A liberal constitutional law professor has joined a growing chorus of legal voices across the political spectrum in condemning an Obama-appointed federal judge’s recommendation that bar associations sanction lawyers working for President Donald Trump or the Justice Department. Christian Lee Gonzalez-Rivera, who teaches law at a Catholic university in Florida and identifies as a liberal, told Fox News Digital that he refuses to teach his students that such a move is acceptable. The controversy stems from a ruling by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who formally referred Trump attorney Alejandro Brito to the Florida Bar and ordered her opinion sent to disciplinary authorities reviewing existing complaints against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward.
Williams, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, issued the referral in an opinion released Monday. The disciplinary actions arise from a case involving a settlement that shielded Trump, members of his family, and affiliated businesses from certain federal tax audits and claims. Bar associations have the power to suspend law licenses, giving them significant authority over lawyers, including high-ranking Justice Department officials. Gonzalez-Rivera argued that the judge’s order effectively punishes lawyers for advancing debatable arguments in high-stakes cases, a precedent he called dangerous.
“The court would also have litigants believe that, in such a circumstance, it is not only appropriate to dismiss the case but also to sanction and deprive litigants and their counsel of their reputation, license, or money,” Gonzalez-Rivera said. “As a law professor, attorney and former judicial law clerk, I refuse to teach the former or accept the latter.” He compared the situation to historical court cases where losing arguments were not met with professional punishment, suggesting that Williams’ approach could chill zealous advocacy.
The existing complaint against Blanche alleges that he mishandled evidence linked to the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, used the Justice Department to attack Trump’s personal enemies, and failed to properly represent U.S. interests during negotiations that led to the creation of a now-defunct $1.8 billion weaponization compensation fund. Woodward faces a bar complaint alleging that his approval of the fund constituted a conflict of interest because he had previously represented January 6 defendants and Trump associates who could potentially benefit from it.
Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official now serving as vice president of litigation at a right-wing watchdog group, warned that Williams’ order, if allowed to become the norm, could seriously damage the legal profession by empowering a small number of bar association insiders. “This nonsense has to end. The State and local bars are not the superior officers of or the equivalent of a school-marmish national Principal’s Office that sits in supervision of two highest-ranking leaders of the Justice Department,” Clark wrote Monday. He argued that if the trend continues, no future Republican lawyer would agree to join the Justice Department to carry out the president’s law enforcement orders as the Constitution intended. “Power will instead be monopolized and moved only to the Left,” he added. “The Framers would be shocked to learn that the real boss of Executive Branch legal power is not the singular President of the United States, but instead committees of insular coastal elite lawyers purporting to wield the meta-power of legal ethics.”
Clark himself has faced disciplinary proceedings in Washington, D.C., where a disciplinary board recommended he be disbarred over his role in a proposed Justice Department letter to Georgia officials after the 2020 election. He has denied the allegations and cast them as politically motivated. He suggested that the Justice Department could end such disputes by issuing regulations preempting state and local bar weaponization.
While Williams ordered the clerk to forward her opinion to disciplinary authorities reviewing existing complaints against Blanche and Woodward, she formally referred Brito to the Florida Bar after finding that he advanced the case in “bad faith.” Williams said Trump’s lawsuit surrounding his tax immunity settlement was used to give judicial legitimacy to a legally baseless settlement. She flagged conflict concerns involving Blanche and Woodward’s prior clients and ordered the opinion sent to their bars, while formally referring Brito because he signed the complaint that launched the case.
Jay Town, the former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, criticized the judge’s actions. “I find it absurd that federal judges continue to attack DOJ lawyers, to include and especially Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, with roots in nothing more than the political viewpoints of those supposed unbiased judges,” Town told Fox News Digital. Williams previously issued a ruling against “Alligator Alcatraz,” a detention center operated by Florida to house illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, but was overruled by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Some legal observers have suggested that the current controversy may ultimately provide higher courts, including the Supreme Court, with an opportunity to revisit judge-made doctrines related to justiciability and the limits of judicial power over executive branch attorneys.