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Legal minds across the political spectrum are chastising a federal judge appointed by Obama for suggesting that bar associations should consider sanctions lawyers who work for the president or the Justice Department, and a liberal constitutional law professor who refuses to teach his students that such a move is acceptable.
US District Judge Kathleen Williams formally referred Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar in an opinion issued Monday and ordered that the decision be sent to authorities handling existing disciplinary complaints involving Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. The disciplinary action stems from Williams’ decision in a case involving a settlement that shielded Trump, members of his family and businesses under his control from tax audits and certain federal claims.
Bar associations have the power to suspend the law licenses of people who practice law in their jurisdictions, giving them significant leverage over the ability of lawyers — including powerful DOJ officials — to do their jobs.
“The court will also convince the accusers that, in such a case, it is not only appropriate to dismiss the case but also to punish and deprive the accusers and their counsel of their reputation, license, or money,” constitutional law professor Christian Lee Gonzalez-Rivera, who identifies as a liberal, told Fox News Digital. “As a law professor, lawyer and former law clerk, I refuse to teach the first students or accept the following.”
OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE TORCHES TRUMP ADMIN IN LATEST COURT POINT, REFERS LAWYER FOR BAR REVIEW.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche listens during a news conference at the Department of Justice on Wednesday, July 1, 2026 in Washington. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
The complaint against Blanche says that she mishandled evidence connected to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, used the DOJ to attack Trump’s personal enemies and failed to properly represent the interests of the United States during the negotiations that led to the creation of the $1.8 billion weapons compensation fund.
Woodward, on the other hand, is facing a bar complaint that his approval of the creation of the weapons fund constitutes a conflict of interest as he represented the defendants on Jan. 6. and Trump’s associates who might have benefited from it.
Gonzalez-Rivera, who teaches law at a Catholic university in Florida, said the judge’s order “effectively allows the delivery of arguments, if losing, arguments in the most important cases,” arguing that it would be ridiculous if the judges recommended the punishment of experts to lawyers who were on the losing side of other high-profile, historic cases.
LEGAL BATTLE ON TRUMP’S AGENDA GAINS MONEY AS FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES DIFFER FROM DEMOCRATS
US Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC The Justice Department discussed the latest developments in its investigation into the Tren de Aragua cartel after the United States killed the leader of the Tren de Aragua drug cartel, Nio Guerrero, in a strike carried out with the help of Venezuela last month. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official who now serves as vice president of litigation at the right-leaning group, warned that Williams’ order — if allowed to become routine — could seriously harm the legal profession by empowering a small number of insiders.
“This nonsense must stop. State and local agencies are not the highest authority or equal to the National Office of the Principal with thugs sitting on top of two senior leaders of the Department of Justice,” he wrote on Monday.
“If this trend continues, no future Republican congressman will be willing to step into the US Department of Justice to carry out the President’s law enforcement orders as the Constitution intended,” Clark continued. “Instead power will be monopolized and directed only to the left… The Framers would be shocked to learn that the real manager of the Executive Branch’s legal power is not the one President of the United States, but instead committees of top lawyers of the insular coastal elite who want to exercise the meta-power of the legal ethics.”
MIKE DAVIS: WHY CENTS SHOULD NOT OBAMA’S JUDGE ATTACK ON AG NOMINEE TODD BLANCHE
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testifies during the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on May 19, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Clark also faced disciplinary action in Washington, DC, where a disciplinary board recommended he be fired for his role in a proposed DOJ letter to Georgia officials after the 2020 election — allegations he denied and dismissed as politically motivated.
“The DOJ has the power to end this nonsense by issuing state/local gun bans,” he added.
While Williams instructed the clerk to forward his opinion to the disciplinary authorities reviewing the existing complaints against Blanche and Woodward, he formally referred Brito to the Florida Bar after finding that he had filed the case in “bad faith.”
Williams said Trump’s lawsuit over his tax return was used to justify an unfounded legal settlement; he flagged up disputes involving former clients of Blanche and Woodward and ordered an opinion sent to their bars, while officially directing Brito to the Florida Bar because he signed the complaint that opened the case.
“I find it absurd that federal judges continue to attack DOJ attorneys, including and especially Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, regardless of the political views of these supposedly impartial judges,” Jay Town, former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, told Fox News Digital.
Williams was appointed to the bench in 2011 by President Barack Obama. He previously ruled against “Alligator Alcatraz,” a detention center used by the state of Florida to house illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, but it was overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“On the bright side, this and potentially many similar orders that we may see in other district courts across the country … may present the highest courts – perhaps our highest, too – with the opportunity to reconsider the doctrines made by judges as justice, which increasingly shows their power to be empowered not only outside but also inside the court itself,” said Gonzale News’ Gonzale Fox
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Conservative attorney Mike Davis has asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Williams’ decision in the case.
“A federal judge in Florida has made it clear that he has referred Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the New York Bar to appear shortly before his hearing is set to be brought up to the Attorney General’s Office,” Clark told Fox News Digital. “This is illegal behavior that makes no sense.”
