Trump’s attorneys general are racking up ethics complaints

As they aggressively weaponize federal law enforcement, President Donald Trump’s attorneys general are quickly amassing ethics complaints — and they don’t appear poised to stop anytime soon.

Both acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and his predecessor, Pam Bondi, received a fresh round of formal accusations this week. Lawyers and advocacy organizations believe they violated the core principles governing lawyer conduct while carrying out Trump’s wide-ranging campaign of political retribution.

On Wednesday, a national watchdog group accused Blanche, one of Trump’s former personal attorneys, of potentially breaching multiple ethical rules in the now-dismissed prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration wrongly removed to El Salvador last year.

Last week, a federal judge dismissed the case, finding that Blanche, who was deputy attorney general at the time, personally launched the criminal case against Abrego Garcia to vindictively punish him for challenging his illegal removal from the U.S.

In asking New York’s attorney discipline committee to probe Blanche, the Campaign for Government Accountability (CfA) argued that he had abused his authority for political ends.

“Blanche’s conduct in connection with the Abrego Garcia matter is a serious abuse of public office, undermines the integrity of the Department of Justice, and erodes public confidence in the legal profession and in the fair administration of justice,” CfA’s complaint reads. 

Meanwhile, over 120 attorneys, legal scholars and former federal and state judges asked the Florida Bar to look into a myriad of ethical abuses that Bondi allegedly committed during her time as attorney general.

Among its numerous accusations, the complaint argued that Bondi repeatedly tried to bring charges against defendants without probable cause. She also oversaw the creation of “a culture of impunity” within the Department of Justice (DOJ) that led to “repeated and unprecedented violations of court orders,” the lawyers, scholars and judges wrote.

They further slammed her for the DOJ’s haphazard release of its investigatory documents on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which exposed the personal information of nearly 100 survivors.

“Ms. Bondi’s misdeeds were not minor – they resulted in prejudice to the legal rights of those contending with the Department of Justice and injury to the public’s perception of the fairness of the legal system,” the complaint reads.

The legal nonprofits Lawyers Defending American Democracy, Democracy Defenders Fund, and Lawyers for the Rule of Law joined the complaint against Bondi, who Trump fired in April for failing to prosecute his political enemies aggressively enough and for her handling of the Epstein files.

With Trump’s DOJ growing more extreme and its legal abuses mounting, and the department’s internal accountability system effectively dismantled by the president’s political appointees, legal experts and watchdog organizations have turned to lodging complaints with state bar associations.

All U.S. attorneys, including those in the DOJ, must be licensed by a state bar association to practice law in the U.S. Such associations, or other state legal bodies, are responsible for regulating the legal profession by investigating ethics complaints against the lawyers they license. If necessary, these bodies also take disciplinary actions for misconduct, which can include license suspensions and permanent disbarment.

The new complaints are far from the first against Blanche, who received his law license in New York, and Bondi, who is licensed in Florida. They likely aren’t the last, either.

In January, the Campaign Legal Center asked the DOJ inspector general to probe whether Blanche violated federal conflict-of-interest law by ending investigations into the crypto industry while holding almost $800,000 in digital assets.

Previously, the Legal Accountability Center, a bipartisan legal watchdog group, also asked the New York Attorney Grievance Committee last year to investigate Blanche for allegedly committing multiple ethics violations while deputy attorney general.

Bondi was hit with multiple complaints during her tenure as attorney general. However, the Florida Bar refused to investigate the accusations against her, citing a policy that it does not probe sitting officers appointed under the U.S. Constitution. Referencing that same policy, the Florida Supreme Court also refused to force the bar to open a probe.

Now that Bondi is out of office, she could potentially face an investigation.

Rather than changing their behavior, Blanche and Bondi responded to the complaints by undermining the authority of state bar associations and breaking down accountability mechanisms.

At a Federalist Society event earlier this year, Blanche claimed that the department was in a “war” against bar associations. He vowed to curb their oversight powers and hire outside counsel to fight disciplinary actions against DOJ lawyers.

Toward the end of Bondi’s term, the department proposed a new rule purporting to grant the attorney general authority to halt bar probes into complaints against DOJ officials if the department chooses to review the accusations first.

In theory, that could allow the department to indefinitely shield federal prosecutors who commit misconduct from any meaningful oversight by opening — and stalling — its own investigation.

The proposed rule generated a massive outcry from state bar associations, legal organizations, state attorneys general and legal scholars.