{"id":145585,"date":"2026-03-08T16:26:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/03\/08\/when-florida-bar-said-it-was-serious-about-ethical-violations-it-meant-to-say-yes-sir-glory-to-the-maga-empire\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T16:26:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:26:48","slug":"when-florida-bar-said-it-was-serious-about-ethical-violations-it-meant-to-say-yes-sir-glory-to-the-maga-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/03\/08\/when-florida-bar-said-it-was-serious-about-ethical-violations-it-meant-to-say-yes-sir-glory-to-the-maga-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"When Florida Bar Said It Was Serious About Ethical Violations It MEANT To Say, \u2018Yes, Sir. Glory To The MAGA Empire!\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

No sooner had the New York Times reported that the Florida Bar had opened a pending investigation into Lindsey Halligan<\/a> \u2014 Trump\u2019s now-former, always-phony U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia \u2014 than the organization backtracked to assure any retaliation-minded federal officials that it was just kidding about taking professional ethical obligations seriously.<\/p>\n

Halligan\u2019s misadventures as an insurance lawyer pretending to be the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia included a pair of high-profile faceplants attempting to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and current NY Attorney General Letitia James<\/a> on charges generously described as frivolous and ethically dubious Signal chats with a journalist about a pending case<\/a>. After multiple federal judges took Halligan to task \u2014 with the most recent explicitly stating that he wasn\u2019t referring her for discipline solely because of her inexperience<\/a> \u2014 the Campaign for Accountability<\/a> took it upon itself to renew its lengthy ethics complaint to both the Virginia Bar and Halligan\u2019s home bar of Florida.<\/p>\n

Virginia punted on its responsibilities<\/a>, but Florida wrote a short letter acknowledging that it opened an investigation. Now that this news is public, Florida is spinning.<\/p>\n

Speaking with The Hill<\/a>, a Florida Bar spokesperson explained:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn response to an inquiry from a complainant, The Florida Bar wrote a letter to the complainant erroneously\u00a0stating\u00a0that there is a pending Bar investigation of member Lindsay Halligan,\u201d said Jennifer Krell Davis, director of communications for the state bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no such pending Bar investigation of Lindsay Halligan,\u201d she continued. \u201cIn this case, The Florida Bar received a complaint against Lindsay Halligan and, consistent with standard practice, the Bar is\u00a0monitoring\u00a0the ongoing legal proceedings underlying the complaint.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What ongoing legal proceedings? She\u2019s been benchslapped by three federal judges \u2014 benchslaps that include phrases like \u201cdisturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps\u201d and \u201cmisrepresentations to this Court\u201d \u2014 and then quit. There aren\u2019t any more legal proceedings to monitor. It\u2019s done! <\/p>\n

If any<\/em> lawyer outside of this administration landed on a disciplinarian\u2019s desk with a resume of alleged breaches like this, there would not be any \u201cmonitoring\u201d of the situation. A federal judge stayed his hand citing her inexperience. If the Florida Bar wanted to take the position that it doesn\u2019t enforce rules against inexperienced prosecutors, it could take that stance. Pretending the situation is somehow still in flux feels like a statement thrown together by a communications team trying desperately to come up with cover.<\/p>\n

When rumors first started that Florida might be disavowing its earlier letter, Campaign for Accountability executive director Michelle Kuppersmith said, \u201cCfA has not heard directly from the Florida Bar, but it\u2019s hard to reconcile this latest statement with the bar counsel\u2019s previous letter saying there is an investigation pending. If there is no longer an investigation into Halligan, the question is why not, given that three judges indicated she engaged in conduct that appears to violate ethics rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now Florida can consider itself clear of the DOJ\u2019s wrath<\/a>. All it took was overcoming that brief crisis of courage.<\/p>\n

Florida Bar says it \u2018erroneously\u2019 stated Halligan is under investigation<\/a> [The Hill]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Lindsey Halligan Under Investigation And The DOJ Is Big Mad About It<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post When Florida Bar Said It Was Serious About Ethical Violations It MEANT To Say, \u2018Yes, Sir. Glory To The MAGA Empire!\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No sooner had the New York Times reported that the Florida Bar had opened a pending investigation into Lindsey Halligan<\/a> \u2014 Trump\u2019s now-former, always-phony U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia \u2014 than the organization backtracked to assure any retaliation-minded federal officials that it was just kidding about taking professional ethical obligations seriously.<\/p>\n

Halligan\u2019s misadventures as an insurance lawyer pretending to be the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia included a pair of high-profile faceplants attempting to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and current NY Attorney General Letitia James<\/a> on charges generously described as frivolous and ethically dubious Signal chats with a journalist about a pending case<\/a>. After multiple federal judges took Halligan to task \u2014 with the most recent explicitly stating that he wasn\u2019t referring her for discipline solely because of her inexperience<\/a> \u2014 the Campaign for Accountability<\/a> took it upon itself to renew its lengthy ethics complaint to both the Virginia Bar and Halligan\u2019s home bar of Florida.<\/p>\n

Virginia punted on its responsibilities<\/a>, but Florida wrote a short letter acknowledging that it opened an investigation. Now that this news is public, Florida is spinning.<\/p>\n

Speaking with The Hill<\/a>, a Florida Bar spokesperson explained:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn response to an inquiry from a complainant, The Florida Bar wrote a letter to the complainant erroneously\u00a0stating\u00a0that there is a pending Bar investigation of member Lindsay Halligan,\u201d said Jennifer Krell Davis, director of communications for the state bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no such pending Bar investigation of Lindsay Halligan,\u201d she continued. \u201cIn this case, The Florida Bar received a complaint against Lindsay Halligan and, consistent with standard practice, the Bar is\u00a0monitoring\u00a0the ongoing legal proceedings underlying the complaint.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What ongoing legal proceedings? She\u2019s been benchslapped by three federal judges \u2014 benchslaps that include phrases like \u201cdisturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps\u201d and \u201cmisrepresentations to this Court\u201d \u2014 and then quit. There aren\u2019t any more legal proceedings to monitor. It\u2019s done! <\/p>\n

If any<\/em> lawyer outside of this administration landed on a disciplinarian\u2019s desk with a resume of alleged breaches like this, there would not be any \u201cmonitoring\u201d of the situation. A federal judge stayed his hand citing her inexperience. If the Florida Bar wanted to take the position that it doesn\u2019t enforce rules against inexperienced prosecutors, it could take that stance. Pretending the situation is somehow still in flux feels like a statement thrown together by a communications team trying desperately to come up with cover.<\/p>\n

When rumors first started that Florida might be disavowing its earlier letter, Campaign for Accountability executive director Michelle Kuppersmith said, \u201cCfA has not heard directly from the Florida Bar, but it\u2019s hard to reconcile this latest statement with the bar counsel\u2019s previous letter saying there is an investigation pending. If there is no longer an investigation into Halligan, the question is why not, given that three judges indicated she engaged in conduct that appears to violate ethics rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now Florida can consider itself clear of the DOJ\u2019s wrath<\/a>. All it took was overcoming that brief crisis of courage.<\/p>\n

Florida Bar says it \u2018erroneously\u2019 stated Halligan is under investigation<\/a> [The Hill]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Lindsey Halligan Under Investigation And The DOJ Is Big Mad About It<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post When Florida Bar Said It Was Serious About Ethical Violations It MEANT To Say, \u2018Yes, Sir. Glory To The MAGA Empire!\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No sooner had the New York Times reported that the Florida Bar had opened a pending investigation into Lindsey Halligan \u2014 Trump\u2019s now-former, always-phony U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia \u2014 than the organization backtracked to assure any retaliation-minded federal officials that it was just kidding about taking professional ethical obligations seriously. Halligan\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":145586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Headshot-300x200-VfMRcs.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}