Huge Win as Pam Bondi's Brother Loses Bid to Lead DC Bar

Pam Bondi's brother Bradley Bondi has lost his bid for President of the D.C. Bar and it wasn't a gentle loss; the AG's brother only got 3,490 votes, compared with opponent Diane Seltzer’s 34,982.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother Bradley Bondi lost his bid to lead the D.C. Bar With record turnout, the loss was not even close.

Bradley Bondi lost his bid for president of the D.C. Bar with a mere 3,490 votes, compared to his opponent Diane Seltzer’s 34,982.

“Seltzer tallied more than 90 percent of the electronic vote with ‘no issues or irregularities’ in the voting system, D.C. Bar CEO Bob Spagnoletti said in a press call Monday. More than 38,000 people voted in the race, more than five times as many voters in a typical election, he said,” KJZZ reported.

What did she run on to drive such turnout? The employment lawyer ran against Trumpism, aka the TACO Doctrine of attacking and politicizing judges and lawyers.

She ran on holding the line for the rule of law.

“We've got to make sure that we hang on to the rule of law and that we can practice law safely,” Seltzer told NBC News. “That we can represent who we want without worrying about retaliation, and that judges can issue fair and impartial rulings without worrying about being intimidated or retaliated against.”

At Stake

While the President of the D.C. bar isn’t usually a big race that gets attention, the concern during Trump 2.0 was that a Trumpist could use the position to help disbar lawyers for not being loyal to Trump. And because they are the bar association for over 120,000 lawyers in America, that could be a very big deal eventually.

While Bondi claimed he was non-political, this kind of attack on a bar association is something seen in illiberal movements like the one afoot in the U.S. It would be a predictable move in plotting a takeover of a legal system, because it would allow an authoritarian to replace lawyers who are disbarred with lawyers who are loyal to the leader.

So, this race wasn’t just any old race; had it gone wrong and Bondi done what some feared he might, it would have impacted the entire country.

Trump Already Targeting Lawyers

It wasn’t a stretch to be concerned, as this race came at a time when the President of the United States was targeting large law firms with threats including moving to terminate their federal government contracts, cutting off security clearances and access to federal agencies and buildings.

Trump targeted law firms that employed lawyers whom he felt wronged him personally, like Special Counsel Robert Mueller who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the firm that provided free counsel to Special Counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump for his role in multiple efforts to subvert the 2020 election, including the deadly January 6 insurrection, as well as Trump's mishandling of classified documents.

Jack Smith’s final report explains why he believed that Trump would have been convicted had the cases gone to trial, which was broken down well by John R. Vile on the First Amendment site of MTSU’s Free Speech Center:

The specific charges for which the grand jury found probable cause to indict Trump were: “conspiring to obstruct the government function of selecting and certifying the President of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; obstructing and attempting to obstruct the official proceeding on January 6, 2021, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(1); conspiring to obstruct the official proceeding, in violation of 18 U.S. C. § 1512(k); and conspiring to violate the federal rights of citizens to vote and have their votes counted, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.” (p. 33 of Smith Report).

I reviewed what Smith believed Trump would have been convicted of because it’s important to know who is leading the country right now. He is not only a twice impeached convicted felon and someone found liable for sexual assault, but he is also someone who needed power so much that he stood charged of conspiring to obstruct the certification of an election he lost.

Every fight matters. When people show up like this, it matters. Every win against autocracy matters. Slowing down the damage matters. Standing up for what’s right matters.

In these treacherous times, good news like this goes a long way. This is yet another day when your fellow Americans stood up to say, “Not on our watch.”

What do you think about Brad Bondi’s loss? Share your thoughts in the comments below.