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Stetson University School of Law Alumnus, Attorney General Pam Bundy The law degree student has threatened to withhold donations if the school refuses to condemn her handling of the Epstein dossier, particularly her performance at a recent congressional hearing.
After coming under increasing pressure, including from fellow Republicans, the president Donald Trump A law signed in November to release documents related to deceased child sexual predators Jeffrey Epstein as well as his girlfriend and associates. Ghislaine Maxwell Deadline is December 19th. The law requires widespread disclosure of millions of documents, photos, videos and other documents, with redactions limited to victims’ names and other identifying information.
The Justice Department failed to meet the deadline and has since released additional documents that revealed more powerful figures with ties to Epstein, thousands of references to Trump and a dispute over a failure to redact victims’ names and nude photos. Congressional committees continue to investigate missing redactions, documents that have been removed from the dossier and other documents that have not yet been disclosed, and are issuing subpoenas to high-profile individuals and Justice Department officials named in the dossier all the way to Bundy.
Bondi’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in February was widely viewed as a disaster, even drawing sharp criticism from the right. Then, on Wednesday night, congressional Democrats on the House Oversight Committee angrily walked out of a meeting with Bundy, accusing her of obstructing them and failing to comply with subpoenas.
Bondi was born in Tampa and received his law degree from Stetson in 1990. This private law school is located in Gulfport, Florida on the Gulf Coast and was founded in 1900. Bundy is one of Stetson’s most famous alumni, having delivered the commencement address in 2013 when she served as Florida’s 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 over Bundy’s handling of the Epstein dossier, according to a Stetson Law report. tampa bay times.
In the letter, the signed alumni expressed their “grave concerns about the conduct of one of our most distinguished graduates” and said that having a Stetson graduate “ascended to the office of the U.S. Attorney General” “should be a source of deep pride,” but instead has “embarrassed and frustrated many in the Stetson legal community.”
The letter also said that Bondi’s Epstein documents “generated widespread bipartisan criticism” and that her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee “was biased and failed to provide clear, substantive answers about key decisions regarding the review process and revisions.”
The letter cited significant portions of the Florida Bar Rules and the Attorney’s Oath and criticized Bundy’s conduct “which appears to resist accountability and is inconsistent with the standards of honesty and honor that form the cornerstone of our profession.”
“If our alma mater is to stay true to its values, it cannot remain silent when the actions of one of its most high-profile graduates — particularly in the nation’s top law enforcement office — appear to run contrary to those principles,” the letter concluded. The letter calls on our alma mater.[i]Issue a public statement reaffirming the School of Law’s commitment to ethical legal practice, transparency, and the rule of law,”[e]xpress formally objects to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s actions that appear inconsistent with these commitments,” and “[s]Support efforts to ensure that those in legal authority are held to the highest ethical standards, including appropriate congressional oversight, possibly including impeachment proceedings if permitted by law. “
Over the past month, more Stetson Law alumni have joined the letter, bringing the total number of signers to “more than 500,” Bay News 9 reported.
Johnny BardeenThe Pinellas Parker family attorney and 2006 Stetson Law School alumnus who wrote the letter told Gulf News 9 that he had scheduled meetings with the college’s dean, other administrators and a group of alumni but was unable to agree on a solution.
Bardeen and other alumni who signed the letter are now calling on Stetson Law graduates to boycott donations to the law school. He has emphasized in many media interviews that this is not a political issue, but an ideal of the legal profession.
“I was embarrassed when I saw her testimony,” Badin told reporters. era. “I felt like I had to do something. I didn’t agree with what she had been doing. That’s not what I was taught.”
Badin later told Bay News 9 that he believed his degree would be “worthless” if they did not uphold their commitment to “the ethical standards of the institution.”
Another lawyer who signed the letter, Rachel Reesesaid alumni were determined to “make this a much bigger thing than people initially thought,” and after the letter and meeting didn’t get the results they wanted, “we contacted as many alumni as we could, and we started a strike, if you will, of closing all our wallets.”
To quote Bondi’s 2013 Stetson Law commencement speech:
As a young prosecutor, I was taught two very simple things… one, do the right thing. Secondly, it’s not what you do that matters, but what you do next. You’re all going to make mistakes at some point in your career, but it’s how you handle them that matters.
Please read the Stetson Law alumni letter below.
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