type: timeline_event
On March 12, 2026, the Trump Department of Justice's proposed rule to shield government lawyers from state bar disciplinary proceedings drew renewed attention as the DC Bar opened an investigation into DOJ official Ed Martin. The rule, first proposed in late February 2026, would give the U.S. Attorney General a "right of first review" whenever a bar complaint was filed against a current or former DOJ lawyer for work conducted in an official capacity.
Under the proposed rule, the Attorney General could examine such complaints and suspend bar disciplinary investigations or proceedings while her review was ongoing. Should bar authorities refuse to comply with such a suspension, the DOJ could "take appropriate action to prevent" such interference. Critics and legal ethics experts characterized the rule as an unprecedented attempt by the executive branch to insulate its own lawyers from independent professional accountability.
The DOJ justified the proposal by arguing that "political activists have weaponized the bar complaint and investigation process" against senior officials including Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, and other career DOJ attorneys. The timing of the rule's public attention coincided with the DC Bar's move to investigate Ed Martin, a Trump DOJ official, for conduct in his official capacity.
Legal ethicists and bar association officials warned that the rule would effectively allow the president to shield lawyers who carried out potentially illegal orders from the only professional accountability mechanism not controlled by the executive branch, removing one of the last meaningful checks on DOJ conduct. The rule represented part of a broader pattern in which the Trump administration sought to eliminate or control every external oversight mechanism.