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.
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