The Justice Department’s top ethics adviser claimed he was sacked because U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel wanted to hang on to lavish gifts that violated government ethical rules—including some exemplary cigars.
Joseph Tirrell, the former director of the DOJ’s Departmental Ethics Office, said he had to vigorously push back against Bondi’s staff over their keeping a box of cigars gifted by mixed-martial-arts star Conor McGregor, The New York Times reported on Monday.
“We got a request about some cigars from Conor McGregor and a soccer ball from FIFA,” said Tirrell, who oversaw ethics at the DOJ for seven years and previously spent 11 years at the FBI.
“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 Donald Trump has called “great” and his favorite Irish person—recently lost his appeal in a civil case in which he was found liable for sexual assault. The two-time UFC champion, who in September abandoned his bid to become Ireland’s president, reportedly secured his spot to fight at the White House UFC match supposedly scheduled for July.
McGregor previously claimed he was in direct negotiation with the White House rather than the UFC, saying he wanted $100 million and 100 “Golden Visas” to fight at the event.
“As a federal employee, you’re restricted from accepting gifts from anyone because of your position,” Tirrell told the Times.
“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 Justice Department spokesperson told the Times that the soccer ball was accepted and the cigars were destroyed after consulting with ethics officials.
Tirrell said he later received a call from the FBI’s general counsel, who told him that Patel—who is currently under fire for his private jet usage—felt like “he should be able to accept more expensive gifts.”
“I reminded [the counsel] that his client was not Mr. Patel, but the United States,” Tirrell said.
Tirrell, who was fired in July, is now one of three career Justice Department officials—described as “exemplary” public servants—who sued Bondi and the U.S. government, alleging they were abruptly and unlawfully fired after working on the Jan. 6 prosecutions.
The lawsuit, filed in July in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by plaintiffs Michael M. Gordon, Patricia A. Hartman, and Tirrell, claims their dismissals violated federal law, the Constitution, and long-standing protections designed to prevent political interference with civil servants.
But Tirrell thinks there was another reason for his firing.
“In my gut, I also think they didn’t want the ethics office calling them up and telling them what to do,” he told the Times.
Tirrell declined to provide a statement to the Beast and cited ongoing litigation. A spokesperson for the Justice Department told the Daily Beast that “any ethics advice received from career ethics officials has been followed and not overruled.”
The ever-so embattled Patel has already been facing mounting criticism following reports in October that he took a $60 million government jet to visit his 27-year-old girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, thrusting his luxurious life into the spotlight.
And in July, the New Yorker reported Bondi and her staff repeatedly pushed back on federal rules limiting gifts, a source familiar with the discussions told the magazine.
“Every new administration needs time to adjust to ethics rules that might seem trivial,” the source said at the time. “What wasn’t normal was the amount of pushback that we got.”
A Department of Justice spokesperson told the Daily Beast at the time, “Whenever the AG receives any item, DOJ staff consults with ethics officials as required and fully complies with their guidance—this isn’t newsworthy or controversial.”
The added scrutiny comes as the attorney general has sacked about 20 prosecutors and support staffers who worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into the president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his outright refusal to return classified documents after leaving office, the Times reported.
In addition, Trump officials have fired around 200 people overall in the DOJ who worked on cases viewed as “anti-Trump” under the Biden administration, according to data from Justice Connection.
