The Guardian reports incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi had no place for ethics training while taking the reins at the Department of Justice.
“I think the reason to fire the senior ethics attorney at DOJ is pretty clear. It’s to send a message,” said Joseph Tirrell, an attorney responsible for overseeing ethics compliance across the agency and training top officers in their obligation. “The message is: ‘Do what we tell you to do, or you’ll lose your job.’”
Tirrell was nearing the end of a July vacation when he got an email from the Department of Justice on his personal account. The notice, signed by Bondi, misspelled his name as “Jospeh W Tirrell,” and did not give a reason for his firing. The Guardian reports Tirrell bosses initially seemed as surprised as he was before confirming that he had indeed been removed from the payroll.
Tirrell, 51, joined the FBI as an ethics lawyer in 2006 before moving to the justice department in 2018. During that time, he fielded requests about whether or not employees could accept certain gifts or attend certain events and other conflicts of interests. He notes that Bondi and her chief of staff appeared focused on questions of whether the attorney general could accept commemorative challenge coins from subordinates in the department during training.
“There seemed to be a lot of importance by these officials placed on [the] appearance of them getting stuff, on the appearance of them showing their willingness to accept that gift,” Tirrell said.
Tirrell recalls telling Bondi: “We’ve pretty much said you can’t accept gifts from employees unless it’s your birthday or Christmas or Hanukkah or a similar kind of holiday where people give gifts,” and added that “We spent more time than I thought was warranted on … whether or not you could accept a challenge coin from whomever.”
The attorney said he caught his first whiff of Bondi’s ethical failings when she received a box of cigars from the mixed martial artist Conor McGregor. The value of the gift, he said, exceeded what Bondi could accept under the department’s ethics rules, so he spelled out three options for her: reimburse McGregor for the gift, send it back, or destroy it.
“Immediately I got the sense they were reluctant to send things back or destroy stuff,” said Tirrell.
“’No, we can’t send it back,’” the administration told him. “’I mean what does that say?’”
Later, Bondi received gifts from FIFA, which is set to host the World Cup in the US, Canada, and Mexico this year. Only 10 years ago, the Department of Justice launched a 47-count indictment against 14 FIFA officials over racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies.
Tirrell said Bondi received a scarf and a 2025 World Cup soccer ball from the organization. He later received word that Bondi was likely to be invited to a FIFA club World Cup final in July, and he advised her that ethics rules prohibited her and her staff from accepting tickets to attend the event.
A week later he was fired. Two days after that, Bondi was photographed at the game with Trump.
“Maybe the attorney general paid for that ticket or a ticket of her spouse, right?” Tirrell said. “… But, you know, come on, I know that’s not the case.”
Read the full Guardian report at this link.
