The left’s targeting of Rachel legally

Rachel Alexander is one of the most outspoken conservatives today. She started Intellectual Conservative in 2002, then progressed to writing for websites like Townhall, The Christian Post and Right Wing News. Even left-wing sites like the UK Guardian reached out to her and offered her paid writing gigs. 

In 2005, she was offered a job in Arizona as a deputy county attorney and adviser to newly elected Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, a conservative activist and Harvard educated lawyer. She accepted the position, and continued to expand her writing and websites, starting IC Arizona, a subsidiary of her main website, where she would  post press releases from Thomas.

She wrote many groundbreaking articles while working for Thomas, including one for Fox News that explained why the prosecutor’s office was attempting to prosecute someone for child pornography (she has a background in tech), and another article exposing the unfair, race-based DUI courts that the Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County had set up.

She was awarded the Right Online (Americans for Prosperity) activist of the year award in 2009 for her efforts. From 2011-2018, Right Wing News ranked her among the top 50 conservative columnists in the country.

But ironically, at the same time, for her courageousness in exposing left-wing abuses, she began to be viciously targeted in 2009 by the left, from both the Arizona State Bar and the left-leaning Arizona judiciary. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin has written the most comprehensive summary of what happened to Rachel here. 

It is astounding in so many ways, where to start to explain it all? Rachel’s former boss Thomas, along with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, attempted to prosecute corrupt county supervisors and complicit judges (the supervisors controlled the judges’ budgets so they were untouchable – oops!), for things like spending campaign money on thousands upon thousands of dollars on luxury personal items. Rachel had a very minor role in it all; her name was briefly put on a racketeering (RICO) complaint AFTER it had been filed, and almost none of her research was included on anything that was filed. She was briefly assigned to only that one complaint, as a lesser attorney, supervised under the “RICO” expert in the office. The complaint was withdrawn two and half months later, so nothing ever happened. But based on this, powerful left-wing attorneys connected to the county supervisors and judges who control the State Bar came after her too along with her boss and one of his senior prosecutors. Notably, they did not come after her immediate supervisor, the apolitical RICO expert who had a much larger role in the RICO complaint, drafting and finalizing some of the pleadings, unlike her.

At one point, the Bar prosecutors demanded to know everything she had ever written online — including anonymously — in the last five years, a gross violation of free speech. Halfway through the bar trial against her – which was livestreamed for over two months for everyone to see, at a cost of over $500,000 for everything including bringing in pricey attorneys from out of state – the Bar’s attorneys realized how weak their case was against her, and offered her settlements. At first, they offered her two years probation. She refused, based on principle, since she hadn’t done anything wrong. Then, they offered her one year of probation. She refused again. Finally, when the trial was almost over, and they realized how ridiculous their case was, they offered her a settlement of just taking a few extra continuing legal education courses. Again, she refused based on principle – she had done nothing wrong. Many people would have caved at this point. Not Rachel. She stuck it out to the bitter end, in order to make sure this kind of abuse can’t happen to others, and will do what she can to make it happen, which includes converting the Bar to a voluntary association, as it is in about half the states. She helped with bills in the Arizona legislature to accomplish this, but so far has had no success going up against the Bar's powerful lobbyists. The Arizona Bar charges very high annual dues to attorneys so they have deep pockets. 

With a complicit State Bar disciplinary judge, who was reportedly put in the position since he would do the bidding of the State Bar – who has his own history of corruption –  they disbarred Rachel’s former boss, one of his lead prosecutors, and suspended Rachel from practicing law for six months.

The corrupt Maricopa County Supervisors quit paying for her defense, and so she was forced to appeal her suspension to the Arizona Supreme Court pro se, spending hours researching and writing a 30+ page appeal herself. She was able to get her sentence reduced slightly in the appeal, but not by much. The left-wing Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rubberstamped the lower court's decision and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to accept certiorati.

The strain of trying to support her then-husband and his four children with a fulltime job and extra part-time jobs, combined with the neverending legal work, destroyed her health, and she developed a hernia, had her gallbladder removed, became chronically fatigued and suffered all kinds of health problems.

She was supposed to be automatically readmitted to the Bar after six months, but the Bar continues to do everything it can to keep her from being readmitted. They will not readmit her unless she pays $101,500 for prosecuting her AND her boss and his chief prosecutor! This is no joke. She is being held liable for the actions of her superiors! The Bar's outside attorney who prosecuted them told them in an email that they would not be held accountable for the costs of bringing him and his team in from another state, but the Bar did not uphold this assurance and charged Rachel and the other two all the costs of their meals, hotels, plane tickets, etc. 

Years later, this corrupt cabal continues to do everything it can to keep Rachel from clearing her name and getting her license reinstated. It has cost her thousands of dollars for out of pocket expenses to attorneys to try and fight it. Most of the rest of the legal work she was forced to do herself along with her ex-boss’s senior prosecutor who was also targeted. Rachel sued the county supervisors to recover the $101,500 – she fortunately found an attorney who was so incensed by the injustice that he represented her on contingency fee, requiring costs only –  but the supervisors spent taxpayer dollars galore to fight back, and the Bar has unlimited resources, having just increased membership dues for attorneys, no doubt as a result of this expensive disciplinary case and show trial. The Bar eventually went after the kind attorney who was helping her and disbarred him. 

Read more about Rachel’s case