President Donald Trump speaks as Attorney General Pam Bondi listens during a meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police in the State Dinning Room of the White House, Thursday, June 5, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A coalition of attorneys, law professors, and judges in Florida have accused U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi of abusing the power of her office by pressuring, threatening, and in some cases even firing her subordinates if they refused to breach their ethical oaths as lawyers, claiming they had failed to be zealous advocates for their clients. Such actions, they say, amount to “serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice.”
“The gravamen of this complaint is that Ms. Bondi, personally and through her senior management, has sought to compel Department of Justice lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of ‘zealous advocacy’ as announced in her memorandum to all Department employees, issued on her first day in office, threatening employees with discipline and possible termination for falling short,” the 23-page complaint says.
Before being tapped to head the Justice Department by President Donald Trump, Bondi served as Florida’s attorney general and in the state’s attorney’s office.
The approximately 70 signatories, which include former Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger, former federal judge Nency Gertner, and retired Florida Supreme Court justices Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince, highlight three specific instances where Bondi is accused of firing — or forcing the resignation of — subordinates who refused an unethical demand from the AG or someone in her office.
The “most alarming” example of such conduct involves the high-profile case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who in March was deported to a notorious work prison in El Salvador due to an “administrative error,” a mistake the Trump administration has not rectified despite orders from the U.S. Supreme Court to “facilitate” his return stateside.
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According to the complaint, Bondi, along with former Trump personal attorneys Emil Bove and Todd Blanche, fired experienced DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni “for telling the truth” about the nature of Abrego Garcia’s deportation to a country he was forbidden from being sent.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Reuveni, then the acting deputy director of the DOJ’s Office of Immigration, appeared at an April 4 hearing told the judge, “we concede the facts” regarding Abrego Garcia’s deportation. “This person — the plaintiff, Abrego Garcia, should not have been removed,” adding, “there’s no dispute that the order could not be used to send Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.”
Following the hearing, Reuveni was placed on administrative leave for failing to provide “zealous advocacy” for his client by “conceding” and was later fired.
Reuveni was one of several DOJ officials to admit that Abrego Garcia was deported in “error.” Others included Robert Cerna, the acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who in an April 7 filing with the U.S. Supreme Court wrote that the DOJ “concedes that removal [of Abrego Garcia] to El Salvador was an administrative error.”
Another instance highlighted in the complaint were the resignations of multiple federal prosecutors over the DOJ’s effort to dismiss the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams without prejudice. The prosecutors who resigned indicated that the charges were being dismissed in an effort to leverage the mayor into assisting with the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
The third and final example was the “forced resignation” of Denise Cheung after she allegedly refused an order from Bove to open a criminal investigation into “whether EPA had unlawfully awarded a clean energy project contract, and to issue grand jury subpoenas pursuant to the investigation.”
“She was instructed to take that action by close of business that evening to prevent contract awardees from drawing down contract funds held by Citibank,” the complaint states.
When Cheung objected to opening a criminal investigation into the contract due to lack of evidence, she was told to tender her resignation, which she did.
“We count on lawyers to conduct themselves ethically at all times. Justice Department lawyers have a higher obligation,” the complaint’s conclusion states. “Ms. Bondi has launched a concerted effort to override ethical obligations whenever they stand in the way of achieving her and her superior’s political goals. This conduct is deeply prejudicial to the rule of law and the administration of justice, as well as a violation of her own ethical obligations. We urge The Florida Bar to investigate the allegations made here and to take appropriate action.”
The complainants wrote that Bondi’s “campaign of coercion” prevented DOJ attorneys from complying with their mandated ethical obligations.
The White House pushed back against the allegations against Bondi in a statement to the Miami Herald that included now-commonplace personal attacks on the signatories.
“The Florida Bar has twice rejected performative attempts by these out-of-state lawyers to weaponize the bar complaint process against AG Bondi,” Justice Department chief of staff Chad Mizelle told the newspaper. “This third vexatious attempt will fail to do anything other than prove that the signatories have less intelligence — and independent thoughts — than sheep.”
