What You Need to Know

• U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi requires zealous advocacy from all Department of Justice attorneys.
• Congressional Democrats demand the reinstatement of fired DOJ litigator Erez Reuveni.
• DOJ fired Reuveni after he conceded the government mistakenly
  deported a Marylander to El Salvador.

The dismissal of a U.S. Department of Justice attorney who ran afoul of
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “zealous advocacy” guidance in a high-profile
immigration case is reverberating with legal observers who are looking at the
implications for and expectations of government lawyers in the Trump
administration.

Bondi said the lawyer, who was arguing for the administration in a matter
where a Maryland resident was—apparently mistakenly—deported to El
Salvador, would not be reinstated.

Bondi confirmed the firing of Erez Reuveni in a television interview, saying the
ex-DOJ attorney failed to properly defend the government against a lawsuit
filed by plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom she described as a
“foreign transnational gang member” of MS-13.

“When you represent the United States of America as an assistant U.S.
attorney, you argue for the Constitution, for the United States of America and
for your clients, and he didn’t do that,” Bondi said of Reuveni in a Fox News
interview. “He argued against Homeland Security and [the] State Department,
and so he’s not with our office anymore, and he won’t be coming back.”

Bondi’s disciplinary actions against Reuveni “will intimidate DOJ lawyers from
exercising independent professional judgment, which is a requirement in the
ethics canon for all lawyers, and it will discourage federal judges from trusting
the candor of DOJ lawyers,” Stephen Gillers, a New York University legal
ethics professor, said Wednesday.

“Bondi seems to lack the knowledge and skill required to run a large
government law office, at least the Department of Justice,” Gillers added. “She
is treating the United States as though it were a private client, but government
lawyers have greater and different duties when their client is a sovereign. The
Supreme Court made this clear in 1935 in Berger v. United States.”

Reuveni worked in the DOJ’s Office of Immigration Litigation as acting deputy
director and represented U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, U.S.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Bondi and other government defendants
during an April 4 motion hearing in Maryland federal court.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of the District of Maryland granted a preliminary
injunction ordering the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s
return to the United States after Reuveni conceded the government had
deported him in error.

“The plaintiff, Abrego Garcia, should not have been removed” to his native
country of El Salvador because of a 2019 “withholding of removal” order,
Reuveni said at the April 4 hearing.

“Why can’t the United States get Mr. Abrego Garcia back?” Xinis asked.

“When this case landed on my desk, the first thing I did was ask my clients that
very question,” Reuveni said in response. “I’ve not received, to date, an
answer that I find satisfactory.”

Reuveni at the hearing also said “the government made a choice here to
produce no evidence,” adding his “clients understand that the absence of
evidence speaks for itself.”

When U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer unsuccessfully asked the U.S.
Supreme Court to toss out Xinis’ preliminary injunction order, he suggested
Reuveni made “inappropriate statements” on behalf of the Trump
administration.

“Those inappropriate statements did not and do not reflect the position of the
United States,” Sauer wrote in a Supreme Court brief filed April 8. “Whether a
particular line attorney is privy to sensitive information or feels that whoever
he spoke with at client agencies gave him sufficient answers to satisfy
whatever personal standard he was applying cannot possibly be the yardstick
for measuring the propriety of this extraordinary injunction.”

After President Donald Trump appointed Bondi as the nation’s top lawenforcement officer, Bondi issued a Feb. 5 memo advising all DOJ employees
of their job expectations.

“Department of Justice attorneys have signed up for a job that requires
zealously advocating for the United States,” Bondi wrote in the memo. “The
responsibilities of Department of Justice attorneys include not only
aggressively enforcing criminal and civil laws enacted by Congress, but also
vigorously defending presidential policies and actions against legal challenges
on behalf of the United States.”

Reuveni lost his job because he failed to argue favorably for the Trump
administration in the Abrego Garcia case, according to Bondi.

“From all that appears, Reuveni was fired for not lying or for telling the truth as
he understood it,” said Gillers, the NYU law professor. “And even if Reuveni
failed to satisfy Bondi’s test for zealousness, firing or suspending him, despite
his excellent service, was entirely disproportionate. Bondi displayed a total
disregard for the most basis managerial requirements for running a large law
office.”

Praveen Fernandes, vice president at the Constitutional Accountability Center,
said DOJ lawyers have multiple professional duties beyond zealous advocacy.

“Government attorneys ‘zealously advocating for the United States’ must still
remember their duty to comply with all laws, as well as their professional
ethical obligation to avoid making false statements of law or fact,” Fernandes
said Wednesday. “After all, the mission of the Department of Justice is, in part,
to ‘uphold the rule of law,’ and Department of Justice lawyers, like all lawyers,
are officers of the court and have the duties and responsibilities that follow
from that.”

Six Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Bondi and
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche dated April 16 demanding Reuveni’s
immediate reinstatement.

“While Ms. Bondi is correct that DOJ attorneys have a duty to zealously
advocate on behalf of the United States, that directive must yield to every
attorney’s independent obligation to be candid and honest with the court, as
required by the rules authorizing that attorney to practice law,” the Democratic
lawmakers wrote in their letter.

“That Mr. Reuveni was fired because he had the human decency to recognize
that there was no defense for the Administration’s position underscores the
danger that your firing of Mr. Reuveni presents to attorneys throughout the
Department, who are now put in a position where they may have to choose
between their jobs and their bar license,” the members of Congress added.
“This is unacceptable.”

U.S. Reps. Dan Goldman, D-New York; Hillary J. Scholten, D-Michigan; Mikie
Sherrill, D-New Jersey; Glenn Ivey, D-Maryland; Maggie Goodlander, D-New
Hampshire; and Shomari Figures, D-Alabama, signed the letter in support of
Reuveni.

David Sklansky, a Stanford University law professor, agreed with the contents
of the congressional letter.

“The actions taken against Erez Reuveni create the strong impression that the
DOJ is insisting that its lawyers violate their ethical obligations of candor,”
Sklansky said Wednesday. “All lawyers have ethical obligations to be honest
and forthright in their representations to the courts, and this obligation has
always been understood to be particularly important for lawyers representing
the government.”

Reuveni previously worked as a Morrison & Foerster litigation associate before
becoming a DOJ employee about 15 years ago, according to his LinkedIn
profile.

The Trump administration accuses Abrego Garcia of being an MS-13 gang
member, but counsel for Abrego Garcia deny the allegations.
Andrew J. Rossman of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and co-counsel
from Murray Osorio in court papers have described Abrego Garcia as a
married father who “has lived with his family in Maryland, working full time as a union sheet metal worker and dutifully appearing for annual check-ins with
immigration authorities” for years before the government mistakenly deported
him to El Salvador in March.