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Alumni of Pam Bondi’s Law School Threaten to Cut Off Donations If School Doesn’t Denounce Her Over Epstein Hearing
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Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images Alumni of Stetson University College of Law, where Attorney General Pam Bondi received her law degree, are threatening to cut off donations if the school refuses to denounce her for her handling of the Epstein files, specifically her performance during a recent congressional hearing. After mounting pressure — including from his fellow Republicans — President Donald Trump signed a law last November to release the files related to deceased child sex predator Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell with a deadline of Dec. 19. The law required a wide release of millions of documents, photos, videos, and other files, with redactions limited to victims’ names and other identifying information. The Department of Justice failed to meet that deadline, and since then, there have been additional releases of files that have revealed additional powerful people who were in communication with Epstein, thousands of mentions of Trump, and controversial failures to redact victims’ names and nude images. Congressional committees have continued to investigate the missed redactions, documents that have been removed from the files, and others that still have not been disclosed, issuing subpoenas to prominent people mentioned in the files and DOJ officials all the way up to Bondi. Bondi’s testimony at a February hearing with the House Judiciary Committee was widely viewed as a disaster, drawing sharp criticism even from the right. Then, on Wednesday evening, congressional Democrats on the House Oversight Committee stormed out of a meeting with Bondi, accusing her of stonewalling them and failing to comply with the subpoena. Bondi was born in Tampa and earned her law degree in 1990 from Stetson. The private law school is located in Gulfport, along Florida’s Gulf Coast and was founded in 1900. Bondi is one of Stetson’s most famous alumnae and gave the graduation commencement speech in 2013, while she was Florida Attorney General. Last month, “nearly 400” Stetson Law alumni, including three former state judges and a former county commissioner, signed a letter to the dean and board of trustees demanding a response from their alma mater regarding Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files, according to a report by the Tampa Bay Times. In the letter, the undersigned alumni express their “grave concern about the conduct of one of our most prominent graduates,” saying that it “should be a source of profound pride” to have a Stetson grad who “ascends to the office of the Attorney General of the United States,” but instead this has been “a source of embarrassment and dismay for many within the Stetson Law community.” Bondi “has drawn widespread bipartisan criticism” regarding the Epstein files, the letter continued, and her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee “was marked by deflections and a failure to provide clear, substantive answers regarding key decisions about the review process and redactions.” The letter quoted substantial sections from the Florida Bar Rules and Oath of Attorney, and criticized how Bondi’s conduct “appears resistant to accountability and is inconsistent with the standards of truthfulness and honor that form the bedrock of our profession.” “If our alma mater is to remain true to its values, it cannot remain silent when the conduct of one of its most visible graduates — particularly in the nation’s highest law enforcement office — appears to run counter to those principles,” the letter concluded, calling on the college to “[i]ssue a public statement reaffirming the College of Law’s commitment to ethical legal practice, transparency, and the rule of law,” “[e]xpress formal disapproval of actions by Attorney General Pam Bondi that appear inconsistent with those commitments,” and “[s]upport efforts to ensure that those in positions of legal authority are held to the highest ethical standards, including appropriate congressional oversight that may include impeachment proceedings if warranted under law.” According to a report by Bay News 9, the letter was joined by additional Stetson Law alumni over the past month, bringing the total number of signatories to “more than 500.” Johnny Bardine, the Pinellas Park family law attorney and 2006 Stetson law alumnus who authored the letter, told Bay News 9 he had been able to set up a meeting with the college’s dean, other administrators, and a group of alumni, but were not able to agree on a resolution. Bardine and the other alumni who signed the letter are now calling on their fellow Stetson Law grads to boycott donating to the law school. He has repeatedly emphasized in media interviews that this was not about politics but the ideals of the legal profession. “When I watched her testimony, I was embarrassed,” Bardine told the Times. “I felt I had to do something. I don’t subscribe to what she has been doing. It’s not what I was taught.” Speaking later to Bay News 9, Bardine said that he felt their degrees would be “worthless” if they did not maintain their commitment to the “ethical standards of the institution.” Another attorney who signed the letter, Rachael Reese, said that the alumni were determined “to make this much bigger than people originally thought,” and after the letter and meeting did not get the results they wanted, “we reached out to as many alumni as we could, and we kind of began a strike, if you will, of closing all of our wallets.” To quote Bondi’s 2013 Stetson Law commencement speech: As a young prosecutor, I was taught very two very simple things… Number one, do the right thing. Second, it’s not what you do, it’s what you do next. You’re all going to make mistakes at some point in your career, but it’s how you handle those mistakes that matters. Read the Stetson Law alumni letter below. — The post Alumni of Pam Bondi’s Law School Threaten to Cut Off Donations If School Doesn’t Denounce Her Over Epstein Hearing first appeared on Mediaite.
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