Senate Democrats slam DOJ for sacking senior ethics official

WASHINGTON (CN) — A group of Senate Democrats on Thursday demanded that Attorney General Pam Bondi answer for the Justice Department’s recent move to bench a career ethics official and turn his responsibilities over to a pair of political appointees.

The directive, lawmakers from the Senate Judiciary Committee argued in a letter to the attorney general, stands in “direct conflict” with commitments she made as a nominee that she would rely on such an official to adjudicate her potential conflicts of interest in her role as the government’s top prosecutor.

At issue for Democrats is a Jan. 27 memo issued by Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove which removed Bradley Weisenheimer from his role as the career Justice Department official tasked as the final authority on issues of ethics issues and discipline, among other things. Bove’s memo reassigned those responsibilities to two of his aides including his chief of staff and a former defense attorney who represented President Donald Trump.

That move, lawmakers argued, represented a “dramatic departure” from normal agency practices under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“Previous administrations did not consider granting these responsibilities to political appointees for good reason; politicizing this role is profoundly dangerous to the integrity of the department and threatens the employees who work there,” the Democrats told Bondi.

In addition to adjudicating ethics and employee discipline, the two political appointees now in charge of ethics decisions at the Justice Department will have final authority over financial disclosures for nominees, referrals from the agency’s special counsel charged with investigating federal whistleblower complaints and information disclosures to Congress. Bove’s memo also gives these two officials the power to approve waivers allowing Justice Department staff to ignore potential conflicts of interest in certain matters.

Bondi had not yet been sworn in as attorney general when the memo was released.

But Democrats argued that authority stood in contrast with statements she made during her January confirmation hearing in the Judiciary Committee. Pressed by lawmakers about her work as a lobbyist, which some worried could present potential conflicts of interest if she were to be confirmed at attorney general, Bondi assured the panel at the time that she would consult with “career ethics officials” at the Justice Department to avoid such conflicts.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s nominee for deputy attorney general, made similar comments during his own hearing last week.

“By transferring responsibilities for ethics decisions from a senior career ethics official to political appointees, you have coincidentally removed the appropriate career ethics official with whom you and your colleagues promised to consult,” lawmakers wrote Thursday.

Democrats accused Bondi of misleading Congress and contended that Bove’s directive scuttled a “critical safeguard” against corruption at the Justice Department. They demanded Bondi release the January order and any records related to both its implementation and Weisenheimer’s removal.

According to the letter, the attorney general has until March 6, or around two weeks, to produce those documents.

The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

Throughout her confirmation process, Bondi, formerly Florida’s attorney general and a lawyer for Trump, rejected concerns from Democrats that her connection to the president could threaten the Justice Department’s political independence.

During her nomination hearing, she told lawmakers that she would “never play politics” and accused some Democrats of making “reckless” comments about her impartiality.

But Bondi on several occasions refused to fully break with Trump on some issues, such as his loss in the 2020 presidential election. She declined to directly say that the president had lost to former President Joe Biden, opting instead to say that Biden was “duly sworn in” and that there had been a peaceful transfer of power.

Bondi was confirmed as attorney general earlier this month on a 54-46 vote.

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