DOJ proposes rule letting the Attorney General halt state bar discipline of its attorneys

On March 5, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice published a notice of proposed rulemaking (RIN 1105-AB82, codified at 28 CFR Part 77) that would give the Attorney General the right to review any state, territorial, or District of Columbia bar disciplinary complaint or investigation against a current or former Department attorney for conduct undertaken in their federal duties. Under the proposal, the Attorney General "or her designee" could demand that the bar suspend its investigation while that review proceeds, and the rule declares that if a bar refuses, "the Department shall take appropriate action to prevent the bar disciplinary authorities from interfering" with it. The notice opened a public comment period running through April 6, 2026.

The proposal arrived alongside state bar inquiries into Department lawyers tied to the administration's adversaries — among them Lindsey Halligan, whose prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James were thrown out after a court found her appointment unlawful, and scrutiny of Attorney General Pam Bondi's own Florida license. Critics, including the legal group Democracy Forward, warned that inserting the Attorney General between independent bar regulators and DOJ attorneys would neutralize one of the few external accountability mechanisms that reach federal prosecutors, while asserting federal supremacy over attorney discipline historically governed by state courts.

The Standing records this proposal as a step toward weaponizing the Justice Department and as an assertion of executive authority beyond its traditional bounds: it would shield the personnel who carry out the Department's prosecutions from professional-ethics review, and it claims power over a licensing-and-discipline function long left to the states. The entry documents the act of issuing the rule; whether it is finalized, and in what form, remains to be seen.