Criticism of Bondi grows for threatening to sue Office Depot: 'Needs a free speech tutorial'

Pam Bondi is taking heat for threatening to sue Office Depot, an office supply company, after one of its employees refused to print posters for a vigil organized by Charlie Kirk. Various conservative political analysts and commentators took aim at the attorney general. Even the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, which wondered whether it is too much to ask the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to "understand the fundamentals of the First Amendment."

The controversy began immediately after Kirk's murder at Utah Valley University. In order to attend an event for the founder of Turning Point USA., a person approached an Office Depot and asked to print an image. According to the store's recordings, the employee said that they did not print the image because they considered it "propaganda." Office Depot fired the employee involved, claiming that he had violated company policy.

In response, Bondi told Fox News: "Companies can't discriminate. If you want to go in and print posters with Charlie’s picture on them for a vigil, you have to allow that. We can prosecute you for that." She later claimed that the DOJ's civil rights division was reviewing the facts.

Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is prohibited to discriminate and deny services on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, known as protected categories. Refusing to provide a service on political or religious or moral grounds does not fall into those categories, unless there are state or local laws recognizing it.

As for legal precedents, the Supreme Court expressed itself on the matter on two occasions and in a recent manner: Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado (2018) and 303 Creative v. Elenis (2023). In both cases, a majority of the justices held that state laws cannot force someone to express themselves in a way contrary to their faith or ideology.

"The First Amendment conceives of the United States as a rich and complex place where all people are free to think and express themselves as they wish, not as the government requires," Justice Neil Gorsuch in the majority opinion in the 2023 case, wrote.

Raining criticism on Bondi

Matt Walsh, host on The Daily Wire, took harsh aim at the attorney general after her comments.

"Get rid of her. Today. This is insane. Conservatives have fought for decades for the right to refuse service to anyone. We won that fight. Now Pam Bondi wants to roll it all back for no reason. The employee who didn't print the flyer was already fired by his employer," the conservative commentator wrote on his X account.

"This stuff is being handled successfully through free speech and free markets. This is totally gratuitous and pointless. We need the AG focused on bringing down the left wing terror cells, not prosecuting Office Depot for God’s sake," he added.

He was joined by journalist and analyst Charles C. W. Cook: "It is grotesquely incoherent to defend Masterpiece Cakeshop and 303 Creative, and then have the Attorney General threaten to prosecute Office Depot for declining a political poster. This is hypocrisy of the highest order."

The "hate speech" controversy

In another statement, Bondi spoke of the existence of "hate speech," stressing that it will be pursued by the DOJ. The WSJ Editorial Board didn't let the comment pass and wrote that she needed a "tutorial on the First Amendment".

"Free speech isn’t absolute in the U.S., but the exceptions are narrow, and 'hate speech' isn’t one of them. The Supreme Court held in a famous 1969 case, Brandenburg v. Ohio, that the government can punish speech as incitement only if it’s directed toward, and likely to produce, “imminent lawless action.” General expressions of hate on the internet are despicable, but they aren’t cause for prosecution," the board wrote.

It also quoted a statement by Charlie Kirk in 2020 to reinforce its point: "My position is that even hate speech should be completely and totally allowed in our country. The most disgusting speech should absolutely be protected. (…) As soon as you use the word 'hate,' that is a very subjective term. Then all of a sudden it is in the eyes, or it is in the implementation, of whomever has the power."

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Rob Schneider also spoke out against the attorney general's statements.

"Hate speech is not prosecutable in America (which is good). Pam Bondi knows this. I am guessing, given the statements by Stephen Miller yesterday about targeting violent cells, she means those who actually plan violence, which would not be about the speech but the conspiracy," Kelly stated on X.

She was joined by Carlson, who chose to respond on his show: "I don't want to pick on the attorney general, who is a very nice person. But that thinking that she just articulated on camera there is exactly what got us to a place where some huge and horrifying percentage of young people think it's okay to shoot people you disagree with."