Former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, seen here in the Oval Office on Jan. 29, is accused of questionable ethics in a complaint filed to the Florida State Bar. 

As former Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before Congress on Friday, she is also facing a new ethics complaint filed to the Florida State Bar by retired Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince and a coalition of over 100 law professors and former judges. 

“Ms. Bondi not only required prosecutors to violate their fiduciary obligations to the public, but also violated several Rules herself,” the wide-ranging and exceptionally well-annotated complaint states. 

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In response, the Justice Department called the complaint “a baseless and pathetic media stunt.” But the bad news for Bondi is that it is well-grounded in the rules of legal ethics. 

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The essence of any prosecutor’s duty is, in the words of the American Bar Association, “to seek justice within the bounds of the law, not merely to convict.” Of primary importance are a lawyer’s duties of candor to the court and to “exercise independent professional judgment,” to quote the Florida ethics rule.

Bondi trashed these standards on her first day as Attorney General, when she issued........

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