Lawyers are pressing for fresh consequences against Pam Bondi after a Florida Bar complaint over her conduct as attorney general was dismissed without action. One of them now says he will renew the effort, and another is urging Stetson Law School to strip away the honors it once gave her.
On April 22, longtime criminal defense lawyer and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon May and Pinellas County family law attorney Johnny Bardine joined MidPoint to talk through the dispute, which centers on Bondi’s conduct while she served as U.S. Attorney General. May filed a formal complaint with the Florida Bar seeking disciplinary action against Bondi’s law license, arguing that her alleged ethical breaches should not be insulated just because they happened while she was serving in Washington.
The Florida Bar dismissed the complaint without action because Bondi was a federal appointee of the president. May said he plans to return with additional allegations now that Bondi has been fired. The renewed push comes as Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and alumna of Stetson Law School in Gulfport, Florida, remains under scrutiny from critics who say her legal and public service record cannot be separated from the state license that allowed her to practice.
That is the friction point in the case. The conduct at issue took place outside Florida, but May says federal law still requires government lawyers to follow the rules of the states where they are licensed, leaving the Florida Bar as a possible avenue for discipline even after the first complaint was turned aside. Bardine, meanwhile, has turned the dispute toward Bondi’s academic credentials, launching a campaign urging Stetson Law School to revoke the distinguished graduate honors it previously awarded her.
“Stetson should revoke her post grad honors,” Bardine said, while one unnamed commenter was even blunter, writing, “She not once talked to the Epstein survivors to prosecute the guilty parties.” Bardine also called on donors to withhold money from the school until it publicly acknowledges and repudiates what he describes as Bondi’s unethical conduct.
The answer to the immediate question is that the effort is not over. May is preparing a second complaint, Bardine is targeting Bondi’s honors at Stetson Law School, and the debate around pam bondi has shifted from whether the first filing could stick to whether the institutions tied to her career will now move at all.
