DOJ seeks tighter grasp on state bar ethics probes

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is turning its focus to state bar associations in its quest to clamp down on the weaponization of the justice system. 

As DOJ lawyers face piling complaints, the government is seeking greater control over the ethics probes that can result in disciplinary actions including disbarment.  

It has prompted a firestorm of questions about the agency’s bid for a tighter grasp on the consequential investigations. 

“It is a DOJ power grab,” said Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics scholar at New York University School of Law. 

In a notice posted online in the Federal Register, the Justice Department proposed a new regulation that would let it intervene in state bars’ disciplinary investigations, including with the authority to review any allegations against DOJ lawyers first.  

It would amount to a request for state bar authorities to suspend their probes until Attorney General Pam Bondi completes her own, though DOJ itself could not force the state bars to halt their reviews. DOJ declined to comment on the matter Thursday.   

Such investigations can eventually lead to disbarment, but the process can take years to complete.    

The Justice Department casts the proposed rule as an extension of President Trump’s day-one directive to end perceived weaponization of the federal government.  

The notice suggests that “political activists” have used bar complaints and probes to target DOJ lawyers, and that state bars’ willingness to investigate those complaints are “troubling.” Trump’s “broad pronouncements” necessitate a review of how Bondi manages and disciplines DOJ lawyers, it says. 

“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,” read DOJ’s submitted overview of the proposed rule. “That chilling effect, in turn, would interfere with the broad statutory authority of the Attorney General to manage and supervise Department attorneys.” 

Since Trump’s return to the White House, several of his top Justice Department officials have faced such complaints from watchdog groups, including Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, the former No. 3 DOJ official who is now a federal appellate judge. Rank-and-file prosecutors have also faced complaints.  

Read the rest here.

The UK is a Warning to the Rest of the World

HT Blog reader Kurt.

I had never heard of this guy before but found the arguments presented to be cogent and well backed by sources and statistics. 

Yes, it's a 'War of Choice,' and a Bad One

"The war on Iran is not a war of choice," huffs New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin, who since President Donald Trump launched massive airstrikes on the Islamic Republic last week has had it up here with the "Democrats and their media handmaidens" describing the conflict as anything other than strictly defensive (leave aside for the moment the high-profile conservative critics of the war).

Goodwin's umbrage is widespread among those supporting the war as not only justified but initiated just in the nick of time. Eschewing any defensible definition of imminent, the Harvard-educated Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) avers "the president was right to act" because "Iran has been an imminent threat to the United States for 47 years." Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R–Wyo.) echoes those thoughts, announcing, "The United States has been in a forever war with Iran since the late 1970s" and thanking Trump for "taking decisive action to defend America from the Iranian terroristic regime."

These are ridiculous, nonsensical formulations—especially the notion that Iran was mere hours or days away from turning the American homeland into a nuked-over parking lot. Even President Donald Trump declared last June that "Iran's Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated—and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News." Similarly, a Defense Intelligence Agency report from last year concluded Iran wouldn't have missiles capable of reaching America until 2035. Recall also that U.S. officials were in active negotiations with Iran and that administration officials "told congressional staff in private briefings…that U.S. intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the U.S."

So prior to last Saturday, Iran didn't have nuclear weapons, was years away from possessing missiles that could reach the United States, and wasn't about to launch a sneak attack. Such basic facts completely undercut the whole idea that the president needed to act immediately and, not uncoincidentally, without any sort of congressional authorization.

Read the rest here.

In the News 03/06/26

Trump says no deal with Iran to end war without ‘unconditional surrender’

U.S. crude oil tops $90 per barrel

Withheld Epstein files with accusations against Trump released 

Miami Republicans, university rocked by report of racist group chat

GOP anxieties rise in Texas after Talarico victory

Noem’s answer on ‘sexual relations’ with Lewandowski was ‘final straw’ for Trump

Massive war price tag could be a problem

Trump hints U.S. will turn to Cuba after Iran

The Implications of the Convert Surge in American Orthodoxy

Medical Associations Trusted Belief Over Science on Youth Gender Care

American advocates for youth gender medicine have insisted for years that overwhelming evidence favors providing gender dysphoric youth with puberty blockers, hormones and, in the case of biological females, surgery to remove their breasts.

It didn’t matter that the number of kids showing up at gender clinics had soared and that they were more likely to have complex mental health conditions than those who had come to clinics in years earlier, complicating diagnosis. Advocates and health care organizations just dug in. As a billboard truck used by the L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group GLAAD proclaimed in 2023, “The science is settled.” The Human Rights Campaign says on its website that “the safety and efficacy of gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary youth and adults is clear.” Elsewhere, these and other groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union, referred to these treatments as “medically necessary,” “lifesaving” and “evidence-based.”

The reason these advocates were able to make such strong statements is that for years, the most important professional medical and mental health organizations in the country had been singing a similar tune: “The science” was supposedly codified in documents published by these organizations. As GLAAD puts it on its website, “Every major medical association supports health care for transgender people and youth as safe and lifesaving.”

But something confounding has happened in the last few weeks: Cracks have appeared in the supposed wall of consensus.

After expressing concerns about the evidence base in 2024, on Feb. 3, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons became the first major American medical group to publicly question youth gender medicine since its widespread adoption. The organization published a nine-page “position statement” advising its members against any gender-related surgeries before age 19 and noting that “there are currently no validated methods” for determining whether youth gender dysphoria will resolve without medical treatment. (The document also acknowledged a similar level of uncertainty surrounding blockers and hormones, though that’s less directly relevant to the practice of plastic surgeons.)

The next day, the American Medical Association — which has long approved of such procedures — announced that “in the absence of clear evidence, the A.M.A. agrees with A.S.P.S. that surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.”

These statements were released days after a woman named Fox Varian became the first person to win a malpractice case after undergoing gender transition care and later regretting it. Ms. Varian and her lawyer argued that her psychologist and plastic surgeon in suburban New York, despite her serious mental health problems and apparent ambivalence over her transgender identity, failed to safeguard her by going forward with a double mastectomy when she was 16. (Many gender medicine practitioners and advocates believe that to carefully scrutinize or even explore claims of a transgender identity is to engage in de facto conversion therapy.) The jury’s $2 million award will most likely give pause to hospitals and clinics that continue to provide these treatments without substantial guardrails.

Read the rest here.

Draw the Line Now Against a Trump Election Takeover

“Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting,” reports the Washington Post. The executive order would decree various changes to election law that Trump has been conspicuously unable to convince Congress to enact. These could include a ban on no-excuse mail voting, “requiring voters to register anew for the 2026 midterms with proof of citizenship,” and giving various federal agencies answerable to the president “a role in identifying ineligible voters.”

It won’t work. Measures of this sort, assuming there is no other problem with them, have to be enacted by Congress using its Article I, Section 4, powers. Under our constitutional order, changes to election law cannot be imposed on states by executive whim, whether or not some supposed national-security rationale is proffered. 

Per the Post’s reporting, the draft executive order is being pushed by some eccentric characters who have previously promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that have been uniformly rejected by courts and disproved by impartial investigation. In most administrations, such conspiracry theories wouldn’t get an audience at all; however, Trump is an obvious exception, as one of the nation’s leading promoters of election falsehoods and as one who has hired bitter-end “Stop the Steal” officials to fill key jobs relating to election policy. He has also repeatedly floated the idea of attempting at least a partial election takeover without going through Congress. 

To paraphrase a high official of this administration: We can do this the easy way or the hard way. 

Read the rest here.

Hours & Primatial Divine Liturgy, Sunday of Orthodoxy, Sunday, 2026

Vigil, Sunday of Orthodoxy, 2026

Normal blogging will resume sometime in the next couple of days. Despite my efforts to shut out the news over the last week, some has gotten through and obviously the world did not stop turning out of respect for the first week of Lent.

Matins, St. Raphael of Brooklyn

Great Compline with Canon of St. Andrew for Clean Thursday, 2026

Hours, Typica, Presanctified Liturgy, for Clean Wednesday 2026

Nocturns, Matins, First Hour, Clean Tuesday 2026

Great Compline with Canon of St. Andrew for Clean Monday

Supreme Court Strikes Down Most of Trump's Tariffs

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a significant loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda.

The 6-3 decision centers on tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law, including the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.

It’s the first major piece of Trump’s broad agenda to come squarely before the nation’s highest court, which he helped shape with the appointments of three conservative jurists in his first term.

The majority found that the Constitution “very clearly” gives Congress the power to impose taxes, which include tariffs. “The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

Read the rest here.

See also: 

The Supreme Court Got It Right on IEEPA—But Don’t Pop the Champagne Yet

What the SCOTUS Tariff Decision Means for Fiscal Policy in Four Charts

Trump’s made tariffs central to his presidency. Chaos may come next

Catholic Schism Likely as SSPX Confirms Episcopal Consecrations without Papal Permission

The announcement

Latin Mass supporters say SSPX controversy has ‘thrown a hand grenade’ into TLM debate

Politically Motivated Killers: 51 Years of Terrorist Murders on US Soil, 1975–2025

This is a longish but good read.

Poll: Canadians View the US as a Threat to World Peace

OTTAWA — It’s the world’s most awkward breakup.

More than a year after U.S. President Donald Trump casually joked about absorbing Canada and repeatedly threatened debilitating tariffs on its goods, many Canadians are convinced their former pals to the south have lost the plot.

New results from The POLITICO Poll suggest a lasting chill has settled over the world’s former bosom buddies. Americans are rosy as ever about their northern neighbors, but Canadians don’t share the love.

Their message to America: It’s not us, it’s you.

Canadians don’t see Trump’s America as merely an annoyance, the survey found. They consider the superpower next door the world’s greatest threat to peacetime.

The POLITICO Poll — in partnership with U.K. polling firm Public First — finds Canadians increasingly view the United States as a source of global volatility instead of as a stabilizing ally.

In survey question after survey question, Canadians say the U.S. no longer reflects their values, is more likely to provoke conflict than to prevent it and, as a result, is pushing Canada to consider closer ties with other global powers — including overtures to China that would have seemed unthinkable only a couple of years ago.

Read the rest here.

The Corruption of the Legal System

Andrew Wiederhorn lived large. His Oregon estate, on a bluff overlooking downtown Portland, had 10 bedrooms, a 2,000-square-foot pool and an indoor basketball court. Even after he lost the property, he flew on private jets, took luxury vacations and in less than four years spent nearly $700,000 on shopping and jewelry alone.

How did Mr. Wiederhorn get this money? According to the Justice Department, largely through fraud. Mr. Wiederhorn was the chief executive of the fast-food company that owns Johnny Rockets and Fatburger, and according to prosecutors, he stole some $47 million from the business in secret payments disguised as loans. (Mr. Wiederhorn and his legal team denied any wrongdoing.) This wasn’t even the first time Mr. Wiederhorn was accused of a criminal scheme: Two decades earlier, he spent over a year in prison for his role in a plan to steal from a union pension fund.

Mr. Wiederhorn was never convicted for the secret payments; his case never even went to trial. In late 2024, his company donated $100,000 to President Trump’s second inaugural committee. A few months later, the prosecutor on his case was fired by a White House official, and a few months after that, the government dropped the criminal case entirely. Mr. Wiederhorn, who had left his job after being indicted, returned to running the business he allegedly stole from. Shortly after, the company went bankrupt.

Mr. Wiederhorn is one of many defendants helping to forge a new path in American justice, one that takes the rich quite literally beyond the reach of the law. Their corruption threatens our economy and our democracy, and is so widespread and so brazen that it is easy to feel powerless. But we are not. There are legal tools that we can use to stop this corruption without waiting for the Justice Department, or anyone else, to act. We can fight back. But first, we need to understand who we’re fighting.

Consider, for instance, Trevor Milton, who was convicted of defrauding investors in his electric vehicle company. (Among other tricks: A video of his electric semi truck was allegedly forged by simply dragging the inoperable vehicle to the top of a hill and then letting it roll down.) Mr. Milton was sentenced to four years in prison. After he gave nearly $2 million to Trump-allied political committees, the president pardoned him. This meant that, among other things, Mr. Milton would not have to pay the $660 million that prosecutors demanded be returned to his defrauded investors.

Read the rest here.