There are those in the electorate — certainly those in this paper’s service area — who are not lawyers, who are not schooled in the law, nor who know those licensed as members of the Florida bar.
This collective group could well perceive that what they see U.S. Department of Justice lawyers doing now must equate to what the rest of us holding a bar license must be doing, too. Not so.
We see the effort undertaken to get the Epstein files disclosed, yet the DOJ has still not released them all, well over a month’s time after the statutory end date for disclosure. We see DOJ lawyers not investigating the killing of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE agent. Then, there is the issue of the Justice Department saying President Donald Trump’s tariffs are constitutional despite what I see as contrary law — a ruling that is proceeding to the Supreme Court. And still further, there have been U.S. attorneys installed by Attorney General Pam Bondi (Florida’s own), but declared in violation of the U.S. Constitution by various courts nationwide.
One Bondi appointee, licensed in Florida, stands out — Lindsey Halligan, appointed U.S. Attorney for a branch of the federal courts in Virginia, with a background in insurance law and not one iota of criminal law experience. She prosecuted former FBI head James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, but those indictments were quickly tossed on Nov. 24 by a federal judge, who also ruled Halligan’s appointment was unlawful since it violated the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
Other federal judges in Virginia thereafter questioned Halligan’s appointment, including one who mandated Halligan file a writing to the court explaining why she was still using the U.S. Attorney moniker even though the rule of law told her she could not. On January 13, Halligan responded, using language that could most charitably be viewed as an affront to any jurist, certainly a federal judge. She posits she is entitled to continue using the title because it remains a contested legal position. As to this ruling that referenced lawyers’ compliance with ethics rules, she wrote,
“The Court’s thinly veiled threat to use attorney discipline to cudgel the Executive Branch into conforming its legal position in all criminal prosecutions to the views of a single district judge is a gross abuse of power and an affront to the separation of powers.”
Miles Zaremski – Original Credit: Courtesy photo
But the rule of law applies to us all, from those of us that might have to pay a fine for a speeding ticket even to the circumstances in which she finds herself.
Of course, advocacy is expected among parties at issue with one another in a court of law, and the court’s decision awaits from challenging her continued use of U.S. Attorney. But what remains mightily germane, certainly for the lay public’s understanding of what us lawyers do, is that advocacy, even done zealously, that subverts the rule of law — using Halligan as a microcosm to what DOJ lawyers have been doing elsewhere — is untenable, without merit, and, in the end, will make that which is unlawful legal. Without abiding by the rule of law, a guiding beacon for our democracy will be vanquished. This is intolerable, unacceptable and certainly what us lawyers and our profession will never promote, advocate for, nor condone.
Miles J. Zaremski, who maintains a part-time residence in The Villages, has a 50-year legal career and is a former adjunct faculty member at the Stetson University School of Law.
