With Bondi, Trump Has the AG 'He Always Wanted'

For a while there, with MAGA supporters livid at her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, it looked like Pam Bondi's tenure as attorney general was in jeopardy. But that turned out not to be the case because—as Ruth Marcus writes in a profile at the New Yorker—"Bondi appears to have retained the backing that matters most: Trump's." The reason for that is fairly straightforward, as voiced by an unnamed conservative lawyer and veteran of the Justice Department: "In Pam Bondi, Donald Trump has the Attorney General he always wanted." Marcus details the particulars in terms of new policies, but also lays it out in broad strokes:

• "Bondi has presided over the most convulsive transition of power in the Justice Department since the Watergate era, and perhaps in the hundred-and-fifty-five-year history of the department. No Attorney General has been as aggressive in reversing policies or firing personnel. None has been as willing to cede the department's traditional independence from the White House."

Marcus recounts a conversation with Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles in the midst of the Epstein controversy: "You know, she looks like Barbie," says Wiles. "She's blond and beautiful, and I think people will underestimate her because of how she looks. But she's got nerves of steel, and she has stood up to some withering situations with a fair amount of grace." The story digs into the prescient bet on Trump's political fortunes Bondi made years ago as Florida's attorney general, one that has benefited her career and her finances: The story details nearly $5 million Bondi earned in Trump-related work or investments before being named AG. Read the full story, in which Bondi's chief of staff challenges the idea she is weaponizing the Justice Department in unprecedented fashion. The Biden administration's prosecution of Trump, says Chad Mizelle, "was the single greatest shift toward weaponization that the Department of Justice ever could have undergone."