Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Bondi DOJ Tries Curbing One Of The Left’s Favorite Legal Weapons

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) is proposing a new rule intended to stop the “weaponization” of bar complaints against its attorneys.

Under the proposal made public Wednesday, the DOJ would have the right to review ethics allegations against its attorneys first and request state bars “suspend any parallel investigations until the completion of the Department’s review.”

Bar complaints have recently been filed against career DOJ attorneys and senior officials, according to the notice published in the Federal Register, which emphasizes the proposal is meant to “deter political activists from abusing the State bar disciplinary process.”

“If the Department takes too long, or the state bar authority has reason to believe in a particular case that they shouldn’t wait, the rule does not compel them to suspend,” a DOJ spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Deputy United States Attorney General Todd Blanche, Pardon Attorney Ed Martin and former New Jersey U.S. Attorney Alina Habba are among those facing complaints. Left-wing organizations, including some that targeted President Donald Trump’s attorneys after the 2020 election, are behind most complaints against DOJ attorneys in the past year.

White House official Jeff Clark, who served in the DOJ during Trump’s first administration, still is fighting to keep his law license after the D.C. Bar found he attempted to give “dishonest” legal advice related to the 2020 election.

“Even more troubling than the recent spate of State bar complaints is the willingness of some State bar disciplinary authorities to give credence to such complaints,” the DOJ’s notice states. “Recently, for example, certain State bar disciplinary authorities have undertaken investigations of Department attorneys without notifying and coordinating with [the Office of Professional Responsibility] OPR.”

Most state bars already wait for the DOJ’s OPR to complete an investigation before deciding whether to open their own, according to the notice. OPR has “jurisdiction to review allegations of misconduct made against Department attorneys that relate to the attorneys’ exercise of their authority to investigate, litigate, or provide legal advice.”

“This unprecedented weaponization of the State bar complaint process risks chilling the zealous advocacy by Department attorneys on behalf of the United States, its agencies, and its officers,” the notice states. “That chilling effect, in turn, would interfere with the broad statutory authority of the Attorney General to manage and supervise Department attorneys.”

Blanche revealed the DOJ would change its approach to bar complaints against DOJ attorneys during the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in November.

“The ABA and its state bar affiliates are run by leftists who use their monopoly on the practice of law for political retribution,” Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote Wednesday on X. “Florida should be a sanctuary state for these skilled Trump admin attorneys facing abusive bar actions!”