Lin Wood, a high-profile Georgia attorney who accepted and promoted former President Donald Trump’s false 2020 election claims, told the state bar association he was retiring amid disciplinary investigations.
“I understand that this request is unconditional, irreversible and permanent,” Wood said in a statement. letter to the Georgia State Bar Association seeking to be transferred to “retired status.”
“Further, I understand and acknowledge that if I am granted retired status, I am prohibited from practicing law in this state and any other state or jurisdiction and may not reapply for admission,” he wrote in the letter, which he posted on your Telegram account. .
Georgia officials had been weighing whether to debar Wood, who it had been involved in legal challenges seeking to overturn the results of the last presidential election, holding a disciplinary trial earlier this year.
Wood sued the state bar association in 2022, alleging that the bar association’s request that he undergo a mental health evaluation as part of its investigation violated his constitutional rights, but a federal appeals court threw out that ruling, saying that Wood did not show that there was “bad faith” behind it. application.
Because he was the subject of disciplinary proceedings, Wood needed permission from the bar association’s Office of the General Counsel to resign.
In an email responding to questions from NBC News, Wood said Wednesday that “the Georgia State Bar Association approved my application and I am now officially RETIRED.”
As a result, he said, “the disciplinary process against me will be dismissed.”
“I publicly announced my desire to retire from the practice of law in 2020. So now I am retired!” he added she.
That same year, 2020, was when Wood made comments supporting Trump’s false claims of fraud while also calling then-Vice President Mike Pence a “traitor“Who should be executed.
In addition to the disciplinary proceeding in Georgia, Wood was also one of nine attorneys named in a lawsuit pending in Michigan over a lawsuit challenging 2020 election results that a judge deemed “frivolous.”
He was also called last year to testify before the grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, investigating whether Trump and his allies interfered with the state’s 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said charges stemming from the investigation could be filed as early as August.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Wood said. The New York Times last year. “I have nothing to hide, so I will go down and talk to them,” she added.
Wood’s resignation ends his 45-year legal career. He first rose to fame in the 1990s when he portrayed Richard Jewell, a security guard who was falsely accused of involvement in the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta.
Associated Press contributed.
