Bondi Corroded DOJ’s Integrity. Congress Must Now Demand Change

The Department of Justice under former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s leadership began systematically dismantling the safeguards that allow the DOJ to fulfill its mission “to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights.”

Congress will have the opportunity in the coming months to push forward a replacement, whether it be Todd Blanche or someone else, to correct the department’s downward course.

DOJ lawyers are meant to be lawyers for the American people, not lawyers for any particular president. This applies to the agency’s career attorneys who make up most of the department and serve the American people under presidents of both political parties, and the agency’s political appointees who generally shift with presidential administrations.

The American people deserve the best lawyers—which means a DOJ with a stable core of career professionals and principled political appointees who meet the highest legal and ethical standards. Unfortunately, these career professionals—and the department’s commitment to adhering to the highest standards—are both under attack.

DOJ career lawyers have been purged or resigned in vast numbers. Consider the Civil Rights Division. By late last year, roughly 75% of career civil rights attorneys had left—a mass departure that former DOJ attorneys describe as a “coordinated effort” to drive out experienced leadership.

Career professionals provide oversight and guidance—and resist politicization—in investigative and prosecutorial decisions. Without these attorneys, the division’s core functions have been gutted: voting rights enforcement has been redirected away from constitutional protection toward relitigating the 2020 election.

It’s not just the Civil Rights Division. A department-wide memo issued hours after Bondi was sworn in referred to the DOJ’s lawyers as the president’s lawyers and began to erode the traditional understanding of the agency’s independence, leading to more departures and dismissals.

Bondi’s DOJ was weakening its internal ethics safeguards as it was gutting its institutional knowledge. Last year, Bondi fired a spate of senior DOJ ethics officials, including the director of DOJ’s Ethics Office, Joseph Tirrell, someone tasked with advising the attorney general and senior DOJ officials on ethics compliance. Tirrell had nearly 20 years of federal service under Democratic and Republican presidents alike.

Also ousted from his post in 2025 was Jeffrey Ragsdale, who headed up the Office of Professional Responsibility, an office established within the DOJ in response to Watergate-related professional misconduct. More than a year after Ragsdale was ousted, the office website names no new leadership.

Internal safeguards aren’t the only things being targeted. One of the latest threats can be seen in the DOJ’s proposed rule that would allow the attorney general to intercept and indefinitely freeze any state bar ethics complaint against DOJ attorneys. The proposed rule sets no deadline for DOJ review and threatens states with unspecified consequences if they fail to comply.

This rule flies in the face of the McDade-Murtha Amendment, which Congress passed to ensure DOJ lawyers meet the same ethical and professional standards that apply to other lawyers in the places where DOJ lawyers perform their duties. The proposed rule is also an affront to the role that the states have always played in regulating the practice of law.

As the US Supreme Court has held, “since “the founding of the Republic, the licensing and regulation of lawyers has been left exclusively to the States and the District of Columbia,” which have been responsible for professional standards and discipline.

The potential consequences of this new rule aren’t theoretical. Just a few days after the DOJ proposed this regulation, the formal disciplinary body for Washington, DC lawyers filed ethics charges against Ed Martin, a senior Trump administration official at the DOJ. The charges accuse Martin of misconduct relating to his attempt to penalize Georgetown University Law Center for diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and describe Martin’s interference with the investigation.

The proposed rule would grant the DOJ the power to block such disciplinary proceedings indefinitely without explanation, effectively a permission slip for unethical conduct. This is a moment that calls for action.

State bars, voluntary bar associations, and leaders in the legal profession can voice their opposition to this proposed rule. Congress can act to strengthen the McDade-Murtha Amendment and reaffirm that DOJ attorneys remain subject to state bar discipline without DOJ obstruction, and use the confirmation process for the next attorney general to call attention to these issues. Recognizing that the DOJ has dismantled so many safeguards, courts can scrupulously review the DOJ’s representations.

When protections meant to preserve independence and high professional and ethical standards are undone, the American people are harmed. The DOJ has long acknowledged the need “to earn the public’s trust by following the facts and the law wherever they may lead, without prejudice or improper influence.”

The American people want to know that the lawyers meant to serve on their behalf meet the highest standards. They deserve nothing less.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Praveen Fernandes is vice president of the Constitutional Accountability Center and co-chair of the Not Above the Law Coalition, a nonpartisan coalition dedicated to protecting the rule of law.

Patrick McGlone is senior vice president and general counsel for Ullico and former president of the DC Bar.

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