The Attorney General of the United States is considered the nation’s top lawyer. As head of the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi leads the nation’s largest law office. No federal precedent, and nothing in her oath of office, exempts her from the code of ethics, federal pleading rules, or the rule of law all attorneys swear to uphold.
Bondi’s public statements defy impartiality
Lawyers who work for the government have a duty to seek justice, whether facts lead to acquittal or conviction. For that reason, they are expected to avoid public statements displaying partiality because such statements undermine public trust in the legal system. The American Bar Association directs in Rule 3.6 that:
A lawyer who is participating… in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial (outside the court) statement that … will be disseminated (publicly) and have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter.
In other words, try your case in court, not on TV. Only supported facts of evidence are allowed in a courtroom; demagoguery and assertions of opinion unsupported by admissible evidence are not allowed. That is why judges have frequently admonished Trump attorneys that statements to the press are not evidence.
Despite the clarity of the ABA rule, Bondi has consistently argued pending cases on TV. Pressing Trump’s legal positions on Fox News, Bondi has repeatedly lied to half the nation that it is up to Trump to decide what the law requires. Every first-year law student knows that the judicial branch, not the executive, decides what the law is. If that were not the case, a president could write his own laws, as Trump and Bondi are trying to do.
Bondi appears more committed to defying the courts, including the Supreme Court, on Fox News than she is to upholding the law, painting the illegal seizure of migrants in “Trump is your savior” rhetoric jarring to the ears of any real lawyer.
Bondi intentionally misstates the law and misconstrues orders
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court directed the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador without a constitutionally required process. Under Bondi’s supervision, the DOJ argued that it doesn’t understand plain English, urging that the term “facilitate” is limited to “removing any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here.”
The word “domestic” does not arguably appear anywhere in the order. SCOTUS ordered the Government “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
Rather than respect the plain language of the order, Bondi’s strategy is to play games to either render the ruling null or to challenge the court’s authority. As an example of the latter, the Justice Department filed an emergency motion to stay the Abrego Garcia order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, aggressively challenging the court’s authority by pleading that, “The federal courts do not have the authority to press-gang the President or his agents into taking any particular act of diplomacy.”
The Appellate Court was triggered. Without waiting for the plaintiffs’ response, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a sharp rebuke, written by a Reagan appointee, calling the government’s pleading “shocking.”
The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.
This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.
Bondi’s team abuses pleading rules
Federal pleading rules require attorneys to certify that the legal contentions they assert are warranted by existing law or a reasonable argument for modifying the law, and that the factual contentions have evidentiary support. Rule 11 states that a court may impose sanctions on any attorney responsible for violating the pleading rule, including supervising attorneys.
None of the facts surrounding migrants’ El Salvador deportations have been pled with evidentiary support, which means Bondi has either allowed — or directed — attorneys under her supervision to file unsupported pleadings. Nor can her “shocking” strategy be deemed a reasonable argument to modify the law.
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Not only is Bondi authorizing her attorneys to file unsupported pleadings, but she has also punished staff for making accurate statements to the court. In April, she directed the dismissal of Erez Reuveni, a career immigration lawyer, for acknowledging to the court that Garcia had been deported to El Salvador in error. Shortly thereafter, a 10-year veteran of the same unit resigned, and said in an email obtained by the NYT that he could not “with clean conscience” defend the department’s actions under Bondi, claiming they ran counter to the law, Constitution and “basic principles of fairness and humanity.”
Bondi has turned the DOJ into Trump’s personal law firm
Bondi’s latest ethical transgression has not yet made it to court, but it likely will.
Last week, Bondi declared that, under the Foreign Emoluments Clause, Trump can legally accept a “flying palace 747 jumbo jet” as a gift from Qatar, a country that has directly funded Hamas terrorism.
Qatar’s financial and political ties to Hamas have long been known. In a legal memorandum, Bondi concluded that the gift was “legally permissible,” apparently reasoning that because the gift is not officially conditioned on any official act, it does not constitute bribery. No such limiting language appears in the Constitution; Bondi just put it there. Bondi’s analysis also concluded that the gift complies with the law because the plane is not being given to an individual, but rather to the United States Air Force and, eventually, to the presidential library foundation, where Trump will then make personal use of it. Pity the DOJ lawyer Bondi will force to sign that bad faith legal jujitsu when it ends up before a judge.
After Trump leaves office, the 747 would be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library. This is plainly a $400 million gift from a foreign government to Trump himself, perhaps meant as a “tip” following Trump’s private $5.5 billion Trump International Golf Club deal with Dar Global and Qatari Diar, a company created from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in 2005. It’s painfully obvious to anyone outside the Fox News bubble that Trump, who has not divested from his private ventures, is using the Oval Office to enrich himself, aided by unethical counsel.
Follow the dirty money
Former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig observed that Bondi’s actions have radically transformed and politicized the DOJ, transmuting it “into Trump’s personal law firm,” which is “a rejection of the founding principle of the rule of law.”
Although four years feels interminable, Trump is not a permanent fixture, and he will be out of office while Bondi still needs her law license. Bondi seems not to care, suggesting she has no intention of practicing law after Trump’s departure. Perhaps she intends to return to lobbying, where she previously earned over $100,000 a month lobbying for Qatar. (Can you say conflict of interest?)
Bondi has already met the threshold of bad faith for disbarment. An attorney who trashes the rule of law must know that eventually she will be barred from practicing it.
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