128 Former Judges File Bar Complaint Against DHS Lawyer Over 'Worst of the Worst' List

James Percival, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, has spent the past month naming individual federal judges on his official X account and accusing them of sabotaging President Trump's immigration agenda. On August 19, a group of 128 former state and federal judges filed an ethics complaint against him with the Florida Bar.

The complaint was organized by Democracy Defenders Fund and Lawyers Defending American Democracy, led by former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince. It alleges Percival violated Florida Bar rules that prohibit attorneys from making statements they know to be false, or made with reckless disregard for the truth, about a judge's integrity, according to Bloomberg Law.

What Percival actually posted

On July 23, Percival published a list he titled "Worst of the Worst, District Judge Edition," naming Clinton appointee Judge Matthew Kennelly, Obama appointees Allison Burroughs and Paula Xinis, and Biden appointee Hernán Vera, according to the Daily Beast. He accused Kennelly of "judicial sabotage," said Burroughs deliberately slow-walked a case to obstruct deportations, called an order from Xinis "crazy," and said Vera's ruling on use-of-force restrictions endangered DHS officers.

The next day he called Clinton appointee Judge Patti Saris "rogue" and accused district judges of "mutiny against the Supreme Court." No Trump appointees appeared on any list.

The complaint's specific allegations

The former judges' filing zeroes in on Percival's claim that Burroughs set a "deliberately sluggish" briefing schedule to delay deportation efforts. "There is no indication in the record" supporting that characterization, the complaint states, according to Just the News. It argues Percival's language, calling rulings "crazy," accusing judges of "naked politics" and "micromanaging," lacks "a sound basis in fact" and that he "appears to have ignored or mischaracterized important aspects of the orders" he was criticizing.

Virginia Canter, chief counsel at Democracy Defenders Fund, said Percival's "intimidation tactics could be used to incite violence" against the named judges. Scott Harshbarger, a former two-term Massachusetts attorney general who chairs Lawyers Defending American Democracy, called the campaign "a classic autocratic response to fair and impartial court decisions."

The complaint invokes the 2020 murder of Daniel Anderl, the 20-year-old son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the family's New Jersey home by a disgruntled lawyer who had appeared before her. Salas said Percival was "in essence, putting a bullseye on" the judges he named, according to the Daily Beast. At a July 31 event, Salas said: "I just ask our political leaders to tone it down," according to Bloomberg Law.

Threat numbers

The Daily Beast, citing updated U.S. Marshals Service data through August 17, reported 415 threats against federal judges in fiscal 2026, targeting 307 different judges. Democracy Defenders Fund's own complaint cites a slightly earlier count of 402 threats against 299 of roughly 2,500 active judges, or nearly 12%. Justice Amy Coney Barrett testified last month that "the threat level is really high," according to the group's statement. Both figures show threats against judges have risen sharply over the past decade, driven mostly by political disagreement.

Percival's defense

Percival has been unapologetic. He told Fox News he is not attacking the judiciary as a whole, but flagging "particular judges who are a problem in case after case after case," engaged in what he calls "forum shopping" by plaintiffs seeking friendly courtrooms.

He pointed specifically to U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee in Boston, who blocked a 2025 deportation flight to South Sudan until the Supreme Court intervened. "I think we had eight aliens on this flight to South Sudan. One of them had raped a child. One of them had raped a mentally disabled person," Percival told Fox News. "This Judge Brian Murphy was stopping us from doing this."

Percival told Breitbart the strategy of activist litigants is to run out the clock on Trump's term: "They view the Trump administration as a four-year hourglass. If they can just get enough crazy district judges to do enough crazy things, they can run out the clock." DHS has defended the posts as "nothing more than a factual review of judicial decisions and their real-world consequences."

Asked about the ethics complaint, Percival responded with a joke rather than a rebuttal, telling the Daily Beast he would create a "Justice Peggy Quince Lifetime Achievement Award" for what he characterizes as judicial activism.

The underlying legal dispute

Percival's core factual claims about the TPS and deportation-flight cases are not fabricated. Murphy's order did halt a deportation flight pending Supreme Court review, and the Supreme Court did ultimately allow the administration to proceed. Whether Burroughs' scheduling amounted to deliberate delay, as Percival claims, or reasonable case management, as the complaint argues, is a legal judgment call, not an established fact either way. Burroughs herself, in an order this month, wrote about "the shameful cruelty inherent in eschewing a 'wind down period'" for TPS holders, a policy disagreement, not proof of an ethics violation on Percival's part or a rebuttal of his substantive point.

What happens next

No investigation, charge, or disciplinary action has been announced by the Florida Bar. The complaint only asks the Bar to investigate. A separate legislative response is already in motion: a GOP senator has introduced what's being called the Boasberg Act aimed at curbing judges' ability to handpick cases against the administration, according to Fox News, though it has not passed. Whether the Florida Bar opens a formal inquiry into Percival, and how it weighs a government lawyer's public criticism of judges against professional conduct rules written mainly for private practitioners, remains an open question with the Bar in Tallahassee.