Trump campaign lawyers worry about pushing lawsuits that could undermine election: report

President Trump’s legal battles being waged in battleground states are leaving some attorneys at law firms representing his campaign worried they are helping to undermine the integrity of American elections, according to a report by The New York Times.

The newspaper interviewed several lawyers at Jones Day and Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, firms representing Trump’s campaign. According to the report, lawyers from the latter law firm have held meetings to voice their discomfort with what they are being tasked to do. The Times reported that one lawyer quite his job in protest. 

Lawyers from both firms have filed four lawsuits in Pennsylvania, looking for avenues through which to call into question the security of the elections process, alleging voting irregularities in the state.

Donald F. McGahn II, a partner at Jones Day, worked as Trump’s outside lawyer in 2016 and later joined his White House counsel before returning to the law firm. Lawyers at Jones Day were reportedly uncomfortable with seeing McGahn so closely associated with Trump. The law firm is estimated to have made about $20 million since becoming involved with Trump.

Jones Day’s involvement with Trump has not gone unnoticed, the Times notes. Last week, a mural reading “Jones Day, Hands Off Our Ballots” was painted on the streets outside the firm’s San Francisco office.

The New York Times reported that the firm has been part of about 20 lawsuits involving the president, his campaign or the Republican Party. However, the firm has had to reassure clients that their work with Trump has no bearing on their legal work for other lawsuits and issues.

The law firm has worked on lawsuits calling for gun control and has represented unaccompanied minors detained by the federal government.

“Many of the GOP’s litigation concerns are meritorious in principle,” Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a former Republican election lawyer at Jones Day, wrote in The Washington Post in September. “But the president’s inflammatory language undercuts the claim that Republicans seek merely to uphold statutory safeguards needed to validate the results’ credibility.”

Both Democratic and Republican partners at Jones Day told The New York Times that regardless of how their employees felt, the firm was obligated to continue representing long-term clients.

As the newspaper noted, the law firm has represented a multitude of polarizing clients such as “Big Tobacco,” the Bin Laden family and Art Modell, the reviled former owner of the Cleveland Browns.