WASHINGTON — A citizen watchdog group, Campaign for Accountability, filed a complaint against the Wisconsin lawyer who rounded up petition signatures to put entertainer Kanye West on the state’s presidential ballot alongside Donald Trump. The group claimed that Madison lawyer Lane Ruhland was working simultaneously for the Trump and West campaigns. That, said the group, violates the American Bar Association ’s code of ethics. The code prohibits an attorney from representing a client whose interests are “directly adverse to another client.” It is the Bar Association that licenses lawyers and can reprimand them for bad practices — and disbar them. About Ruhland, CfA executive director Michelle Kuppersmith said: “As an attorney for the Trump campaign, she simply cannot show the ‘loyalty and independent judgment’ representing the West campaign that are an ‘essential element’ in a lawyer’s relationship to a client.” When Ruhland’s role in the West campaign was discovered Thursday, it gave evidence to a poorly kept secret that West, who is Black, was a Trump stooge to draw Black voters away from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Polls show Biden leading Trump among Black voters.
Ruhland bio
> University of Wisconsin law degree
> Specialties: Campaign finance law, election law, lobbying
> Among clients: Wisconsin Republican Party, Trump campaign
> Member, Federalist Society
Earlier: Wisconsin GOP welcomes West ballot drive
Ruhland:Disbarment looming?