Pam Bondi, who was fired on April 2 as attorney general by President Donald Trump, has said that she is moving on to an "important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting" for the guy who just fired her.

Bondi has another fight coming – a broad coalition of lawyers and legal groups is planning to refile an ethics complaint against her with The Florida Bar. The group will once again accuse her of misconduct for using her former position as the nation's top law enforcement official to serve only Trump and not the Americans she swore to serve.

The timing of this development is extraordinarily exquisite.

Bondi, before she got fired, proposed a new federal regulation that would give the attorney general the power to hijack the processes that state bar associations use to investigate ethics complaints filed against Department of Justice lawyers. The 30-day period for public comment about that ended on April 6.

More than a million people left comments on the Federal Register, and it looks like the bulk of them opposed Bondi's proposed regulation. They don't want the DOJ to shield public servants from ethics complaints.

Pam Bondi is 'not above the law in any way'

Bondi is no longer a DOJ lawyer, so her proposed rule would not protect her.

But the lawyers and legal groups looking to hold her accountable have been frustrated so far by The Florida Bar, which rejected the ethics complaint they filed against Bondi in June, stating it does not "investigate or prosecute sitting officers appointed under the U.S. Constitution while they are in office."

The Florida Supreme Court in October rejected an effort to force The Florida Bar to investigate the complaint.

Lauren Rikleen, the executive director of Lawyers Defending American Democracy, told me that an attorney general, like any other lawyer, "has an obligation to uphold the Constitution and the code of professional ethics."

"She is not above the law in any way," Rikleen said in an interview. "And the frustration of this has been, of course, that The Florida Bar took the position that indeed the attorney general was above the law and they would not investigate."

She said the coalition will be meeting soon to discuss whether to refile the original 23-page complaint or to amend it to include new allegations against Bondi. The coalition includes the groups Democracy Defenders Fund and Lawyers for the Rule of Law.

Expect new allegations against Bondi in future ethics complaints

Democracy Defenders Fund, in an email, told me they "are fully committed to holding Pam Bondi accountable for her apparent failure to comply with her professional obligations."

The original complaint was signed by 68 lawyers, including law professors, retired state and federal judges, and former DOJ attorneys. Two of them, Peggy Quince and Barbara Pariente, are former Florida Supreme Court chief justices. Both told me they're on board with refiling the ethics complaint against Bondi.

The original complaint accused Bondi of "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice" while serving as attorney general. It notes that Bondi, on her first day in that post, issued a memo calling for "zealous advocacy" in pursuit of Trump's agenda and threatened discipline and terminations for any DOJ staffer who "delays or impedes the Department's mission."

The complaint offers "three glaring examples" of DOJ lawyers being fired or forced to resign "as a result of demands that they act unethically issued by Ms. Bondi" or her management team.

That included a DOJ lawyer who questioned his department's actions in court during a high-profile deportation case, a lawyer who resigned rather than follow an order to investigate federal spending to prevent pollution despite a lack of evidence, and lawyers who resigned after objecting to the dismissal of a criminal case against former New York Mayor Eric Adams.

I'd expect more allegations when the amended ethics complaint gets filed against Bondi.

"I think it's reasonable to assume we will be looking at activities since the time of the original filing," Rikleen told me. "A lot has happened in the last six months. All of us who do this work take a lot of care and effort in how we draft these and make sure that we have a very solid basis for every allegation."

Trump has a long history of lawyers who faced discipline for actions they took on his behalf. Bondi knew that when she took the job as attorney general. And that job now no longer protects her from the consequences of her actions.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan

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