We have a new one for the list! This judge was mightily displeased. And rightfully so. She chose to refer the two attorneys for something serious. And this was serious. This is about behavior unbecoming of a pair of lawyers. She did not hold back. They deserved what they got from her, but it gets worse. Oh, it gets worse. My gratitude to Raw Story:
A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump referred Justice Department attorneys to a disciplinary committee Friday after condemning them for misconduct so severe she said it had shaken her faith in the DOJ entirely. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy of Rhode Island issued the referral under the court’s Local Rule 210(b), citing both representations made by the respondents’ attorneys and the findings of her May 14 order — a 24-page takedown of DOJ conduct in a case involving a subpoena seeking the medical records of minor patients who received gender-affirming care at Rhode Island Hospital.
SCORCH. And we’re just getting started. Yes, indeed, it does get worse. There were all sorts of things wrong with the whole fiasco. “Shaken her faith in the DoJ”. Ouch. You would think that Bondi was still around for this one. We’d love to see that decision. Even if we don’t completely understand legalese, it would be educational. Sure, there have been longer decisions, but this one would be for something where the DoJ screwed up.
In that order, McElroy found that DOJ had “misrepresented and withheld information” from both her court and a federal court in Texas, where she said the department had engaged in blatant forum shopping to find a friendlier venue for its demands. The judge saved some of her sharpest language for the DOJ’s courtroom behavior.
Yikes, yikes, and yikes again! Misrepresented and withheld information, and they got busted for it. That’s not a good thing in the legal world. We know all about forum shopping because we’ve seen too much of it (Aileen “Loose” Cannon, anyone?). Even those of us like me know about that. We are certainly learning about some of it as time goes by, because more and more we are seeing it from most of the DoJ. And of course, we like to read about court cases (such as Jack Smith) or investigations (The Mueller Report), even if we almost constantly need to look up various things online.
A declaration filed by a senior DOJ official in the Texas proceeding, McElroy found, was “clearly misleading, if not utterly false.” She called DOJ’s “reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed” to a federal court “appalling,” and a serious breach of professional ethics. “DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case,” McElroy wrote. She also quashed the subpoena entirely.
That certainly sounds like Bondi’s DoJ. Just for a reminder, the whole hoorah about Alina Habba and Lindsey Houlihan. Those two were just about as bad. They tried to handle Trump’s Revenge Tour™ and ended up getting flattened. Jeanine Pirro is still the AG for DC. Then there was ICE up in Minnesota making a big mess with grabbing people up anywhere and any way they could, then they started sending people to CECOT or to different places in the country, or randomly taking them to the African continent. Their legal rights apparently disappear once ICE has them. And back to the topic, the two lawyers have been referred for discipline after the way they screwed up. May they get what they deserve.
See you soon!
Friends, I know everybody begs you for money. I promise you that, of all the outlets bugging you for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a bunch of old, disabled people, except one writer in his mid-50s. But the rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the ability to continue our quest to tell the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
