Trump allies attempt DC Bar takeover

The Hill

04-06-2025

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Allies of President Trump are attempting a takeover of the D.C. Bar Association as voting ends Wednesday in the election to lead the prestigious organization.
The two-way race for president is between Diane Seltzer and Brad Bondi, the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
It comes at a moment of heightened tension between the White House and the legal profession, which has come under attack by a president unafraid to punish prominent law firms, attack judges and clear house in his own Department of Justice.
The association does not decide attorney discipline matters, but anti-Trump attorneys and pundits are sounding the alarm about what a Make America Great Again takeover would mean for the group, the largest unified bar in the country with roughly 119,000 members.
'Ordinarily, I wouldn't hold the views or conduct of someone's relative against them. Indeed, I'm pretty much the last person who should be doing that,' George Conway said in a video published just before voting began, seemingly referencing his ex-wife, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former campaign manager and White House counselor.
'But these are not ordinary times.'
Already, the contentious race has rocketed voter turnout. The D.C. Bar said in a press release Tuesday that nearly 37,000 members, or 41 percent of eligible voters, had cast ballots so far — a significant jump from last year's 7,563 votes, about 8.5 percent turnout.
Brad Bondi is global co-chair of the investigations and white-collar defense practice at the law firm Paul Hastings. In the past, he's represented billionaire Elon Musk and Tesla, the Trump Media and Technology Group and a group linked to YouTuber MrBeast in its bid to purchase TikTok.
He's emphasized improved technology and a desire to see stronger participation in the D.C. Bar as touchpoints of his campaign, vowing in a candidate statement to ensure the group remains nonpartisan.
'The D.C. Bar is not, and must not become, a political organization,' he said. 'I will fight vigorously against any attempts externally or internally to change that.'
Though the association does not handle attorney discipline, the group has gotten caught up in political crosshairs after the D.C. Bar permanently disbarred former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and began pursuing the same punishment for Jeffrey Clark, both of whom provided legal advice to Trump in his efforts to overturn President Biden's 2020 election victory.
'The ordeal I've had to endure broke many laws and has repeatedly denied me due process. And all I did was take a firm and zealous stand in giving private, privileged advice to the President of the United States,' Clark wrote on X last week.
Seltzer runs an eponymous employment law firm and is endorsed by nearly two-dozen former D.C. Bar Association presidents.
'My priority is making sure that the rule of law is upheld, that we feel that we are safe to do our jobs and that we can go forward every day representing the clients we choose,' Seltzer said at a meet-the-candidates event last month, according to NPR.
And it's not just the presidential race. Alicia Long, a top deputy to interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, is running for treasurer.
The results are expected to be announced on Monday.
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Feds crack down hard on attacks against Jews
In the wake of two violent attacks against Jews, the Justice Department has swiftly cracked down on suspects while decrying the incidents as a symptom of rising antisemitism.
Last month, two Israeli Embassy staffers were gunned down outside a Jewish museum in Washington. The suspect in that incident, Elias Rodriguez, was slapped with an array of charges the next day, including murder of foreign officials and causing death through the use of a firearm — both which carry a possible sentence of death or life in prison.
Then, on Sunday, 12 people were injured in Boulder, Colo., when Molotov cocktails were hurled at demonstrators calling for the return of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Mohamed Soliman, the suspect, was charged with a federal hate crime Monday that carries a sentence up to life in prison. He faces dozens of state charges, as well, and federal law enforcement signaled that additional charges are being weighed.
'We've moved swiftly to charge quickly, just to send a message to the community that no acts of antisemitism are going to be tolerated,' said J. Bishop Grewell, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado. 'There are severe consequences.'
Since returning to the White House, the Trump administration has said battling antisemitism is a top priority. The president has stripped the legal status of pro-Palestine protesters, cut federal funding for universities he claims breed antisemitism and issued an executive order directing his administration to fight back.
Little time was wasted condemning the attacks.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi decried the shooting as 'brutal, anti-Semitic violence' and vowed to secure the 'most severe possible punishment' for Rodriguez. She called the Boulder attack 'vile anti-Semitic violence' and said the government would 'refuse to accept a world in which Jewish Americans are targeted for who they are and what they believe.'
Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, said 'hateful violence against Jewish Americans will be met with the full force of the Justice Department' after the shooting and vowed 'zero tolerance' for such acts after the attack in Colorado.
Soliman is slated to appear in state court Thursday and federal court on Friday. Rodriguez is due back in court on June 18.
Trump splinters with Federal Society
Trump and his allies are waging a war against the Federalist Society as parts of his second-term agenda are blocked by some of his own judicial nominees.
The boiling point — which came when Trump called longtime Federalist leader Leonard Leo a 'sleazebag' after a court blocked the bulk of his tariffs — has unleashed a rebellion pitting the MAGA movement against the conservative legal stronghold that helped Trump reshape the courts during his first term by offering up conservative judges as suggestions to fill benches across the country.
As the president embarks on choosing his next set of judicial nominees in his second term, his decisions are now being shaped by a new, MAGA-branded team.
Inside the White House, judicial appointments are being spearheaded by chief of staff Susie Wiles, White House counsel David Warrington and Deputy White House counsel Steve Kenny.
But with the Federalist Society on the outs, the process has shifted to include outside influence from the Article III Project, which is spearheaded by close Trump legal ally Mike Davis.
Davis served as chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) during Trump's first term, where in that role he helped clear the way for the president's judicial nominees. He also previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump's first nominee to the high court.
His relationship with Trump grew closer after the FBI raided the president's Mar-a-Lago resort and he defended the president in the press.
Meanwhile, the Federalist Society looked the other way, Davis said in an interview.
'They abandoned President Trump during the lawfare against him,' he said. 'And not only did they abandon him — they had several FedSoc leaders who participated in the lawfare and threw gas on the fire.'
It's a major shift from Trump's first term, when Trump's alliance with Leo was bountiful.
Read more about the splintering relationship and new dynamic here.
Order List
Read the full order list here.
IN: Ballot deadlines
The Supreme Court took up four new cases at its recent conference. We highlighted three of them in last week's edition.
Illinois ballot deadline challenge: In Bost v. Illinois Board of Elections, the court will decide whether Rep. Michael Bost (R-Ill.) and two of Trump's 2020 electors have legal standing to challenge Illinois' acceptance of ballots received after Election Day, so long as they were postmarked by then. The court is not directly examining the merits of the law, but Republicans have broadly looked to crack down on the practice.
Government contractor immunity: In The GEO Group v. Menocal, the court will decide if government contractors can immediately appeal a ruling denying them sovereign immunity from a lawsuit without waiting for the trial proceedings to conclude. The dispute arises from The GEO Group's operation of an immigration detention facility in Aurora, Colo.
Military injury lawsuit: In another case implicating government contractors, the court in Hencely v. Fluor Corporation will weigh reviving a former Army specialist's lawsuit against a defense contractor, which employed a suicide bomber who critically injured the specialist in Afghanistan. A lower court held the lawsuit was preempted by federal law.
The court also granted a fourth case we outlined the week prior:
4th Amendment's emergency exception: Law enforcement can get around the 4th Amendment's search warrant requirement if they believe an emergency is occurring inside a home. In Case v. Montana, the court will decide if police must have probable cause to believe an emergency is occurring or some lesser standard.
OUT: AR-15 bans (for now)
Though the court took up a series of new cases, its simultaneous refusal to take up two others has attracted just as much attention.
After considering challenges to Maryland's AR-15 ban and Rhode Island's high-capacity magazine ban at 15 consecutive conferences, the justices finally turned away the cases, Snope v. Brown and Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island.
For both petitions, the court fell one vote short of the four justices required to take up a case. Only Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch voted to do so.
They may have a fourth vote soon enough. In a separate statement, Justice Brett Kavanaugh told gun rights advocates to come back in a year or two.
'Additional petitions for certiorari will likely be before this Court shortly and, in my view, this Court should and presumably will address the AR–15 issue soon, in the next Term or two,' Kavanaugh wrote.
Separately, the court also turned away a petition we highlighted in April, Nicholson v. W.L. York, Inc., in which adult entertainer Chanel Nicholson sought to revive her racial discrimination lawsuit against various Houston-area clubs she claims barred her from entering because she is Black. A lower court ruled she waited too long to file her suit.
We now know why the court has been sitting on the case: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, was cooking up a dissent.
Jackson wrote that the lower decision 'flouts' the Supreme Court's clear precedent, saying she would've summarily reversed the ruling and allowed Nicholson's suit to proceed.
MAYBE: Monopolies
The court asked the Justice Department to weigh in on whether the justices should take up three pending petitions, known as a 'call for the views of the solicitor general,' or CVSG.
The justices often go with the solicitor general's recommendation, so these are ones to watch.
Antitrust: Duke Energy, which sells electricity in North Carolina, is attempting to reverse a ruling that revived NTE's antitrust suit against the company. In Duke Energy Carolinas LLC v. NTE Carolinas II LLC, a lower court ruled a company's series of independently lawful acts can together add up to an illegal monopoly under the Sherman Act.
Chabad's suit against Russia: In Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States v. Russian Federation, Chabad is appealing a lower ruling granting the Russian government immunity from a lawsuit over the group's sacred religious library that ended up in Soviet hands at the end of the Holocaust. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) generally protects foreign states from being hauled into U.S. courts, but Chabad believes its case falls under an exception.
Hertz's bankruptcy: Car-rental company Hertz, which filed for bankruptcy after COVID-19 curtailed travel spending, is appealing a ruling that it must pay $272 million in interest to bondholders. They were paid off early, but the bondholders believe they were underpaid now that Hertz has emerged from bankruptcy as a solvent company. Hertz argues the Bankruptcy Code doesn't allow the payment, but a lower court ruled it is overrided by a common law rule dating back to before the code's existence.
Petition Pile
The court has relisted five petitions for the first time.
RNC's fight over PA ballots: The Republican National Committee (RNC) is seeking to overturn a ruling providing Pennsylvania voters with an in-person, do-over option when they return a defective mail ballot. The justices declined to intervene on an emergency basis just before the 2024 election, but the case, RNC v. Genser, has now arrived at their normal docket. It's the latest case to implicate the so-called independent state legislature theory.
Oil lawsuit: In Chevron USA. v. Palequemines Parish, a group of energy companies that includes Chevron and Exxon Mobil are seeking to move a lawsuit filed by Louisiana parishes to federal court under what is known as the federal officer removal statute. The parishes won $745 million in state court earlier this year by holding the companies liable for production of crude oil along the Louisiana coast during World War II.
Personal jurisdiction: Federal procedure authorizes federal courts to wipe a void judgment, but the motion 'must be made within a reasonable time.' In Coney Island Auto Parts Unlimited, Inc. v. Burton, a dispute arising from an automotive company's bankruptcy, the court is asked to review whether the timeliness requirement applies when the court didn't have personal jurisdiction, meaning its power to make rulings concerning a party.
Compassionate release, again (x2): Last week, we discussed the court taking up what discretion judges have in granting compassionate release, which allows courts to reduce a defendant's sentence for 'extraordinary and compelling reasons.' The court has relisted two new defendants' petitions, Rutherford v. United States and Carter v. United States, that concern whether judges may consider sentencing disparities created by the First Step Act, the major criminal justice reform law passed in 2018. The Justice Department is backing both defendants, telling the court they should take up Carter and hold Rutherford until they reach a decision.
SIDEBAR
Catch Up
5 docket updates you need to know from the last week.
Tariffs invalidated: The U.S. Court of International Trade and a federal judge in Washington, D.C., blocked the bulk of Trump's tariffs as unlawful. Neither ruling is currently in effect as the cases quickly head to the appeals courts.
Environmental reviews narrowed: The Supreme Court in an 8-0 opinion narrowed the scope of environmental reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act. Read more from our colleague Rachel Frazin.
Parole revoked: The Supreme Court in an emergency ruling allowed the Trump administration to revoke humanitarian parole the Biden administration extended to 532,000 migrants from four Latin American countries.
RIFs boomerang at SCOTUS: The Trump administration filed a new emergency application at the Supreme Court seeking to resume mass layoffs across the federal government. The justices refused to act at an earlier stage of the case by sitting on a previous request from the administration until it became moot.
CFPB lawsuit dropped: Baltimore dropped its lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's efforts to defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In other news…
Europe steps up: As the Trump administration looks to downsize the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which funds Voice of America and other media groups, new court filings reveal the European Union (EU) is working on filling the gaps in funding to Radio Free Europe. The EU announced an intent to provide $6.2 million.
Menendez pardon watch: Former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who is set to report to prison in less than two weeks for his bribery conviction, in two series of posts on X accused former President Obama of weaponizing the Justice Department when it brought an earlier indictment against Menendez that ended in a mistrial. His comments came as Trump issued a flurry of pardons and expressed a willingness to do so for anyone who 'was mistreated' whether they 'like me or dislike me.'
Rubbing salt in the wound: According to a new lawsuit filed by a group of fired Department of Health and Human Services workers, a young man in business attire shouted, 'This is DOGE and this is your Last Supper!' at one employee as she was leaving work. The next morning, the employee received her layoff notice.
ON THE DOCKET
Don't be surprised if additional hearings are scheduled throughout the week. But here's what we're watching for now:
Today
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hold oral arguments in an appeal of Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is set to hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a challenge by various local Planned Parenthood arms to the Department of Health and Human Services's efforts to upend the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hold a hearing considering some of Trump's second term judicial nominees.
Thursday
The Supreme Court will announce opinions.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is set to hold a second preliminary injunction hearing in the Project of Government Oversight's lawsuit against Trump and DOGE over its recordkeeping practices.
Friday
Shane Lamond, the ex-D.C. police lieutenant convicted of warning Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio he was being investigated and later lying about their communication, is set to be sentenced.
A federal judge in Boston is set to hold a preliminary injunction hearing in 19 Democratic state attorneys general's challenge to Trump's executive order on elections.
A Maryland judge is set to hold a summary judgment hearing in a challenge by three Biden appointees to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) who were fired by Trump.
Monday
The Supreme Court will announce orders.
The D.C. Bar Association is expected to announce the results of its election.
WHAT WE'RE READING
The Wall Street Journal's Erin Mulvaney, Emily Glazer, C. Ryan Barber and Josh Dawsey: The Law Firms That Appeased Trump—and Angered Their Clients
The Detroit News's Robert Snell and Craig Mauger: Chinese student who voted in Michigan election fled U.S., feds say
Michael Cohen, Warren Ballentine, Jesse Jackson Jr., Michael Rothenberg and Dr. Michael Jones in The Hill: With new questions about his acuity, Biden's pardon choices should be revisited
We'll be back next Wednesday with additional reporting and insights. In the meantime, keep up with our coverage here.
Questions? Tips? Love letters, hate mail, pet pics?