Letter to the Editor: Is Brenna Bird fit to serve?

Growing up in small town Iowa, our mother taught us to always tell the truth, treat people fairly and respect others. She’d say if you are not honest, people won’t be able to trust you.

When lawyers are admitted to practice law in Iowa, they take an oath to “maintain respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers,” to “abstain from all offensive personality, and advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness, unless required by the justice of the cause with which [he or she is] charged.”

When Brenna Bird abandoned her duties as Iowa Attorney General to stand on the courthouse steps in New York to proclaim on national TV that the trial of Donald Trump was a “scam and a sham,” she ignored the oath she took to become a lawyer and the ethics code governing the conduct of Iowa lawyers, which states a lawyer shall:

• Not engage in conduct intended to disrupt a tribunal

• Not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge, adjudicatory officer, or public legal officer;

• Defend judges and courts unjustly criticized; and

• Not engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.

While Ms. 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 the court had done before in many other cases. The defendant’s fellow citizens did not view their time and efforts there as a scam or a sham, but, instead, did their best to apply the law to the facts of the case, which is what courts do.

In doing so, the jury found Donald Trump guilty of causing the falsification of business records with intent to promote an election in violation of New York law.

As chief prosecutor of our state, most people would expect her to show nothing but the highest respect for courts and the judicial system. Her clowning for cameras on a street with the defendant while he launched vindictive attacks about the court and the trial served no purpose but to show her contempt for the judicial system.

Attorney Bird falsely stated the trial in New York state court was a scam, which it wasn’t. She falsely stated it was initiated by the U.S. Justice Department and the Biden administration, when it wasn’t.

If she doesn’t respect the courts and the judicial process, or, heaven forbid, if she doesn’t understand her duty to defend it and the people who serve it, then Mom would say she can’t be trusted to serve as Iowa’s top lawyer.

Dennis J. Naughton

Cedar Rapids