The Justice Department’s former top ethics official says he was pushed out by Pam Bondi for refusing to look the other way as powerful Trump-aligned appointees tried to keep gifts they were never allowed to accept in the first place.
Joseph Tirrell, who headed the DOJ’s Departmental Ethics Office, now alleges that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel bristled at even the most basic federal rules. In interviews and in a lawsuit filed with two other ousted DOJ officials, Tirrell says his downfall began with a now-infamous batch of luxury cigars gifted by UFC star Conor McGregor.
“We got a request about some cigars from Conor McGregor and a soccer ball from FIFA,” Tirrell said, according to Daily Beast. “And I felt like I really had to go to the mattress to convince the A.G.’s office: You can pay for the item or you can return the item or you can throw the item away. There’s no other way to do this.”
McGregor, who recently failed to overturn a civil judgment finding him liable for sexual assault, had reportedly been engaged in direct talks with the Trump White House about staging a UFC spectacle on federal grounds. Tirrell says that made it even more critical that Bondi’s team follow ethics rules and even harder to get them to comply.
He says he walked Bondi personally through the regulations that limit what federal leaders can receive. “I briefed Ms. Bondi about the ethics rules, and we talked about accepting gifts from employees in the department for the most part, leaders can’t accept gifts from their subordinates,” he said. “But that started to be a recurring theme with the A.G.’s office. They didn’t want to return gifts, they didn’t want to not accept gifts, whatever the source.”
A DOJ spokesperson has since confirmed that while Bondi’s office did accept a FIFA soccer ball, the cigars were ultimately destroyed after ethics staff intervened. But Tirrell says the hostility toward oversight was unmistakable.
It wasn’t just Bondi, Tirrell says he received a call from the FBI’s general counsel relaying that Patel believed he “should be able to accept more expensive gifts.” Tirrell says he reminded the attorney that “his client was not Mr. Patel, but the United States.”
Both Bondi and Patel have come under fire in other ethics-related controversies. Patel was widely criticized for using a $60 million government aircraft to fly to Nashville to watch his girlfriend perform at a wrestling event. Bondi and her staff were recently named in an internal report alleging they pushed back against standard limitations on receiving federal gifts.
Tirrell and two other career DOJ officials were fired in July. Their lawsuit alleges they were unlawfully removed in retaliation for their involvement in January 6 cases. Tirrell, though, believes his resistance to improper gifts also made him a target. “In my gut, I also think they didn’t want the ethics office calling them up and telling them what to do,” he said.
Democratic senators have echoed those concerns, warning that the abrupt removal of ethics officials fits a broader pattern of political interference and dismantling of internal safeguards across the department.
