The top lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security is facing a bar complaint over an incendiary series of social media posts in which he listed and criticized federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration.
In a complaint to the Florida Bar this week, lawyer groups and more than 100 former federal and state judges called for an investigation into DHS General Counsel James Percival, who started a “Worst of the Worst, District Judge Edition” series of posts on X in July. The language paralleled the administration’s public lists of undocumented immigrants who had committed or were accused of committing crimes.
Percival claimed that federal judges who ruled against the Trump administration were engaging in judicial sabotage and mutiny against the Supreme Court.
But the former judges argued he mischaracterized or falsely portrayed the cases.
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“These statements, and similar statements Mr. Percival has made about other sitting judges, not only constitute serious professional misconduct, but they threaten the rule of law and increase the risk of violence against judges,” the complaint from the Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy and the former judges states.
Percival has dismissed concerns about the potential for inciting threats against judges, describing his posts as fact-based critiques. But in response to the bar complaint, Percival directed his focus on former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince. Her signature, as a board member of Lawyers Defending American Democracy, appears first on the complaint.
“In honor of former Florida Supreme Court Justice Peggy Quince, who just filed a bar complaint against me for calling out judicial activism, I will be creating a new award,” Percival posted on X Wednesday. “The award is called the Justice Peggy Quince Lifetime Achievement Award for Worst of the Worst Judging. I am now accepting nominees!”
The complaint points to the more than 402 threats made against individual federal judges this fiscal year, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
The lawyer groups and former judges want the Florida Bar to discipline Percival for violating a rule prohibiting lawyers from making false statements “or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge.”
“Mr. Percival’s statements go far beyond normal criticism,” the complaint states. “They are unfounded ad hominem attacks that directly impugn the integrity of four sitting judges.”
Only about 25% of complaints result in the opening of a disciplinary file, according to the Florida Bar website.
Last year, the Florida Bar and the Florida Supreme Court declined to investigate an ethics complaint against former Attorney General Pam Bondi because she was a “sitting officer appointed under the U.S. Constitution.”
Before becoming DHS’s general counsel, Percival worked as then-Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s chief of staff and senior counsel for the Justice Department. He attended the University of Virginia School of Law.
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