Editorial: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi owes loyalty to the people, not Trump

Yahoo

14 hours ago

Pam Bondi runs the Department of Justice as if she were Donald Trump's personal consigliere rather than a lawyer bound by professional ethics, the U.S. Constitution and her responsibility to the people.
Impeachment of the attorney general is out of the question politically, so the Florida Bar, where she is licensed, must hold her accountable. Sadly, the Bar's own sense of responsibility has evaporated.
Trump orders investigation into Biden's actions as president, ratcheting up targeting of predecessor
Bondi's conduct was assailed last week in a 23-page ethics complaint filed with the Bar by more than 70 prominent lawyers and professors, including two former Florida Supreme Court justices and a former president of the American Bar Association.
Bondi's 'serious professional misconduct … threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice,' they said.
So it does. What's new and startling is the revelation that the Bar gave her a free pass by rejecting two previous complaints. It will likely trash this one too, and that reflects as badly on the Bar as on Bondi.
The Bar claims to be Florida's 'guardian for the integrity of the legal profession,' but it has a previously undisclosed policy against investigating appointed federal constitutional officers — meaning Bondi — while they are in office.
'Such proceedings by the Florida Bar, as an arm of the Florida Supreme Court, could encroach on the authority of the federal government concerning these officials and the exercise of their duties,' the Bar says.
That was in letters sent in response to two previous complaints. It's a deeply flawed argument. The 'exalted position' of Florida attorneys serving the federal government should provide all the more reason to hold them professionally responsible for abusing it.
The Florida signers include former ABA president Martha Barnett and retired state Supreme Court chief justices, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince.
Barnett and Quince are board members of Lawyers Defending American Democracy, which filed the complaint.
The Bar's published rules declare that lawyers in public office 'assume legal responsibilities going beyond those of other citizens.'
The Bar isn't saying how it decided to protect Bondi and when or why the policy hasn't been added to its published rules, which would require approval by the Florida Supreme Court.
It may have been adopted at a recent executive session of the Bar's Board of Governors.
Half a century ago, in a secret order it has still never acknowledged, the Supreme Court forbade the Bar from initiating disciplinary action against any Florida officers required by the state constitution to be members of the Bar.
That includes judges, elected and assistant state attorneys and public defenders, and the state attorney general, as Bondi was. At the time, the St. Petersburg Times disclosed that the order was sought by a prosecutor (State Attorney Robert Eagan of Orlando) to thwart a Bar investigation into his previous private practice.
The rationale was that, because he had to be a Bar member to hold office, to disbar him would be the equivalent of an impeachment trial, which only the Legislature can conduct.
For the Bar to investigate Bondi, as it should, would embarrass her and Trump, but it would not be a legal disqualification even if she were disbarred, because under the U.S. Constitution, the attorney general need not be a lawyer.
The Bar's timidity is related to it being an arm of the Florida Supreme Court. Since 1949, the court has required all lawyers to be Bar members.
The Bondi affair is the latest evidence that Florida lawyers need an organization independent of the court to represent them.
Gov. Ron DeSantis' appointees — five of the seven sitting justices — have turned the court stridently to the right, to the Bar's detriment and the public's.
The court forbade the Bar to give lawyers continuing education credits for ABA-approved diversity courses, and is challenging the ABA's role in accrediting law schools.
If any courage is left at the Bar's elegant headquarters in Tallahassee, the Bondi exemption should be rescinded.
The new complaint cites Erez Reuveni, who was fired for telling the truth to a court about a man erroneously deported to El Salvador; the forced resignation of Denise Cheung, who refused to open a criminal investigation she deemed unwarranted; and the resignation of nearly a dozen lawyers over the dismissal of corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
'(B)y aggressively implementing a zealous advocacy policy that is directed towards conduct in pending and future judicial proceedings, and which requires her subordinates to routinely violate the Rules of Professional Conduct, Ms. Bondi has elevated loyalty to the person who appointed her (President Trump) over the interests of her client (the United States),' the complaint asserts.
The people's lawyer cannot be the president's lawyer. That fundamental conflict of interest ought to matter to the Florida Bar.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to [e-mail].