Topline
Conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell resigned from the law firm Foley & Lardner Tuesday, the firm said in a statement, after the lawyer participated in President Donald Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger trying to overturn the presidential election results and her involvement in Trump’s post-election efforts became public.
Attorney Cleta Mitchell
Key Facts
Mitchell, a leading GOP attorney who has represented such clients as the National Rifle Association, has “been involved with” the Trump campaign’s post-election legal efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on the call with Raffensperger, but her participation was first exposed Sunday when the Washington Post reported Trump’s call with Raffensperger.
According to an audio recording of the call, Mitchell repeatedly backed Trump’s false claims of voter fraud and suggested she was directly involved with the Trump campaign’s litigation in the state.
Foley & Lardner, where Mitchell was a partner, said in a statement Monday it was “aware of, and are concerned by” the attorney’s participation in the Georgia call, in which Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory.
The law firm said in a statement Tuesday that Mitchell had resigned “effective immediately,” believing her departure “was in the firm’s best interests, as well as in her own personal best interests.”
In an email to clients and friends reported by the New York Times, Mitchell said she left the firm because of a “a massive pressure campaign in the last several days mounted by leftist groups via social media and other means against me, my law firm and clients of the law firm.”
Crucial Quote
“With the ever more brazen attacks on conservatives and, most especially, anyone who supports and wants to help President Trump...I realize that a large national law firm is no longer the right platform for me or my law practice,” Mitchell reportedly wrote in her email, vowing to “redouble” her efforts against purported voter fraud now that she’s left the firm.
Key Background
Mitchell’s departure from Foley & Lardner is the latest instance of GOP-allied attorneys facing consequences for their participation in Trump and his allies’ post-election legal efforts, which have been overwhelmingly unsuccessful and widely derided by legal experts. Former Trump legal advisor Sidney Powell is facing potential sanctions in Michigan for her unsuccessful litigation challenging the election results, and judges in multiple other GOP-led cases have also suggested attorneys could face consequences for bringing the cases. Dominion Voting Systems, whose voting machines are at the heart of a baseless election fraud theory Powell has promoted, confirmed to Forbes Monday it also intends to sue Powell for defamation likely this week. Foley & Lardner’s concern over Mitchell’s involvement with Trump also follows other major law firms that have distanced themselves from Trump’s post-election litigation: Porter Wright Morris & Arthur withdrew from representing the Trump campaign in a Pennsylvania lawsuit, while Snell & Willmer withdrew from representing the Republican National Committee in a post-election lawsuit in Arizona that Trump was involved with. Jones Day, which represented GOP plaintiffs in a mail-in voting lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court, issued a statement in November emphasizing the firm is “not representing President Trump, his campaign, or any affiliated party in any litigation alleging voter fraud” or any lawsuits “challenging or contesting” election results.
Further Reading
Who’s Cleta Mitchell, Trump’s Lawyer On Georgia Call? (Forbes)
Cleta Mitchell, who advised Trump on Saturday phone call, resigns from law firm (Washington Post)
‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor (Washington Post)
Cleta Mitchell, a key figure in president’s phone call, was an early backer of Trump’s election fraud claims (Washington Post)
