The Hill reports:

The top lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is facing an ethics complaint with the Florida Bar after he launched a “Worst of the Worst” list for federal jurists, attacking their rulings.

James Percival, the general counsel for DHS, has in recent weeks taken to social media to criticize judges who have made unfavorable rulings on the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

The complaint, filed Wednesday by a group of nearly 130 former federal and state judges, said Percival violated Florida Bar rules, which prohibit making unfounded attacks on the integrity of judges under its rules of professional conduct.

The complaint largely focuses on the initial July post from Percival attacking four federal judges, modeling it after DHS press releases highlighting the arrests of migrants accused of crimes in a nod to President Trump’s pledge to deport “the worst of the worst.”

“General Counsel Percival’s July 23 post was not, as he described it, a ‘legitimate fact based critique’ of either the Judges or their rulings. The posts were attacks on the characters of four sitting judges, based on mischaracterizations of the underlying cases, and without concern for the repercussions of those statements,” the former judges wrote in the filing.

The Florida Bar prohibits a member attorney from making statements he or she “knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge.”

“Mr. Percival comments that the judges were the ‘Worst of the Worst,’ issued ‘crazy opinions,’ engaged in ‘judicial sabotage,’ were ‘micromanaging’ the department, had gone ‘rogue,’ and were engaged in ‘naked politics,’ all lack a sound basis in fact,” the former judges wrote in the complaint, saying Percival “appear[s] to have ignored or mischaracterized important aspects of the orders” he was attacking. [Continue reading…]