By A federal judge did something in July 2026 that rarely happens to a sitting president’s personal attorney: she asked the Florida Bar to investigate whether he broke the rules of professional conduct.
The lawyer is Alejandro Brito, the Coral Gables litigator who built his practice and a national reputation suing media companies on Donald Trump’s behalf. On July 13, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a 56-page ruling in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, finding the case had been brought for an “improper purpose.” She referred Brito to the Florida Bar for potential discipline and separately limited another Trump lawyer, Daniel Epstein, from practicing before her court.
That ruling, and the disciplinary file the Florida Bar has since confirmed it opened, is the reason “Alejandro Brito” has become a name people are actively searching for. Here’s what happened, what’s confirmed, and why his name keeps surfacing across some of the biggest defamation cases in the country.
Who Is Alejandro Brito?
Brito is the founding partner of Brito PLLC, a small Coral Gables firm by his own website’s account, just a handful of associates and paralegals that has quietly become one of the most talked-about litigation shops in the country. A Miami native, he earned a history degree from Florida International University in 1993 and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School in 1996. He spent years as a commercial litigator, handling franchise disputes, trade secret cases, and real estate litigation, and made partner at the Miami firm Zarco Einhorn Salkowski & Brito before striking out on his own.
For most of his career, Brito was not a household name, even within Florida legal circles. That changed in 2023, when he began representing Donald Trump personally in a wave of defamation suits against major news organizations.
The Case Behind the Bar Referral
The lawsuit that triggered Judge Williams’ ruling was Trump’s $10 billion suit against the IRS and Treasury Department, filed after a government contractor leaked the president’s tax returns to reporters at The New York Times and ProPublica. Brito signed and filed that complaint in the Southern District of Florida in January.
Rather than proceed to trial, the parties reached a settlement in May. Its most controversial piece was a proposed $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” intended to compensate people who claimed the federal government had targeted them politically. The deal also permanently barred the IRS from pursuing tax claims against Trump, his two oldest sons, or their affiliated businesses.
The settlement drew immediate pushback. A group of 35 former federal judges asked Williams to reopen the case, arguing the agreement was “the product of collusion” and amounted to a “fraud on the court.” Around the same time, the Justice Department itself backed away from the anti-weaponization fund, a move tied to questions about the scope of plenary authority the administration claimed in structuring the deal, after a separate judge temporarily blocked it and lawmakers objected to taxpayer money funding payouts tied to the president’s personal grievances.
Williams agreed the arrangement did not hold up. In her ruling, she wrote that there had never been genuine adverseness between the parties, since Trump — as president — effectively controlled the defendants he was suing. She called the case an attempt to obtain “the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy” for a deal that had no real basis in law, and found that Trump and his sons had “acted in bad faith” in pursuing it.
What the Judge Found and Why Brito Specifically Was Named
Williams’ order was unusually pointed toward the lawyers who signed off on the deal, not just the underlying settlement. Because Brito filed the original complaint, she referred him directly to the Florida Bar for review of potential ethics violations. She also curtailed Daniel Epstein’s ability to appear in her district and forwarded her opinion to the New York and Washington, D.C. bar associations, which oversee acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward both of whom signed settlement-related documents on the government’s side.
“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President,” Williams wrote, adding that all lawyers appearing before a court, including the president’s own, “are bound by the rules.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team pushed back, arguing the underlying leak of tax information — not the lawsuit or settlement — was the real wrongdoing, and said the president “continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”
It’s worth being precise about what this referral is and isn’t. A referral is not a finding of misconduct. The Florida Bar confirmed later in July that it has opened a disciplinary file on Brito, but that process — investigation, possible grievance committee review, and only then any formal charges — can take months or longer, and it may end with no discipline at all. Legal observers who cover the Southern District of Florida have noted that a similar referral of a different Trump-aligned attorney, made in an earlier case by Judge Donald Middlebrooks, did not lead to any sanction. Bar discipline against politically prominent lawyers is historically rare.
Why Brito’s Name Keeps Coming Up Elsewhere
The IRS case is only the latest reason Brito is in the news. Since 2023, he has become Trump’s most active lawyer for defamation claims against the press, and that track record is part of why the July ruling generated so much attention.
Brito’s highest-profile win came in December 2024, when he secured a settlement from ABC News after anchor George Stephanopoulos repeatedly said on air that Trump had been found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll case — a jury had actually found Trump liable for sexual abuse, not rape, under New York law. ABC agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library and $1 million toward Brito’s legal fees.
He has since filed a string of similarly large defamation suits: a $15 billion claim against The New York Times and Penguin Random House over campaign-related coverage, a $10 billion suit against Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch over reporting on a letter tied to Jeffrey Epstein, and a $3.78 billion suit on behalf of Trump Media & Technology Group against The Washington Post. He also represented Melania Trump in a public dispute with Hunter Biden over comments Biden made connecting her to Epstein.
The case generating the most current activity is Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit against the BBC, filed after the network edited footage of his January 6 speech in a documentary and later apologized for it. In August 2026, Trump’s team — with Brito as lead counsel — won a temporary court order blocking the BBC from obtaining detailed financial records tied to Trump’s business trust, and a judge separately granted Trump permission to file a narrower, amended complaint. The BBC has said it intends to fight the case rather than settle, unlike ABC and CBS before it.
Taken together, these cases are why Brito has been described by some legal commentators as one of the most consequential — and most litigious — defamation lawyers currently practicing. It’s also a reminder that attorneys tied to high-profile clients can end up drawing scrutiny of their own; a similar dynamic played out recently with Nicole Moorman, whose name trended after her role representing a high-profile client came under public examination.
Separating Fact From Allegation
Because this story touches both litigation and legal ethics, it’s worth being clear about categories. It is a confirmed fact that Judge Williams referred Brito to the Florida Bar and that the Bar opened a disciplinary file. It is a confirmed fact that Williams found the IRS settlement improper and that Trump and his sons acted in bad faith, according to her ruling — findings Trump’s team disputes and that have not been tested on appeal. It is not established that Brito personally committed an ethics violation; that determination, if it comes, belongs to the Florida Bar’s disciplinary process, not to the judge’s referral itself. And Brito’s other defamation cases — against the Times, the Journal, and the BBC — remain contested litigation with no final rulings on the underlying claims.
The IRS case is one of several fights this year testing where the federal judiciary’s authority ends and executive discretion begins — a tension also on display in the Lisa Cook Supreme Court dispute over the Federal Reserve, and one likely to keep shaping the broader legal changes reshaping America this year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Alejandro Brito facing criminal charges?
No. The referral from Judge Williams concerns potential professional discipline through the Florida Bar, not a criminal matter.
What could happen to Brito’s law license?
Outcomes from a Florida Bar disciplinary file range widely, from dismissal with no action to a private reprimand, public reprimand, suspension, or, in rare and serious cases, disbarment. The process typically takes months, and a referral alone does not predict the result.
Is Alejandro Brito still representing Trump?
Yes. As of late August 2026, Brito remains lead counsel in Trump’s ongoing defamation suit against the BBC and continues to be listed as counsel of record in related media litigation.
What was the E. Jean Carroll mix-up that led to the ABC News settlement?
A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse against E. Jean Carroll, not rape, under the specific definitions in New York law. When George Stephanopoulos repeatedly said on air that Trump was found liable for rape, Brito filed a defamation suit that ended in a $15 million settlement.
Has the Florida Bar disciplinary case against Brito concluded?
No. As of this writing, the Bar has confirmed only that it opened a file for review after Judge Williams’ referral. No findings or sanctions have been announced.
The Bottom Line
Alejandro Brito’s sudden visibility comes down to two things happening at once: a federal judge’s unusually blunt rebuke of how his client’s IRS settlement was reached, and his ongoing role as the lawyer behind nearly every major Trump defamation suit against the American and British press. The disciplinary referral is real and confirmed. Whether it leads to actual punishment is not yet known, and history in the Southern District of Florida suggests it may not. In the meantime, Brito is still in court, still filing billion-dollar claims, and still very much Trump’s lawyer of choice against the media.
