The Attorney Who Refused to Help Trump Break the Law

In February, when the Attorney General Pam Bondi took over the Ministry of Justice, she immediately informed her 10,000 lawyers whom they should defend “zeal” for the United States. What she meant is that, under her watch, the department should zeald Trump with zeal. The DOJ lawyers, she said in her memo on February 5, should “aggressively” apply civil and criminal laws and “vigorously” defend all “presidential policies and actions”. Although these lawyers have a certain discretionary power in their functions, Bondi warned that it “does not include latitude to substitute political opinions or personal judgments for those who prevailed during the elections”.

In the latest democratic and republican administrations, the MJ lawyers had the informal right to refuse their name to the signature block at the end of a legal file – the equivalent of the lawyers of a screenwriter modifying his credit to Alan Smithee when he disagreements the choices of the studio. They could also refuse to participate in some cases for reasons of conscience.

Bondi ended this practice, treating it as an anti-constitutional act. MJ lawyers who “refuse to advance the arguments in good faith by refusing to appear before the court or to sign memories,” she said, the constitutional order and deprive Trump “the benefit of his lawyers”. All MJ lawyers who have requested such exemptions “will be subject to discipline and potentially dismissal”.

This year, in response to Bondi dictates, hundreds of lawyers left the department. Erez Rebeni was not one of them – at least, not at the beginning. Reveni began his mandate at the Ministry of Justice in 2010 as a first instance lawyer and, through three presidencies, progressed within the framework of the Immigration Disputes. He was not a policy of politics; He was an official who should represent the United States in court, regardless of the president’s party or ideology, and he did.

Then something happened that made it untenable. In March, a federal immigration agent arrested Kilmar Abrego Garcia – who entered the United States without authorization after fled El Salvador at the age of 16 – full of full at Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland. Three days later, a flight from the United States government sent him and dozens of other men to the Terrorism Center Center, or Cecot, a prison led by Salvadorians where he would be detained indefinitely.