Others on social media have accused the group of colluding with establishment Republicans to kneecap Trump’s legal allies. Yet Brock’s defenders frame the group as guardians of democracy, protecting the legal profession from ethical collapse.
Such framing is dishonest. When Alan Dershowitz defended Al Gore in 2000, no one suggested he should be disbarred for challenging election results. But now, lawyers challenging questionable election conduct on behalf of Republicans face professional ruin. This is not accountability. It is ideological warfare.
Critics may point out that the 65 Project has not secured many disbarments. That may be true, but they have achieved some high-profile penalties. Jenna Ellis was publicly censured by a Colorado judge in March 2023. Rudy Giuliani had his law license suspended in New York and is facing permanent disbarment proceedings in Washington, DC. John Eastman was disbarred in California following a March 27, 2024, decision by State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland, who found him culpable of 10 out of 11 disciplinary charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. His license was placed on involuntary inactive status days later, rendering him ineligible to practice law in California. Eastman has appealed, but as of June 15, 2025, no reversal has been reported. He was also suspended from practicing law in Washington, DC, on May 3, 2024, pending resolution of the California case. Lin Wood surrendered his law license in Georgia under pressure from multiple complaints. These results are rare but not insignificant. Still, the goal was never just disbarment. It was deterrence. It was a public display of consequence, a digital scarlet letter. No need to win in court when you can win in LinkedIn’s HR department.
The project has inspired imitators including the Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and Lawyers for the Rule of Law. The Lincoln Project also targets law firms, encouraging junior associates to pressure partners against accepting GOP clients. Shutdown DC and the Un-American Bar maintain lists of “insurrectionist” lawyers. Others push the American Bar Association to adopt rules banning election challenges altogether, cloaking censorship in the rhetoric of professionalism.
Marc Elias, the left’s court general, has taken the mission even further, seeking to disqualify GOP candidates under the 14th Amendment, resurrecting post-Civil War measures to bar Trump allies from holding office. Lawsuits against Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and others reflect this broader ecosystem of lawfare. It is a constellation of coordinated attacks designed to render conservative legal advocacy untenable.
And what of the Constitution? The Sixth Amendment was never meant to be partisan. It exists not to protect the powerful, but the accused. In America, even pariahs have lawyers. Even the guilty deserve defense. The 65 Project’s perverse genius is to flip that premise, treating legal representation as complicity, and enforcing political loyalty through professional terror.
David Brock did not build this machinery alone. Melissa Moss, a Clinton veteran, helped architect the effort. She recruited Democratic grandees, Tom Daschle, ABA presidents, former state judges, to lend legitimacy. Their goal? To make conservative legal advocacy professionally radioactive.
And it may be working. Some lawyers are declining GOP clients outright. Others fear disciplinary complaints, X mobs, or worse. The chilling effect is real, and precisely what the architects intended. The War on the Sixth is a war on courage, a war on professional independence, a war on the idea that justice should be blind.
In the end, Brock’s smoke-filled rooms are not about cigars or cocktails. They are about control. They are about ensuring that when Republicans step into a courtroom, they do so alone.
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