Should the lawyers who plead guilty in cases related to election fraud be disciplined despite their plea agreements saying their crimes did not involve "moral turpitude"?

 If you have been paying attention to the news, you know by now that three lawyers have pled guilty in the RICO case in Georgia claiming that 19 defendants participated in an attempt to overturn the results of the last presidential election.  One of these - perhaps the lesser known of them - was Jenna Ellis who worked with Rudy Giuliani to press state legislatures to overturn the 2020 election results.  (The others are Sydney Powell, and Ken Chesebro).  

Ellis is an interesting figure in all this.  Earlier this year she admitted to having lied about the elections in order to avoid harsher discipline in Colorado but then promptly proceeded to lie about it in the media. (See here.)  And she has flipped-flopped about her opinion on Trump several times.  And now, she tearfully admitted to the charges in Georgia.  But she has no credibility when she says she regrets her conduct.

I am writing about this today to comment on the fact that the plea bargain agreements related to these lawyers have included explicit statements that the district attorney does not consider the crimes to be "of moral turpitude."  

Aside from the fact that I have never truly understood the concept of moral turpitude and how it is applied by courts and disciplinary agencies (go here and scroll down for my comments on this over the years), the specific use of this language in the bargaining agreements is meant to help the lawyers keep their law licenses despite their convictions.

I understand that this was probably a condition negotiated by the parties in order to get the defendants to  plead guilty and to cooperate with the prosecution.  Yet, I wonder how necessary it was to get that result.  

And, more importantly, I disagree with the suggestion that the lawyers should be allowed to keep their licenses.  Thus, I hope that the appropriate disciplinary agencies do not feel they are obligated to allow them to do so.  It is important to understand that the Georgia DA and the judge in the case can say whatever they want about moral turpitude, but they cannot tell the disciplinary agencies in other jurisdictions how to regulate the practice of law in their jurisdictions nor who to admit or disbar.  

Thus, the fact that the plea agreement says the crime committed wat not one of moral turpitude should not be a bar for a local disciplinary agency to bring disciplinary procedures against a lawyer for having violated a rule like Model Rule 8.4(b) which ways it is misconduct to "commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects." 

All of these lawyers have violated this rule and should be properly disciplined for it.  Ellis not only violated the rule, she then lied about it to the media, thus violating another rule (about engaging in dishonest conduct).  

For coverage on the guilty plea by Jenna Ellis, you can check out the following:

Above the Law

Politico

MSNBC

NPR

The Hill

Jurist

Politico