Dem
51
GOP
49
At one point, we didn't think Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) wanted to be Donald Trump's running mate because she has a toddler at home and veep candidates have to spend months away from home campaigning. Boy, were we ever wrong. Sorry about that. Her political instincts have clearly Trumped her maternal instincts. She very dearly wants the #2 slot and will do anything she can think of to butter up Dear Leader.
Her latest ploy is to file an ethics complaint with the New York Bar Association complaining that NY AG Letitia James is biased and shouldn't have filed a lawsuit alleging that the Trump Organization ripped off banks and insurance companies by giving them fake data to get better deals than they would have gotten with the truth. Stefanik's complaint is 19 pages long with 75 footnotes. It is written in Middle English, as all legal documents are. If you are a lawyer and want to read it, here it is. It concludes with:
Ms. James violated multiple Rules of Professional Conduct through her comments during trial and by actions and comments that adversely reflect on her fitness as a lawyer. I urge the Attorney Grievance Committee to investigate Ms. James' conduct. To remedy the significant and ongoing harm to the public and to protect the profession, Ms. James should be suspended on an interim basis, and then she should be disbarred or suspended.
There is also an appendix with 53 of James' tweets.
Note that Stefanik is not a lawyer and never attended law school. It is inconceivable that she understands a word of her complaint, let alone that she wrote any of it. Either a lawyer on her staff or an outside lawyer wrote it. For a non-lawyer who knows nothing about New York Bar rules dealing with legal ethics, and who has nothing to do with the case, to ask for an elected attorney general to be disbarred or suspended for prosecuting a case clearly within her jurisdiction takes grandstanding to a whole new level. Stefanik is going to take a lot of flak for this stunt. Yesterday was Valentine's Day. We think she should simply have sent the apple of her eye a card like this yesterday:
Will the stunt work? With Trump, you never know, and a not-so-subtle bit of fawning in public often helps. But this kind of stuff from the fourth-ranked Republican in the House is really pretty demeaning. (V)