The Florida Bar said it won’t investigate the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel, shutting down a complaint filed by anti-Trump activists who said his criticism of sitting federal judges crossed ethical lines.
The bar said as long as James Percival holds a federal office, he won’t be subject to a probe, according to the Democracy Defenders Fund, which orchestrated the ethics complaint.
Mr. Percival has been withering in his denunciations of judges who have stood in the way of Trump administration priorities. Last month he mounted a pressure campaign on district judges to end their blockades on DHS terminating temporary protected status for more than a dozen nations after the administration prevailed in the Supreme Court in June.
In July, he started a social media thread naming the “worst of the worst” federal district judges. They included judges who’d blocked TPS, the judge in Maryland who ordered the undeportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and another judge in California who imposed limits on ICE’s use of force against unruly demonstrators.
The complaint against Mr. Percival called those criticisms “serious professional misconduct” and predicted they could incite “violence against judges.”
The complaint was joined by more than 100 former state and federal judges.
The groups that pushed for the ethics investigation said they were “disappointed” in the state bar’s decision not to probe.
“The ethics rules exist for a reason: Baseless attacks on judges by lawyers and public officials can undermine confidence in the courts and heighten the risk of physical threats against judges,” the groups said.
Mr. Percival was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2019 and is listed as a member in good standing in the bar’s database.
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