There are several good reasons that Pam Bondi will be confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general.
When her appointment was announced, so soon after the withdrawal of former Pensacola Congressman Matt Gaetz, reaction in Washington pretty much broke down along party lines. But mostly, there was relief that a nasty confirmation fight over Gaetz had been avoided. And it would be difficult for even the most strident liberal Democrat to argue that Florida’s two-term state attorney general is not qualified for AG.
So the first and best thing Bondi has going for her is, she’s not Matt Gaetz. And compared to Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr., she’s not a far-out Cabinet nominee. Presidents deserve a certain deference in executive choices.
Yeah, Bondi is close to Trump and, yes, the once-and-future president is known to demand personal fealty above picky little details like the law and the Constitution. And did anyone expect him to hire enemies?
You’ll recall that Trump’s first attorney general was former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the first prominent member of Congress to endorse Trump, at a time when the GOP establishment and news media still chuckled condescendingly at the idea that this brash boss of a reality-TV show could be president.
At least initially, the worst to be said about Bondi is that she got a $25,000 political contribution from Trump’s organization and failed to investigate complaints of fraud by the defunct Trump University. Some critics also recall that Bondi was rather zealous in opposing legalization of same-sex marriage, before the U.S. Supreme Court settled that matter in 2015. Bondi also helped lead the legal crusade against Obamacare.
The 2013 Trump contribution to Bondi’s political committee, coupled with her disinterest in Trump U, look awful — but there’s no proof of a quid pro quo. However she might have felt about gay marriage, that prohibition was in Florida’s Constitution — which she and all other elected officials were sworn to preserve, protect and defend.
Bondi parroted Trump’s claims of massive election fraud after his 2020 defeat. But so did a whole lot of people who wanted a future in Republican politics.
She was part of his defense team in the first impeachment, which was hardly surprising. She’s a lawyer. Lawyers work for clients. And taking that one was probably not a tough decision.
Trump and his minions have made much of the Biden Administration waging “lawfare,” in matters ranging from the Jan. 6, 2021, rioting at the U.S. Capitol to the classified-documents cases involving Stormy Daniels and Mar-a-Lago. The DOJ, the FBI and even the Secret Service (after the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pa.) are in for a rough time, and soon.
Bondi is suited to be Trump’s Madame Defarge, tallying the heads of Biden-era lawyers and administrators as they roll next year.
And however solemnly they swear they’ll keep the blindfold on Lady Justice — that goddess with the sword and scales — presidents have sent sluggers to the Department of Justice.
Warren Harding chose Harry Daugherty, an old Ohio Gang fixer who originated the term “smoke-filled room” as a symbol of sleazy deal-making. John Kennedy named his kid brother, who’d been his 1960 campaign manager. Richard Nixon’s first attorney general, John Mitchell, also was Nixon’s campaign manager and wound up in prison with much of the Watergate mob. Eisenhower’s attorney general, Herbert Brownell, had chaired the Republican National Committee.
Ronald Reagan’s attorneys general included a couple of California cronies, William French Smith and Ed Meese.
But it should also be noted that Nixon chose the honorable Elliot Richardson as another attorney general. Richardson resigned rather than fire Watergate special counsel Archibald Cox, when Nixon ordered him to stop demanding the secret White House tape recordings. Nixon then told deputy AG William Ruckelshaus to do it, and he resigned too.
The infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” ended when Solicitor General Robert Bork fired Cox — not because he believed Nixon had a legal right to keep his tape recordings, but because Bork determined the law allows presidents to fire inconvenient underlings, even lawyers investigating them.
We all know how that turned out. There’s no way of knowing what kind of attorney general Pam Bondi will be — a John Mitchell or an Elliot Richardson — but somewhere in between wouldn’t be so bad.
Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at wrcott43@aol.com
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“Yeah, Bondi is close to Trump and, yes, the once-and-future president is known to demand personal fealty above picky little details like the law and the Constitution”
These are the kind of tired tropes that got Trump re-elected. Everyone remembers Eric Holder declaring he was Obama’s wingman, and everyone remembers Bill Cotrell going april sugar crazy over it… Oh wait a minute, that never happened.
So, keep up the good work Billy and maybe we’ll get the ole boy a third term.
@Resident Since 1990:
Sorry it took you 13 years and 364 days too long to realize your mistake. Better late than never though.
I’m surprised they’re still killing trees – they must be printing less than 10K daily copies on their reduced weekly schedule.
And their website is 60% clickbait, 20% content from other GutNett rags, and only 20% local reporting.
With the last presidential election proving beyond any shadow of doubt that LEGACY MEDIA IS DEAD, I predict the Fake Newsocrat is whimpering towards its last decade of existence.
Bondi will likely be confirmed and do the job… but I interacted with her office when she was Florida’s AG some years back on and important Constitutional matter. She tossed it down to her understudy (current AG) who summarily dismissed it all together. Not a fan of either.
When I moved to Tallahassee, I quickly subscribed to the local print newspaper. Their biased reporting infuriated me for some 14 years before I decided to dump my subscription and look for news sources that actually reported news instead of pushing a liberal agenda.
Bill Cotterell’s columns always interested me because of his historical references to past people and places. I think his reporting mostly parroted the liberal rag that employed him, but his historical references were much appreciated and informative.
I now really appreciate his less biased reporting, and I love the historical backgrounds he includes in his stories.
His assessments of Bondi and Gaetz are pretty accurate.
Pete Hegseth has admitted his past mistake issues and changed his behavior.
He earned degrees at Harvard and Princeton, both liberal, and has served as a decorated military veteran in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Our current Defense Secretary pushes DEI objectives and not combat readiness.
Hegseth says he will not withdraw because he is being tried in the press. Good for him.
At least history is being made and Bill can add the Hegseth’s story to future reporting.