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OPINION

Project Veritas’s James O’Keefe Is Not the Only Conservative Wrongly Targeted by the Feds Recently

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File

Another newly launched criminal proceeding that is not getting much attention lately but which is very similar to the Biden administration’s witch hunt after James O’Keefe and Project Veritas is the September arrest of conservative attorney Jeffrey Moffatt. In 2016, Moffatt and his wife ran as Republicans for the state legislature and Congress in California, and as a result the Arizona State Bar, which has a lengthy history of targeting conservatives, went after Moffatt for a small infraction that blew up into arresting and prosecuting him when he fought back. 

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Unfortunately, the facts in Moffatt’s case are so complex and convoluted — the left deliberately uses complex methods to target conservatives through the legal system for that reason, something the right can’t do since the left dominates much of the legal system — that it’s not easy to get anyone to understand the corruption. 

Basically, Arizona Bar disciplinary Judge Willam O’Neil — whose legal authority has been questioned by many, which no doubt led to him stepping down this year — issued a disbarment order against Moffatt over consensual flirting that appeared improper with a woman he didn’t know who lived in New Mexico. Moffatt hadn’t even practiced law in Arizona for years — more evidence the Arizona Bar reaches out to aggressively target conservative attorneys. Attorneys have done far more serious things, like sexual harassment, sex with clients, etc. and O’Neil merely gave them a slap on the hand. 

But Moffatt is an easy target in this #MeToo era, and even though he brought up evidence showing the woman complained about him because she was trying to extort him, it didn’t matter, the left pounced on him in order to hold him up as an example of an evil conservative and destroy his chances at running for office — especially his wife’s chances since she is black, and we all know the left treats conservative minorities worse than white minorities. 

The feds arrested Moffatt in September, on the ruse of claiming he had not disclosed to the Social Security Administration that he was disbarred. He’d continued his practice of representing clients trying to obtain disability status in front of the SSA, which didn’t require a bar license, and it was very obvious the SSA knew that he was disbarred because he sued them over it! Tellingly, Moffatt was not arrested until after Biden was in office and in control of the Department of Justice — even though they knew going back to 2018 when Moffatt was involved in litigation with the SSA over the disbarment. 

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The arrest was meant to shut him down from exposing how corrupt the Arizona Bar is. Most attorneys who are wrongly disciplined by the Bar keep their heads down because they’ve learned from previous attorneys who were targeted that the Bar will keep after them for years with its deep pockets to thoroughly destroy them, ruining their careers and reputations with horrible media coverage and massive financial punishment if they fight back or go public.

In the Project Veritas case, feds put founder O’Keefe in handcuffs as they searched his home due to reports that the organization had obtained the diary of President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley. A tipster told Project Veritas they found the diary after she abandoned it in a room, and Project Veritas never published anything from it since they could not verify its authenticity, eventually turning it over to law enforcement. The vicious attack on Project Veritas is fortunately getting some pushback in the MSM, due to old-fashioned liberal journalists realizing how terrifying it is. 

The reason the feds are going after Moffatt is simple: They are setting up an easy-to-get precedent (because he’s an unsympathetic target) to then use when going after other conservatives. 

However, the left may regret overreaching. This is going to expose how corrupt the Arizona Bar is. There are plenty of conservative attorneys who have been disbarred solely because of their politics who will now go public. It will reveal how the Arizona Bar has gotten away with acting like a quasi-governmental agency with draconian power over attorneys, while asserting it is not open to public records laws because it’s private. 

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You can’t have it both ways. An Arizona court recently ruled that Cyber Ninjas, which conducted the Maricopa County independent ballot audit, must turn over documents requested by the media in public records requests, even though it is a private entity. This precedent sets the stage to open up the Arizona Bar as well.

And it will finally also open up scrutiny into the corruption of O’Neil. His position as an unelected judge over a private entity masquerading as a government agency with a unionlike hold over attorneys in a right-to-work state is finally hitting the news. There are suspicions about his oath of office, which appears to have never been signed.

Lawsuits around the country, including by the Goldwater Institute, have been filed against state bars attempting to remove them from the unfair private-public hold they have over attorneys and the legal system, but so far they have made little progress since judges deciding the cases are themselves terrified of the state bars. Legislation is regularly proposed in state legislatures to dismantle mandatory state bars, but also makes no progress because few attorneys serving in the legislatures dare to vote for it, and they’re up against many powerful lobbyists since the state bars have huge pockets from overcharging dues (the Arizona Bar has the second highest dues in the country for a mandatory bar). 

Moffatt is in nine separate courts fighting the disbarment, but so far has had no luck because it is traditional for other courts to rubber stamp disciplinary action against attorneys from other courts. Judges don’t like to challenge state bars. Moffatt is facing 40 years in prison if convicted.

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Hopefully outrage over the Project Veritas criminal investigation will shine some light on these other cases. Americans are at imminent risk, they are not safe under the Biden administration. The left has figured out how to weaponize the criminal justice system against outspoken conservatives. 

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