Is Brenna Bird Fit to Serve?

A Letter From Iowan Dennis J. Naughton

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Dennis J. Naughton

Growing up in small town Iowa, our mother taught us to always tell the truth and treat people fairly with respect. Honesty was the most important.

When lawyers are admitted to practice law in Iowa, they take an oath to “maintain respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers,” and to “abstain from all offensive personality and advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness.”

When Brenna Bird abandoned her duties as Iowa attorney general to declare at the courthouse before TV cameras in New York that the trial of former president Donald Trump was a “scam and a sham,” she ignored the oath to become a lawyer and the ethics code, which directs lawyers to avoid false or reckless statements concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge and to defend the courts.

While Bird was performing for the media on the courthouse steps, a judge, multiple lawyers on both sides, 12 jurors, six alternates, a multi-layered security system, and numerous other court staff went about their business for seven weeks with serious intent to do their jobs, as they had done before in many other cases. Those people did not view their time and efforts there as a scam or a sham.

The jurors, which Trump helped select, applied the law to the facts, as instructed, and found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to promote his election, a violation of New York law.

Bird falsely said the New York state case was initiated by the Biden administration. It wasn’t. She falsely said the case was a scam. It wasn’t. She falsely said it was a sham. It wasn’t. She said politics have no place in the courtroom. She’s right. She shouldn’t have. Her appearance there failed to defend the court, added no value to the process there or the administration of justice and served only to contribute to further damage to people’s faith in the American courts and judicial system.

That day in front of the courthouse, Bird proved herself to be dishonest, reckless, and narcissistic.

Mom would say she’s unfit to serve as Iowa’s top lawyer.

Dennis J. Naughton

Cedar Rapids, Iowa