"Embarrassing": D.C. court flags Trump lawyer's filing because he's "not a member of the bar"

An attorney for Donald Trump must join the bar of a Washington, D.C., federal appellate court before he can participate in the former president's appeal of a partial gag order, the court said in a Wednesday letter. Trump lawyers John Lauro and Todd Blanche on Tuesday filed a notice of appeal in response to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan imposing an order barring parties in Trump's D.C. criminal case from making inflammatory public remarks about staff, potential witnesses and the prosecution.

In the letter to Lauro, the clerk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit informed him he must obtain membership in the court's bar before the court will accept any of his filings. "Our records reveal that you are not a member of the bar of this court," the letter states per The Messenger, adding, "Our rules do not allow us to accept filings from attorneys who are not members." Lauro's application to join the bar is due by Nov. 2, the clerk added. “I’ve been a member of the DC bar and the federal trial court bar for nearly 40 years," Lauro told The Messenger. "This is a routine request from the federal appellate court to join its bar, which I will do in order to represent President Trump in this important matter.”

"Woke up to find out that Trump’s lawyers are not licensed to practice in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. That’s such a Trumpy thing," Georgia State law professor Eric Segall wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Embarrassing," added former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team. But national security attorney Bradley Moss downplayed the issue. "Oh c’mon, folks. It’s an administrative issue that will quickly be remedied," he tweeted. Court records show that Trump's appeal has been docketed and assigned a case number.