‘LAWFARE’: New Orleans Democrats Get Arrest Warrant Against Republican Attorney General

Republicans are condemning as “lawfare” the efforts of Democrat New Orleans officials to arrest Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill amid a dispute about a new law’s interpretation.  

“Targeting a sitting attorney general for carrying out her official duties is a dangerous attempt to weaponize the legal system against elected officials with whom they disagree,” Adam Piper, executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association, told the Daily Signal. The Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday blocked the arrest warrant, which Piper called “liberal lawfare.” 

“The idea that a grand jury would be used to investigate a sitting attorney general for issuing a legal opinion and warning public officials about the law is as outrageous as it is dangerous,” he said. “If this is allowed to stand, no attorney general will be free to provide candid legal guidance without fear of politically motivated retaliation.”

“This is nothing short of a political witch hunt against [Murrill] who was merely trying to uphold the law in accordance with the oath she took,” Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, posted on X Friday.

How City Officials Justify Trying to Arrest an AG 

The case centers on eight letters that Murrill sent to New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno, New Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, retired Judge Calvin Johnson, and five of the seven members of the City Council on May 13. 

In the letters, Murrill accused the city officials of instituting a usurper, a person who pretends to be a public officer without the authority of an election. The state’s usurper statutes criminalize such action, and Murrill warned that the city officials who supported the usurper would risk losing their offices. 

This dispute traces back to Act 15, a law Landry signed on April 30.  The act eliminated the Criminal District Clerk of Court days before Calvin Duncan, a black man exonerated from a 1981 murder he did not commit, could take office on May 4. The law assigned the criminal clerk’s duties to the Civil District Clerk of Court.  

The act formed part of a package of bills aimed at bringing the number of Orleans Parish judicial offices more in line with the other parishes of Louisiana. (Louisiana refers to counties as parishes.) 

The New Orleans City Council moved on May 11 to interpret the law as merging two existing positions into a new office, requiring an interim appointment and a special election. Murrill disputed the interpretation and directed the city officials not to remove the civil clerk, Chelsey Richard Napoleon, from her office. 

A grand jury indicted Murrill on 16 felony counts of malfeasance and public intimidation for sending the letters. Malfeasance involves a public official failing to do her lawful duty or performing a lawful duty in an unlawful manner. Public intimidation involves the use of “violence, force, extortionate threats, or true threats” with the intent of influencing a public officer’s conduct. 

Murrill has contested the charges, and Landry defended her, calling the indictment a “political witch hunt” against her. 

“What we are witnessing is a sham investigation that threatens to turn routine legal advice into a basis for criminal inquiry,” Piper said.

The Louisiana Supreme Court Acts 

The Louisiana Supreme Court issued a stay of proceedings Friday, recalling the pending arrest warrant. 

The 5-2 per curiam decision pointed out “disturbing defects” in the process leading to the indictment. The high court ruled that the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court had failed to follow the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure to administer a grand jury in the public eye. The court reportedly arrested and removed reporters from the proceedings.  

The high court also found the involvement of special prosecutor Laurie White improper. White had previously served as Duncan’s attorney, and the attorney general’s office is representing White in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against White. 

“The likely conflicts of interest precluding her involvement in this matter, if accurately stated, should have been obvious,” the high court ruled. 

“This indictment appears to turn the law on its head and flows from what appear to be extraordinary procedural defects and improprieties,” the justices stated. Murrill “argues that she was merely performing her constitutional duty to defend the state’s law and that her legal interpretation of that law was correct.” 

The high court found that Murrill “suffers irreparable harm” from the indictment and that “it is in the public interest to immediately stay” the proceedings against her. 

Prosecutors sought to resurrect the arrest warrant, anyway, but the state’s Supreme Court again blocked the attempt.  

“What is happening to Attorney General Liz Murrill should be a much bigger national story,” Piper told the Daily Signal. “The same voices that claim to be ‘saving democracy’ when Republicans criticize prosecutors are now defending a defective, unlawful, and politically motivated prosecution against a Republican attorney general. That double standard is exactly why so many Americans are losing faith in the credibility and impartiality of our justice system.”

Neither Moreno, nor Williams, nor the City Council members responded to the Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.