The Florida Bar rejected a complaint Monday accusing the Department of Homeland Security’s top lawyer of violating ethics rules after he publicly ranked federal judges who had ruled against the Trump administration’s immigration polices on social media.

More than 100 former judges filed an ethics complaint against DHS general counsel James Percival on Aug. 18 after he posted a series of social media posts titled “Worst of the Worst, District Judge Edition.” The complaint accused Percival of sowing distrust in the federal judiciary through the public attacks and jeopardizing the judge’s safety during a heightened threat environment.

Percival’s posts are a play on DHS’ practice under President Donald Trump of highlighting what it calls the “worst of the worst” migrants who have been arrested or deported. The DHS official named four federal judges, all appointed by Democratic presidents, in a July post that was the primary focus of the ethics complaint.

The complaint called on the Florida Bar, where Percival is licensed, to investigate his conduct for ethics violations. But the association rejected the request in a letter dated Aug. 28.

“The Florida Bar does not investigate or prosecute sitting officers appointed under the U.S. Constitution while they are in office,” bar counsel Christopher Wackes wrote. “Such proceedings by The Florida Bar, as an arm of the Florida Supreme Court, could encroach on the authority of the federal government concerning these officials and the exercise of their duties.”

The complaint is now formally closed, Wackes said, noting that the complaint can be refiled once Percival no longer holds office.

Increased threats of violence against federal judges have become a primary concern among the judiciary in recent years, but Trump and his administration have continued to attack judges over their immigration-related rulings.

In rare testimony before the House and Senate appropriations committees in July, Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan sounded alarm bells over the safety of the judiciary in a politically charged landscape. The high court earmarked about $14.6 million of its $228 million fiscal 2027 budget request for projects aimed at bolstering the security of its justices. 

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom of the Southern District of Florida, who was cited in the complaint, called Percival’s posts a “public ‘target list’” of federal judges in the ethics complaint, warning that “criticism of the justice system is healthy. But this is not criticism. This goes beyond criticism. This is an attack, a distortion of the work of our judges.”

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