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Ethics

Former DOJ lawyer faces disbarment for entanglement in ‘one of the largest kleptocracy schemes in history’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 17, 2025, 3:07 pm CDT

A lawyer who worked for the U.S. Department of Justice is facing disbarment after pleading guilty for his role in an illegal foreign influence scheme that allegedly stemmed from his friendship and legal work for hip-hop artist Prakazrel “Pras” Michel.

Lawyer George A. Higginbotham, a former senior congressional affairs specialist at the DOJ, prepared fake loan documents, investment agreements and consulting agreements to hide the source of tens of millions of dollars intended to be used to lobby the U.S. government, according to the April 16 opinion by the Appellate Division’s Second Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court.

The Legal Profession Blog published highlights.

Higginbotham’s work was intended to facilitate lobbying for the extradition of a political dissident to China and to resolve an investigation of a foreign national who orchestrated a multibillion-dollar embezzlement scheme involving a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.

Higginbotham was working on behalf of Michel, who wanted help with his dealings with the foreign national, Jho Low, according to Higginbotham’s testimony, as reported by Reuters, at Michel’s trial in April 2023.

Higginbotham entangled himself in a conspiracy to avoid prosecution “in one of the largest kleptocracy schemes in history,” the appeals court said. “Anything less than a disbarment is unwarranted.”

Higginbotham pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to make false statements to a bank in November 2018, according to a press release. He did not influence any aspect of the DOJ investigation involving the investment company known as 1MDB.

Higginbotham was sentenced to probation in November 2023 and ordered to forfeit $70,000, the amount of money that he was paid after submitting invoices for work in the scheme.

Michel was convicted of conspiracy and other charges in April 2023 for using straw donors in the lobbying campaign.

Low was convicted and sentenced in absentia to 10 years in a Kuwaiti prison, the New York Post reported in March 2023.

See also:

Despite lyrics mistake by AI, lawyer wasn’t ineffective for using tech in rapper’s case, federal judge says

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3. DOJ opposes court-ordered return of immigrant,…

Attorney General

DOJ opposes court-ordered return of immigrant, suspends lawyer who said he shouldn’t have been deported

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 7, 2025, 2:23 pm CDT

Updated: The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a federal judge’s order to return an immigrant mistakenly sent to a prison in El Salvador in Central America—a move that followed the department’s decision to place one of its lawyers on indefinite leave, apparently for his admissions in the case.

The government is asking the high court to issue an administrative stay to block the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of the District of Maryland and to vacate her injunction.

The Washington Post and the New York Times have coverage of the government’s April 7 filing, while the New York Times, CNN and NBC News are among the publications with coverage of the DOJ lawyer’s suspension. Additional stories are noted by How Appealing.

The government application claims that Xinis “ordered unprecedented relief: dictating to the United States that it must not only negotiate with a foreign country to return an enemy alien on foreign soil but also succeed by 11:59 p.m. tonight.”

“While the United States concedes that removal to El Salvador was an administrative error,” the application says, “that does not license district courts to seize control over foreign relations, treat the executive branch as a subordinate diplomat, and demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight.”

Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily paused Xinis’ deadline Monday afternoon to allow for a full review by the Supreme Court, the Washington Post reports.

Xinis is an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

The government had alleged that the mistakenly deported immigrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, is a member of MS-13, a gang designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States. Xinis said the government had offered no evidence to show that he is a gang member.

The now-suspended DOJ lawyer, Erez Reuveni, was the acting deputy director of the department’s Office of Immigration Litigation. He had conceded in court that Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador, and he had no evidence showing why the immigrant was even arrested, according to NBC News.

“The absence of evidence speaks for itself,” he said. “The government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”

When Xinis asked what kind of practical impediment kept the government from securing Abrego Garcia’s return, Reuveni said he asked the same question when the case was assigned to him.

“I have not yet received an answer that I find satisfactory,” he said.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told the New York Times in a statement that Reuveni did not follow her order.

“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Bondi said. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

The case is Noem v. Abrego Garcia.

Updated April 7 at 3:25 p.m. to include reporting on Chief Justice John Roberts’ order.

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President Donald Trump handed down orders to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday directing federal law enforcement to go after lawyers and law firms that challenge his administration with “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation.”

The White House issued a memo late Friday announcing Trump’s memorandum, which was titled, “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court.” In it, the Trump administration warns that lawyers and firms engaging in actions that violate the laws of the United States or rules governing attorney conduct “must be efficiently and effectively held accountable.”

“Accountability is especially important when misconduct by lawyers and law firms threatens our national security, homeland security, public safety, or election integrity,” the memo states. An example of “grossly unethical misconduct” is included in the memorandum, with Trump administration officials claiming it’s “far too common.”

“For instance, in 2016, Marc Elias, founder and chair of Elias Law Group LLP, was deeply involved in the creation of a false ‘dossier’ by a foreign national designed to provide a fraudulent basis for Federal law enforcement to investigate a Presidential candidate in order to alter the outcome of the Presidential election,” the memo alleges. “Elias also intentionally sought to conceal the role of his client — failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — in the dossier.”

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3. DOJ files complaint against federal judge…

Judiciary

DOJ files complaint against federal judge for alleged hostility against government lawyer

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 24, 2025, 12:27 pm CST

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a misconduct complaint Friday for alleged “hostile and egregious misconduct” by a federal judge presiding in a challenge to an executive order that says gender dysphoria conflicts with military troop readiness.

The DOJ filed the complaint against U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes of Washington, D.C., report Law360, the Associated Press and Reuters.

“The transcript reveals multiple instances where Judge Reyes’ misconduct compromised the dignity of the proceedings and demonstrated potential bias, raising serious concerns about her ability to preside impartially in this matter,” the complaint says.

Chad Mizelle, the chief of staff for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, filed the complaint seeking “appropriate action” with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Reyes is an appointee of former President Joe Biden. According to Original Jurisdiction, Reyes “is an equal-opportunity benchslapper” who has also chastised “liberal legal lions.”

The Jan. 27 executive order asks the secretary for the U.S. Department of Defense to revise the military’s transgender policy in a way that is consistent with the order.

“Adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” the executive order says.

The Associated Press and Law 360 report that during the hearings, Reyes:

  • Raised her voice and demanded an answer from a government attorney about whether President Donald Trump’s executive order showed animus by calling “an entire category of people dishonest, dishonorable, undisciplined.”

  • Engaged in a rhetorical exercise regarding discrimination. Reyes declared that graduates of the University of Virginia School of Law would be barred from her courtroom because they are “liars and lack integrity.” She then told the government lawyer who was a University of Virginia School of Law grad “to sit down.” According to the ethics complaint, the directive “served no legitimate judicial purpose and transformed an attorney appearing before the court into an unwilling participant in the judge’s unnecessary demonstration.”

  • Asked the government lawyer what “Jesus would say to telling a group of people that they are so worthless, so worthless that we’re not going to allow them into homeless shelters? Do you think Jesus would be, ‘Sounds right to me’?” she asked. The complaint says the question “placed DOJ counsel in an untenable position of either appearing unresponsive or speculating about how an incoherent hypothetical aligns with Judge Reyes’ personal religious beliefs.”

The plaintiffs challenging the order are six transgender people who are active-duty service members and two others who want to enlist.

Reyes is not the only federal judge feeling the heat while presiding over challenges to Trump administration policies. Republican lawmakers have introduced articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York after he barred Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s representative from accessing information from the Department of the Treasury, report Bloomberg Law and Axios.

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3. Job protections for administrative law judges…

Administrative Law

Job protections for administrative law judges are unconstitutional, DOJ concludes

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 24, 2025, 2:17 pm CST

The U.S. Department of Justice has concluded that “multiple layers of removal restrictions” for administrative law judges are unconstitutional.

The decision was revealed in a Feb. 20 press release from the DOJ, a Feb. 20 letter to Republican U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and a Feb. 11 court filing, report Law360, Reuters and the New York Times.

The administrative law judges are protected by two laws, the letter says. One says administrative law judges can be removed “only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board.” Another says board members may be removed by a president “only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

The laws violate a president’s authority under Article II of the Constitution by restricting their “ability to remove principal executive officers, who are in turn restricted in their ability to remove inferior executive officers,” the letter says.

Administrative law judges decide disputes in administrative hearings for executive branch agencies that include the Social Security Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to Law360 and the New York Times.

The New York Times called the decision “the latest step in the administration’s unfolding assault on the basic structure of the federal government and on Congress’ power to insulate various types of executive branch officials in sensitive positions from political interference from the White House.”

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3. DOJ nominees hedge on whether court orders…

Constitutional Law

DOJ nominees hedge on whether court orders must always be followed

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 27, 2025, 3:24 pm CST

Two Department of Justice nominees refused to say whether court orders must always be followed during questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

D. John Sauer, the U.S. solicitor general nominee, said, “Generally, if there’s a direct court order that binds a federal or state official, they should follow it,” Law.com reports.

But Sauer also said “some historians might think we’d be better off” if the 1944 U.S. Supreme Court decision Korematsu v. United States had not been followed. Korematsu upheld an executive order calling for the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

In any event, Sauer said, the idea that President Donald Trump would defy a court order is “not a plausible scenario.”

Sauer is a former Missouri solicitor general who clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. He successfully represented Trump before the Supreme Court in the 2020 election-interference case against him. The July 2024 decision held that presidents have “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution when exercising core constitutional powers.

Other publications with Senate Judiciary Committee coverage include Bloomberg Law, Law360, the Washington Post and Politico.

Aaron Reitz, nominated to lead the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy, told senators that it would be “too hypothetical” to comment on whether litigants can defy court orders based on a moral disagreement. Reitz is currently the chief of staff for Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

The Washington Post highlighted two other answers given by Reitz.

The first: “There is no hard and fast rule in all instances in which a litigant must comply with all or some or various parts of a judicial decision,” Reitz said. “It is so fact-, law- and case-specific that one cannot speak generally.”

The second: “My position reflects a fairly mainstream view within right-of-center jurisprudential circles, which is simply to suggest that various Supreme Court or Court of Appeals decisions are more limited in scope than maybe our friends who share a different jurisprudential view of Supreme Court holdings would suggest.”

During the hearing, Reitz was asked about his post on X, formerly known as Twitter, after a federal judge blocked a Texas abortion ban enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reitz wrote that the judge “has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” The social media post echoed an “apocryphal quote attributed to Andrew Jackson in response to a much earlier court ruling,” according to the Washington Post.

According to Law360, Reitz said the social media post reflects “a conservative view of Article III and the role of courts and their ability to bind parties that are not litigants to the case before it.”

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3. Trump pauses enforcement of foreign bribery…

White Collar Crime

Trump pauses enforcement of foreign bribery law, cites harm to ‘American economic competitiveness’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 11, 2025, 3:24 pm CST

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that that generally pauses enforcement of a law that bars companies operating in the United States from bribing foreign officials.

The Feb. 10 order requires U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to formulate updated guidelines for enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that “prioritize American interests, American economic competitiveness with respect to other nations, and the efficient use of federal law enforcement resources.”

Bondi has 180 days to work on the guidelines and has the option of extending the period for another 180 days, the order said. During that time, Bondi should stop new Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigations or enforcement actions, the order said. She is also required to review existing investigations and actions, taking action to restore proper bounds on enforcement. Bondi can determine whether an exception to the pause should be made in individual cases, however.

A White House fact sheet said “unpredictable FCPA enforcement” makes American companies less competitive. Overenforcement of the law also interferes with Trump’s authority to conduct foreign affairs under Article II of the Constitution, the document said.

Bondi issued a memo Feb. 5 that directs Department of Justice lawyers to prioritize Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions in which foreign bribery facilitated crimes of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, according to an analysis by Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer. The law firm also said the statute of limitations in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases “outruns the Trump administration,” meaning that a prosecution could be fair game after Trump leaves office.

Publications with coverage of Trump’s order include Reuters, CNBC, Fox News and the New York Times.

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3. 20 immigration judges fired, despite backlogs;…

Immigration Law

20 immigration judges fired, despite backlogs; one labels dismissal ‘political pink slip’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 18, 2025, 1:56 pm CST

Immigration judges have not been spared from firings in the Trump administration, despite a backlog of 3.7 million cases in their courts at the end of last year.

Twenty immigration judges have been fired, including 18 let go Friday, a union official told the New York Times, Bloomberg Law and the Associated Press, which was first to report the news.

The firings are “inexplicable,” and “it makes no sense at all,” said Matthew Biggs, the official, in an interview with the New York Times. Biggs is the president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers.

Biggs said the firings are contrary to President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration. Immigration judges, who are administrative law judges, preside over asylum claims and deportation cases.

Among those who were fired Friday, 13 were recently hired and had not yet been sworn in. Five were assistant chief immigration judges. Another two were fired in the past week.

One of the fired judges was Judge Kerry E. Doyle, who was formerly the deputy general counsel for immigration for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“Unfortunately, I was unable to avoid the political pink slip,” Doyle wrote on LinkedIn.

The fired judges included former prosecutors and military veterans, Doyle told Bloomberg Law.

See also:

DOJ says it will prosecute local officials over immigration enforcement

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3. Could courts run out of options if federal…

Judiciary

Could courts run out of options if federal officials defy court orders?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 20, 2025, 2:56 pm CST

The question was considered during President Donald Trump’s first term in office: What would happen if his administration ignored a court order? Now, news articles are considering the issue once again, and commentators are using the term “constitutional crisis” to describe worst-case scenarios.

One federal judge in Rhode Island already ruled Feb. 10 that the Trump administration partly failed to comply with a temporary restraining order to lift a freeze on some federal funds.

Then on Feb. 19, plaintiffs in another case sought to hold several administration officials in contempt for alleged “brazen defiance” of a Washington, D.C., federal judge’s TRO requiring continued funding of many foreign-aid programs.

How can courts respond? Among those considering the enforcement issue are Trevor W. Morrison and Richard H. Pildes, professors at the New York University School of Law, in a guest essay for the New York Times, Bloomberg Law, NPR and the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law.

Court orders are usually directed at subordinate officials, rather than a president. If the officials don’t comply, “the courts would be likely to issue further orders, with increasingly strict and specific requirements, such as a due date,” according to the guest essay.

Then there are these additional options, according to the articles:

  • Sanction the lawyers. Courts can sanction lawyers who help clients deliberately defy a court order, who file court documents for an improper purpose or who make misrepresentations to a court.

  • Order government officials to answer questions in depositions.

  • Hold administration officials in civil contempt of court. The officials and their agencies could be fined daily until they comply with a court order. Judges could also impose sanctions affecting the underlying litigation. And courts could require imprisonment until an order is followed. The problem is that the U.S. Marshals Service would likely be responsible for imprisoning the official—and the service is overseen by the Department of Justice, which could order noncompliance.

  • Hold officials in criminal contempt and refer the issue to a U.S. attorney for prosecution. Trump could direct the federal prosecutor to drop the case, however. If a judge was to instead appoint private counsel to prosecute, Trump could issue a pardon after a conviction.

“Executive branch defiance of the courts is not a simple, one-time-only decision,” Morrison and Pildes wrote in the New York Times guest essay.

Continued defiance could mean expanding the circle of federal officials who violate the law, including U.S. marshals. The confrontation could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

“For an official to stand in continued, open defiance of a court order, he might have to defy the entire judicial system,” Morrison and Pildes wrote. “At that point, there is no question we would be in a constitutional crisis, and the courts could well run out of options.”

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3. Judicial Conference declines to refer Justices…

U.S. Supreme Court

Judicial Conference declines to refer Justices Thomas, Jackson to DOJ for probes over alleged disclosure issues

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 6, 2025, 12:00 pm CST

The U.S. Judicial Conference indicated Thursday that it will not refer U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Department of Justice to investigate whether they violated ethics rules for alleged disclosure failures.

The Judicial Conference disclosed its decision in letters to two Democratic lawmakers who sought a probe for Thomas and to a conservative think tank that sought a referral for Jackson.

SCOTUSblog, Above the Law, Reuters, Law.com and the Volokh Conspiracy have coverage.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, who are Democrats, had requested referrals for Thomas following reports that he failed to disclose his interest in three properties sold to billionaire Harlan Crow, gifts of luxury travel from Crow, Crow’s payment of private school tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew, and Thomas’ purchase of a recreational vehicle with a loan from another wealthy friend.

The conservative Center for Renewing America had sought Jackson’s referral for allegedly failing to disclosure some of her husband’s medical-malpractice consulting income and potentially failing to disclose private contributions to her investiture celebration.

Both justices have filed amended disclosure statements addressing issues identified by the lawmakers and the Center for Renewing America, said Senior U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr. of the Western District of North Carolina in the letters to the lawmakers and to the conservative group. Conrad is also the secretary of the Judicial Conference.

In addition, ethics rules exempted gifts of personal hospitality from disclosure, the letters said. Guidance released in March and April 2023 said the exemption does not apply to gifts of transportation that substitute for commercial transportation, however, and to gifts at a property regularly rented out to others for a business purpose.

Generally, new guidance is not applied retroactively to previously filed reports, the Judicial Conference said. With regard to the personal hospitality exemption, the Judicial Conference agreed that its 2023 guidance doesn’t apply to travel to travel before 2022 because of confusion over the issue.

The Judicial Conference letters also said there “is reason to doubt” whether the conference has the authority to refer Supreme Court justices to the DOJ.