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| - A rumor that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi fired a Department of Justice (DOJ) employee after finding a copy of the U.S. Constitution on his desk was circulating online in April 2025.
For example, Facebook user Andy Borowitz posted the claim (archived) on April 8 alongside the caption: "The fired staffer used 'telltale phrases like 'due process'' in DOJ memos." His post had amassed more than 11,000 reactions as of this writing.
The post also linked to an article (archived) that began:
Bondi Fires DOJ Employee After Finding Copy of Constitution on his Desk
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it a "serious breach of the Department of Justice's code of conduct," on Wednesday Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that she had terminated a career DOJ employee who was caught with a copy of the U.S. Constitution on his desk.
Bondi said that the employee, who had worked at the department for 37 years, had "raised suspicions" by using "telltale phrases like 'due process'" in DOJ memos.
Some readers seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, a Google search produced no results confirming the claim that Bondi fired a DOJ employee because he had a copy of the Constitution on his desk.
Rather, the rumor originated with The Borowitz Report, a site that describes its output as satirical in nature. Its author, Andy Borowitz, wrote on its About page:
I've been writing satirical news since I was eighteen. This represents either commitment to a genre or arrested development.
The New Yorker featured The Borowitz Report as a column for 25 years; Borowitz announced in 2023 that the magazine dropped his column for financial reasons.
The fictional story spread as Bondi defended the DOJ's decision to put an attorney on leave for not defending the Trump administration's position on a deportation case. Bondi made her comments on Fox News on April 6 (at minute 7:13 of the video below).
Snopes has addressed similar stories stemming from The Borowitz Report in the past, including the satirical claim that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth drunkenly crashed into the Pentagon and a rumor that Trump nominated former drug lord El Chapo as U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
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