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.
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 (a case.)”
In other words, try your case in court, not on TV. Only supported facts of evidence are allowed in a court room; 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 in the media, particularly Fox News, where she falsely asserts that it is up to Trump to decide what the law requires. Every first-year law student is taught that the judicial branch, not the executive, decides what the law is.
Intentionally misconstrued orders
In April, the U.S. Supreme Courtdirected the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador without constitutionally required process. Under Bondi’s direction, DOJ lawyers argued that they don’t understand plain English, spinning the term “facilitate” to mean “removing any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here.”
The word “domestic” does not appear anywhere in SCOTUS’ order to the government “to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
Rather than respect the plain language of the order, Bondi’s strategy is to play games to either render the ruling null due to delay or worse, 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 federal courts’ authority even after the Supreme Court ruled, 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 appropriately triggered. Without waiting for plaintiffs’ response, the Fourth Circuit court of appeals issued a sharp rebuke, written by a Reagan appointee, describing the US strategy as “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.”
Abuse of pleading rules
Federal pleading rules require attorneys to certify that what they assert is warranted by existing law or a reasonable argument for modifying the law, and that their 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.
As far as I can discern from public record, none of the facts in the El Salvador deportations have been pled with evidentiary support; Donald Trump’s opinion that someone is a violent gang member is not evidence. This means Bondi has either allowed — or directed — attorneys under her supervision to file unsupported pleadings. That a conservative judge called the latest motion “shocking” also sets it outside the rule.
Not only is Bondi authorizing her attorneys to file unsupported pleadings, she has punished staff for making accurate statements to the court. In April, she directed the dismissal of Erez Reuveni, a career lawyer, for acknowledging to the court that Abrego Garcia had been deported to El Salvador in error. Shortly thereafter, a 10-year veteran of the same unit resigned, saying he could not “with clean conscience” defend the department’s actions under Bondi, claiming they ran counter to the law, the Constitution and “basic principles of fairness and humanity.”
Trump’s personal law firm
Bondi’s latest 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 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. Her 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 flunky Bondi will force to sign that bad faith legal jujitsu when it gets before a judge.
The facts are that when 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 golf course 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 will return to lobbying, where she earned over $100,000 a month lobbying for Qatar. (Conflict of interest, anyone?)
As I see it, 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.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25 year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.