Former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi
Scores of attorneys, retired judges and legal groups have called on the Florida Bar to launch an ethics investigation of former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom they accuse of serious and widespread professional misconduct.
Those behind the May 27 complaint to the Florida Bar include a former Florida Supreme Court chief justice, Peggy A. Quince, Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD), Democracy Defenders Fund and Lawyers for the Rule of Law.
“... Bondi’s actions violated the Florida Rules of Professional Conduct and fostered an environment of lawlessness inside the Department of Justice,” LDAD said in a news release.
The coalition of legal scholars, former judges and lawyers filed another ethics complaint against Bondi last year, but the Florida Bar then said its policies prevented it from investigating Bondi while she was a sitting constitutional officer. The new complaint contains additional allegations, including that the former attorney general violated the obligations of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, misled the public about the activities of child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and released sensitive personal information about his victims.
The complaint also accused Bondi of misconduct by establishing a “fall-in-line-or-get-out” philosophy during her term in office that forced underlings to engage in conduct they were ethically barred from doing or face suspension or termination. In addition, under Bondi’s watch, the Justice Department repeatedly brought charges against defendants without probable cause and allowed or encouraged violations of court orders in multiple cases, the complaint says.
“Under Ms. Bondi’s direction and oversight, DOJ lawyers, from Ms. Bondi on down, have violated an unprecedented number of binding court orders,” the complaint states. “Indeed, this has happened so many times that it would be impossible to properly inventory them within the 25-page limit imposed by the Bar.”
Lauren Stiller Rikleen, LDAD’s executive director, said the parties urging an investigation had not received any response as yet from the Florida Bar. It’s hard to say how long such an investigation would take, Rikleen told the Florida Record.
“Looking back on some of the other complaints we filed ... it can take many months at best,” she said.
The complaint also details cases in which Bondi’s Justice Department brought cases against protesters and vulnerable individuals, such as immigrants, that lacked probable cause. Additional cases were brought against President Trump’s perceived enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
“The attorney general has the awesome responsibility to set a national example of ethical behavior – and to ensure that DOJ lawyers live up to that standard,” the principal author of the complaint, Washington, D.C., attorney James W. Conrad Jr., said in a prepared statement. “From her first day as attorney general, Bondi did just the opposite, personally and repeatedly violating ethical standards and coercing department lawyers into violating their own professional responsibilities if they wanted to keep their jobs.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Bondi was fired as attorney general in April. She has since been appointed to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
