THREAD on @CletaMitchell, @realDonaldTrump and @FoleyandLar…

Dear Natalie, Edmund, Nanette, Courtenay, Christopher, Julia, Jasmine, Navid, Heidi, Sarah, Kristine, Gregory, Sarah, Michael, Eric, Nicole, Nicholas, Shane, Frank, Libby, Lori, Christopher, Charles, Kathryn, Joseph, Andrew, David, Sommer, Randolph: 2/

i am writing to each of you as @FoleyandLardner attorneys, and fellow @UVA graduates and members of your respective bar associations, to ask that you address your partner Cleta Mitchell's active involvement in the alarming, undemocratic, and potentially illegal phone call 3/

to Georgia's secretary of state that occurred this weekend. I graduated from the School of Law in 2004, and two of my sisters received their undergraduate degrees from UVA as well (go 'Hoos!) 3/

As we all know, it's impossible to graduate from UVA without deep inculcation in the values of the Honor Code. And, obviously, the ethical requirements of our respective bar associations impose on us the requirements to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. 4/

If you have not read the transcript of the phone call, you can do so here. I listened to it as well. What you hear is the President openly suborning election fraud, while in the process employing threats & coercion of criminal prosecution to insert the executive branch into 4/

the election process of a state (elections are conducted solely under state law, with the Supreme Court stating that Bush v. Gore would have no precedential value), aided and abetted by an attorney who any internet search will tell you is a partner at your law firm -- 5/

one of the country's finest. This while the Supreme Court and dozens of other court decisions have repudiated virtually every single case brought, and while the states have all lawfully certified their elections. It was an unlawful and undemocratic, authoritarian & deeply 6/

unethical attempt to reverse a lawful election, more befitting a banana republic where lawyers are not a self-regulated profession and where they do the bidding of autocrats -- as your partner did in that call. In thinking about what to do, I came up with the idea 7/

of contacting you, individually and collectively, to implore you to take some kind of action to repudiate this conduct by your partner and in so doing, demonstrate that you, your firm, the UVA alumni community, and the American bar stands on the side of the rule of law, 8/

the Constitution, and democracy itself.

Thank you for reading and considering.

Sincerely,

Michael Signer '04 (Law)

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