Roughly 70 regulation professors, attorneys and justices filed an ethics grievance in opposition to Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi with the Florida Bar on Thursday, accusing her of “severe skilled misconduct” and political bias in favor of President Donald Trump.
The grievance alleges that the previous Florida lawyer normal has labored to weaponize the Division of Justice by threatening division attorneys with self-discipline or termination in the event that they fail “to zealously pursue the President’s political targets.”
DOJ attorneys say Bondi and her workers have pressured them into “violating their moral obligations” and doing issues they’re “ethically forbidden from doing.” This has resulted in “severe skilled misconduct that threatens the rule of regulation and the administration of justice,” states the grievance, obtained by JHB and first reported by the Miami Herald.
Francisco Digon-Greer, counsel for the Florida Bar, dismissed the grievance in a letter on Friday, saying the establishment doesn’t “examine or prosecute sitting officers appointed below the U.S. Structure whereas they’re in workplace.”
“Such proceedings by The Florida Bar, as an arm of the Florida Supreme Court docket, might encroach on the authority of the federal authorities regarding these officers and the train of their duties,” his letter learn.
Dozens of authorized specialists, together with retired Florida Supreme Court docket justices Barbara J. Pariente and Peggy A. Quince, had signed the grievance, which demanded an investigation and sanctions in opposition to Bondi.
It was the third grievance the group has filed in opposition to Bondi, and the third denied on account of her present employment standing.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI by way of Getty Photographs
Probably anticipating one other rejection, the grievance’s authors mentioned Thursday that states are answerable for overseeing who can observe regulation of their respective jurisdictions and disciplining them.
“The Guidelines not solely require that attorneys who’re public officers are accountable for his or her moral conduct, however they particularly declare that attorneys who’re public officers have the next obligation than different attorneys to keep up moral requirements,” they argued, citing the Florida Bar’s guidelines {of professional} conduct. “Nowhere within the Guidelines or Feedback is there an exemption for attorneys who’re federal public officers.”
The grievance cites “three obtrusive examples” as proof of Bondi’s alleged misconduct, together with the April firing of immigration lawyer Erez Reuveni. Reuveni was terminated after telling a choose that the federal government’s deportation of migrant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was made in “error.” He was ousted, the grievance states, “for telling the reality.”
It additionally cites the “pressured resignation” of federal prosecutor Denise Cheung in February after she declined Trump officers’ request to open a felony investigation right into a authorities contractor “as a result of there was inadequate predication.” The third instance is the DOJ’s efforts to dismiss New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams’ felony indictment with out prejudice. Practically a dozen attorneys who objected to the DOJ’s proposal, calling it an improper “quid professional quo,” have been both pressured to resign or resigned after being positioned on administrative go away, the grievance states.
A DOJ official dismissed the grievance as meritless to JHB.
“The Florida Bar has twice rejected performative makes an attempt by these out-of-state attorneys to weaponize the bar grievance course of in opposition to AG Bondi,” DOJ chief of workers Chad Mizelle mentioned in an announcement. “This third vexatious try will fail to do something apart from show that the signatories have much less intelligence — and unbiased ideas — than sheep.”
Bondi, a staunch Trump loyalist, served as a particular adviser to the president throughout his first impeachment and supported his efforts to disclaim his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Throughout her affirmation listening to in January, she refused to acknowledge his defeat.
Since her appointment because the nation’s high lawyer, Bondi has sided with Trump on each controversial and constitutionally questionable order and has publicly vowed to “root out” anybody inside the DOJ and FBI “who despise Donald Trump.”
Bondi introduced herself as an unbiased prosecutor throughout her Jan. 15 Senate affirmation listening to, saying that “politics is not going to play a component” in deciding whom to research and that she would train unbiased judgment.
“Politics needs to be taken out of this method,” she mentioned. “This division has been weaponized for years and years and years, and it has to cease.”
Trump on Wednesday ordered Bondi and different federal officers to research the Biden administration and his predecessor’s well being whereas in workplace.