The Associated Press reports that the lawyer who was chosen as general counsel of the U.S. Department of Education was involved in defending Florida’s decision not to prosecute Trump University for fraud.
As a top aide to Florida’s attorney general, Carlos G. Muniz helped defend the office’s decision to sit out legal action against Trump University. Now the president is naming him to be the top lawyer in the U.S. Education Department.
President Donald Trump has announced his intent to nominate Muniz to serve as general counsel to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The Senate would then consider the nomination of the Republican lawyer.
Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that in 2013 Muniz, who served as Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff for three years, was included in discussions about student complaints alleging fraud with Trump’s namesake real-estate seminars.
Muniz, now in private practice, has also been the lead attorney defending Florida State University in a lawsuit by a former student who said the school failed to investigate after she said she was sexually assaulted by the star quarterback of the Seminoles’ 2013 national championship football team. The player was never charged with a crime by police in Tallahassee, and the state attorney’s office declined to pursue a criminal case against him.
An investigation by the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights is still underway, presenting a potential conflict of interest if Muniz is confirmed.
Both Muniz and the White House declined to comment Tuesday, referring all questions to the Education Department.
That department did not respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment about the Trump University review or whether Muniz would recuse himself from involvement in the Florida State probe.
Muniz’s boss Pamela Bondi solicited a contribution of $25,000 from Donald Trump when she was running for re-election and while his case was on her desk.
I wonder who will be in charge of ethics at the U.S. Department of Education?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another example of conflict of interest and illegal activity with this mess in the WH. And those brain dead in congress are not doing a thing about it. This thing is beyond a train wreck.
I agree 1,000% with alphawolf – the conflict of interest, illegal activity and the malfeasance occurring in the state of FloriDUH where I live is incredible. Incredible to the point that your jaw hits the floor. EVERYONE looks the other way – EVERYONE. It is beyond a train wreck.
Weird to read this.
I went to high school with Joe Bondi, Pam Bondi’s father.
The U.S. Department of Education has been lacking in ethics for some time now.
Christine,
Bingo! Yes. No ethics atsoever. These deformers must hate themselves.
You can say that again Christine! Pam Bondi (current attorney general here in FloriDUH) is one of the worst offenders but the US DOE is an absolute, horrendous, horror show now that we have a secretary who NEVER stepped foot in a public school nor have her children. Her only qualification for the job? She is a billionaire. Apparently that’s all it takes for you to receive a job in Trumps administration – be a billionaire. Just wondering WHY Gates and/or Bush haven’t been named to anything…….yet.
It’ll be no surprise when Trump positions the Fox to guard the hen house, now, huh?
“I wonder who will be in charge of ethics at the U.S. Department of Education?”
Diane,
Didn’t you see? There’s been NO “staff training” on ethics ANYWHERE in the new TRUMP administration (budget constraints, I’m sure!).
Ethics? Morality? Humanity? They are gone. This country’s god is $$$$$$! So sad.
This is why I think young people should really worry about relying on the US Department of Education for college information.
I get that people are probably desperate for reliable, unbiased info but more and more that place looks like it’s completely compromised by a revolving door, ethics-free culture.
It isn’t just DeVos. Duncan was actively promoting online colleges with terrible reputations right up until the day he left.
They all knew the online programs had huge problems. Certain Congressional reps had released report after report. Congress literally studied them for a decade. There are thousands of pages of congressional studies on the online for-profit “sector” and NONE of it is good. There were exposes on PBS and Sixty Minutes. They knew these places were brutally ripping off veterans and they were STILL promoting them.
I think it sucks that there’s this huge population of young people who consider these people credible and that trust may be misplaced. I’m not talking about the career federal employees who are basically stuck with whatever political appointee lands there, but are you honestly confident that anyone should rely on what comes out of that environment?
Go over to Reddit sometime and read the forums about for-profit colleges. It’s students talking to other students. TO A PERSON they are warning others away from these places. Where were the regulators? Where were the people who are supposed to be their advocates? How did millions of them get robbed like this? They’re 18 years old. They’re not sophisticated enough to deal with these sharks. They’re advising EACH OTHER because all of the adults who were supposed to be acting in their interest decided it was more important to promote a “sector” than do their jobs.
Chiara,
I wrote a few times about how former Obama officials in charge of regulating the for-profit Colleges bought the biggest for-profit–the Appollo Group–at a low stock price. The Wall Street Journal accused them of suppressing the stock price so they could pick up the company cheap. With DeVos in charge, they will all collect millions.
One of the most frequent claims of ed reformers is that they are “agnostic”. This has become almost required in the “movement”. They ALL say it now. If you did a word search in ed reform readings, “agnostic” would rival their other favorite word, which is “accountability”.
But the stuff they turn out ITSELF contradicts this. It is almost universally 90% promotion of charters and vouchers with an obligatory sentence or paragraph about public schools.
Worse, public schools are ONLY used as a proof point- they’re mentioned as “improving” because “choice” schools forced them to improve. Public schools are just rolled in as one more reason we should all be cheerleading charters and vouchers.
It’s really remarkable. A “movement” that bashed public schools for a decade now finds public schools useful, but only to the extent that mentioning them promotes charters and vouchers.
Even the obligatory throwaway lines acknoweging the existence of public schools don’t credit public schools with anything- vouchers and charters aren’t just fabulous for their own students, they are the single reason any public school improved.
The politics of it interests me. It’s like there’s some kind of bat signal that went out where they all decided “the movement” couldn’t find new adherents unless they came up with SOMETHING to offer kids who don’t attend charters or private schools. What public schools “get” is the (alleged) downstream effects of competition. That’s the bone they’re throwing 90% of kids and parents in the country.
https://www.the74million.org/article/private-charter-voucher-when-ed-reformers-unite-to-give-families-diverse-school-choices-kids-win
Linda,
Everything the reformers promote has failed. So they have fallen back on two rationales: