A group of legal heavyweights on Tuesday asked the disciplinary panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals to investigate a former Department of Justice (DOJ) official who allegedly sought to use his official position in the federal government to overturn former President Trump’s election defeat.

In a 15-page ethics complaint, the group said former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark should face disciplinary action over his alleged attempt in late December to subvert the 2020 election result in part by proposing that he and two other top DOJ officials send letters to state leaders, including those in Georgia, making the unfounded claim that the department “identified concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states.”

A central allegation in the complaint is that Clark’s plan amounted to an attempt to interfere with the “administration of justice” by seeking to derail Congress’ Jan. 6 certification of Biden’s win. Such tampering is prohibited by the District’s ethics rules for lawyers.

Unlike other Trump-allied attorneys, some of whom have had their law licenses suspended or been hit with court sanctions, Clark so far hBut the complaint alleges that Clark's conduct as a DOJ official was even more egregious than that of sanctioned pro-Trump lawyers like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, whose efforts centered on court challenges and right-wing media appearances.

“[M]r. Clark made false statements about the integrity of the election in a concerted effort to disseminate an official statement of the United States Department of Justice that the election results in multiple states were unreliable,” reads the complaint. “While his conduct mirrored that of other lawyers who have been sanctioned for false statements, they operated on a considerably more dangerous scale with commensurately greater risk to our democracy.”as faced no repercussions.

A bipartisan group of former officials and legal heavyweights, including two former federal judges, asked the California bar association Monday to investigate the conduct of John Eastman, the adviser to then-President Donald Trump who mapped out a legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election results.

The complaint, also signed by two former justices of the California Supreme Court, cites Eastman’s work in election challenges rejected by the Supreme Court and his speech at a Jan. 6 rally in Washington before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol. But the 24-page memo centers on Eastman’s alleged role in pressing Vice President Mike Pence not to count electoral votes on Jan. 6 and certify President Biden as the winner.

“The available evidence supports a strong case that the State Bar should investigate whether, in the course of representing Mr. Trump, Mr. Eastman violated his ethical obligations as an attorney by filing frivolous claims, making false statements and engaging in deceptive conduct,” the letter said. “There is also a strong basis to investigate whether Mr. Eastman assisted in unlawful actions by his client, Mr. Trump,” to overturn the results of a legitimate election.

The complaint was written on behalf of the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan organization promoting election integrity co-chaired by former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican, and Norman Eisen, who served in the Obama White House and worked with House Democrats during the first Trump impeachment......

“Evidence indicates that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman initially sought to use the memoranda to force Mr. Pence to set aside ballots,” the complaint says. “If Mr. Eastman ever abandoned that argument, it was only because it had become clear that Mr. Pence would not yield on that issue. Mr. Eastman’s own account implicitly confirms that view, stating that the President’s demand was narrowed to delaying the count only ‘after all was said and done.’?”.....

“Mr. Eastman’s memoranda sought to justify a brazen power play by Mr. Trump that aimed to set aside the results of an election that had been repeatedly and authoritatively determined to be free and lawful, and to potentially install the loser of that election as a winner, based on nothing more than a false narrative that Mr. Trump had originally authored,” the complaints says.

A Texas pardon board on Monday recommended posthumous clemency for George Floyd for a 2004 drug conviction in Houston for which he spent 10 months in jail.

The Harris County Public Defender’s Office applied for clemency in April.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 to approve the request, Timothy McDonnell, a spokesman for the board, said in an email.

“The board does not conduct interviews regarding individual clemency recommendations. A recommendation is rendered on each case after the totality of information is considered,” McDonnell said.

The recommendation goes to Gov. Greg Abbott, who holds the final say on granting the pardon. Abbott's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Future United States President Donald Trump sued Univision last week, after the Spanish-language network said it would not be airing Trump’s Miss USA and Miss Universe beauty pageants due to his claim that illegal immigrants are “rapists.”

Trump, who says Univision is suppressing his freedom of speech, is seeking $500 million in damages. Meanwhile, Univision is dismissing the complaint as “factually false and legally ridiculous.”

It’s a familiar predicament for Trump.

Over the past few decades, the self-proclaimed “very rich” businessman has sued people, businesses and entire cities and countries. He’s sued a newspaper, his ex-wife, a quaint business card store in Georgia and a Native American tribe. He’s cried breach of contract, government favoritism, fraud, and libel.

Trump sues when he is made to feel small, insufficiently wealthy, threatened or mocked. He sues for sport, he sues to regain a sense of control, and he sues to make a point. He sues as a means of saying “you’re fired” to those he does not employ.

But he sues, most of all, to make headlines and to reinforce the notion that he is powerful. Below, I picked some of the highlights, through a review of news coverage of filed and threatened lawsuits.