Former SCOFLA justices accuse Pam Bondi of ethical misconduct in Florida Bar complaint

Partisan lines drawn during Pam Bondi's Attorney General confirmation hearing. Image via AP.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi could face a professional reckoning in her home state after a newly filed Florida Bar ethics complaint accuses her of weaponizing the Justice Department (DOJ) for political retribution.

The complaint, first flagged by the Miami Herald, says Bondi violated professional rules of conduct, politicizing her office and undermining judicial independence.

It comes from some 70 law professionals, including former Florida Supreme Court Justices Barbara Pariente, James Perry and Peggy Quince.

They contend Bondi “has sought to compel (DOJ) lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of ‘zealous advocacy’” to do the bidding of President Donald Trump. The complaint also said that since taking federal office, Bondi has been instrumental in numerous firings and resignations of government lawyers.

The complaint offered three examples: Veteran prosecutor Denise Cheung, who resigned after refusing to investigate a Joe Biden-era contract without evidence; Erez Reuveni, who was terminated after publicly objecting to the deportation and imprisonment in El Salvador of a man despite a court order prohibiting the action; and numerous prosecutors who resigned following a DOJ order that they drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

In a Thursday statement to the Herald, DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle blasted what he described as a persistent effort by “out-of-state lawyers to weaponize the bar complaint process” against Bondi.

“This third vexatious attempt will fail to do anything other than prove that the signatories have less intelligence — and independent thought — than sheep,” he said.

Bondi, a former two-term Florida Attorney General, was confirmed as U.S. Attorney General in February on a split Senate vote. She’s since faced growing criticism from Democratic lawmakers and advocacy organizations.

In early May, California U.S. Reps. David Min and Mike Levin penned a letter to the Florida Bar urging a probe of Bondi’s conduct, citing three instances that represented “potentially serious violations” of the law and Bondi’s “ethical obligations as an attorney.”

That included issues surrounding Adams, Bondi’s “legally questionable positions and tactics in a case involving the deportation of Venezuelan nationals,” and public statements that appear “designed to undermine the judiciary and potentially endanger judges.”

In one such instance, Min and Levin wrote, Bondi publicly accused Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia of “trying to protect terrorists who invaded our country over American citizens” after Boasberg ruled in April that the Trump administration showed “willful disregard” for his order halting deportation flights.

Last month, the progressive watchdog group FactPAC launched a public campaign demanding her disbarment “due to potential violations of legal ethics and professional responsibilities.” The organization cited past questionable actions by Bondi, including her failure to disclose lobbying work for foreign interests like Qatar during her tenure on Trump’s legal team, her effort to overturn the 2020 election results and a $25,000 contribution her political committee accepted from the Donald J. Trump Foundation in 2013 before her office declined to join a lawsuit against Trump University.

The Florida Bar rejected a pair of other recent ethics complaints against Bondi, explaining it “does not investigate or prosecute sitting officers” who are appointed under the U.S. Constitution. Pariente, Perry, Quince and the new complaint’s other co-signatories called that explanation bunk and “unsupported by history or precedent.”

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Editor’s note: This report has been updated to delete an errant reference to 2016 calls to investigate Bondi.