SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Hearing Watch: Will AG Pam Bondi Own Up To Her Conflicts of Interest?
This morning, corporate lobbyist turned U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi faces Senate Judiciary Committee questioning for the first time since her confirmation. The hearing comes as “[m]ore than 275 former Justice Department employees are demanding Congress increase oversight of the department following a mass exodus of career officials who question the integrity of the department's work.” Beyond these concerns from former colleagues over Bondi’s unwillingness to put the constitution above her loyalty to President Donald Trump, the Attorney General has also validated concerns raised in January over her inability to put the public interest before her former lobbying clients and wealthy friends.
During Bondi’s confirmation process, government watchdog Accountable.US revealed that at least five of Bondi’s direct lobbying clients have faced DOJ fines, investigations, or related scrutiny that could pose serious conflicts should they have business before Bondi’s DOJ. Bondi’s clients included Amazon, General Motors, The GEO Group, Uber, and Major League Baseball.
Now, in her first months as Attorney General, Bondi’s lobbying work continues to pose a wide variety of conflict of interest concerns, an Accountable.US review found—with Ballard Partners seeing a surge in DOJ lobbying work since her confirmation; with Bondi’s DOJ scuttling a major antitrust challenge in favor of a new Ballard Partners client; and with Bondi’s DOJ facing a lawsuit over a memo she signed allowing Trump to accept a $400 million jet from Qatar, who she represented while at Ballard Partners.
“In her eight months as Attorney General, Pam Bondi has confirmed all warnings about her treating the office as an enforcer for Donald Trump’s personal whims while also acting as a walking conflict of interest for her former lobbying firm and clients,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk. “It says it all that the former Qatar lobbyist Bondi penned a DOJ memo – i.e. corruption ‘get out of jail free card’ – allowing Donald Trump to use a gifted luxury super jet from the nation he’s doing billions of dollars in crypto business with during and after his presidency. During her first Senate hearing, will Bondi answer for all these sweetheart deals she’s supporting for the President and former lobbying clients while millions of working Americans are asked to choose between a continued government shutdown or losing their health care?”
HERE’S HOW BONDI’S CONFLICTS OF INTEREST ARE ALREADY COMPROMISING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC INTEREST:
- Since Pamela Bondi became Attorney General, Ballard Partners has become “the highest-paid lobbying shop” in Washington D.C. On top of this, Ballard has represented 10 different clients directly before Bondi’s DOJ in the first months of the second Trump administration—more DOJ clients than it had in the first Trump and Biden administrations combined.
- In March 2025, shortly after Bondi’s confirmation, Ballard Partners registered as a lobbying firm for American Express Global Business Travel, which paid the firm $200,000 to exclusively lobby Bondi’s DOJ in the first half of 2025 alone. Notably, in July 2025, Bondi’s DOJ dismissed the Biden Administration’s challenge against a $540 million merger that would have allowed American Express GBT to “eliminate its second-largest rival” CWT Holdings.
- While she was with Ballard Partners, Bondi was a foreign lobbyist for the nation of Qatar. Once she became Attorney General, Bondi “personally signed” a DOJ legal memo approving the legality of Qatar’s royal family gifting a $400 million “palace in the sky” jet to the Trump administration, for Trump to use as Air Force One. In July 2025, Bondi’s DOJ was sued by the Freedom of the Press Foundation for refusing to release the memorandum Bondi reportedly signed approving the gift.
- Meanwhile, the Trump Organization announced its first foreign deal in Trump’s second term, a new luxury golf resort in Qatar developed in partnership with a Qatari government-owned company.
Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog that exposes corruption in public life and holds government officials and corporate special interests accountable by bringing their influence and misconduct to light. In doing so, we make way for policies that advance the interests of all Americans, not just the rich and powerful.
LATEST NEWS
'Sign of Madness': Critics Warn Trump DHS Plan Would Cause 'Apocalyptic' Chaos at Airports
"Do any of these people have a working brain or understand how life works in the real world?" asked a retired air traffic controller.
May 28, 2026
US Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday reiterated his threat to remove Customs and Border Protection agents from airports at so-called "sanctuary cities" that bar local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement operations.
During a Fox News interview, co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Mullin whether this plan would essentially halt all international flights to major US airports in travel hubs such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
Mullin responded by saying DHS wasn't "going to halt the flights," but rather "won't be able to process them because we won't have officers there."
The DHS secretary said that the CBP officers needed to be sent to protect DHS employees at the Delaney Hall migrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey, which has been targeted in recent days by protesters demanding humane treatment of immigrants.
"If things don't change, we're going to have to make this step pretty quick," Mullin emphasized. "I'm not going to put my employees and my [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents at risk going to and from this [facility]."
Markwayne Mullin: "If CBP isn't there processing international flights, then those individuals when the airlines land won't be permitted into the United States. If things don't change, we're gonna have to make this step pretty quick." pic.twitter.com/flcAGL2TVG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 28, 2026
Critics were quick to point out that Mullin's plan would lead to massive chaos at major international airports and would be a significant economic disruption at a time when Americans are already under financial pressure from the rising price of food and energy.
"This would be deliberately stabbing the US economy in the back," argued Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. "It would cause enormous economic damage and disrupt air travel nationwide, as airlines would be forced to cancel flights en masse. That he’s even contemplating this publicly is a sign of madness."
Minneapolis-based attorney Will Stancil questioned whether Mullin had fully gamed out how his plan would play out politically for his boss, President Donald Trump, whom polls show is historically unpopular.
"If I’m sitting at 35% approval," Stancil mused, "the thing I definitely want to do is to cause apocalyptic levels of chaos at all of America’s largest airports."
Retired air traffic controller Vivian Lumbard similarly marveled at the self-destructive consequences that would come from enacting Mullin's plan.
"If customs isn't there processing international flights, US citizens won't be permitted to re-enter the United States either," she wrote. "Do any of these people have a working brain or understand how life works in the real world?"
Mullin's threats appear to be more than bluster, however. The Atlantic reported last week that the DHS chief recently "convened a small group of airline and travel-industry executives at DHS headquarters in Washington and told them he may reduce [CBP] staffing at major airports that serve sanctuary jurisdictions," including airports in New York, Washington, DC, and Portland, Oregon.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Craven and Corrupt': DOJ Launches Criminal Probe Into E. Jean Carroll, Who Won Civil Cases Against Trump
"It never ends with Trump and his revenge tour and actual weaponization of the DOJ," said journalist Mehdi Hasan.
May 28, 2026
President Donald Trump appeared to be out for what one human rights advocate called "outrageous revenge" late Wednesday as it was reported that the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won two civil judgments against the president after accusing him of sexual abuse and defamation.
CNN first reported that, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation, the DOJ is investigating whether Carroll committed perjury in her civil lawsuits against Trump.
The probe reportedly centers on a 2022 deposition Carroll gave in which she said she received no outside funding for her lawsuit. It was later revealed that Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn who has been critical of the president, paid some legal fees and expenses.
Before Carroll's sexual abuse case went to trial in 2022, Trump's lawyers told the court that the disclosure of Hoffman's funding raised "significant questions" about Carroll's credibility and accused her of trying to "conceal the truth."
Carroll's lawyers countered that the plaintiff had nothing to do with obtaining the outside funding and that Hoffman's decision to provide financial support was irrelevant to Carroll's accusation that Trump had sexually abused her in a New York City department store dressing room in the 1990s.
A jury awarded her a $5 million judgment in the case, and in 2024 Carroll won $83.3 million in damages in a separate civil case in which she accused Trump of repeatedly defaming her when he said she had filed her first case against him in an effort to sell books and was perpetrating a "hoax."
A three-judge panel on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously rejected Trump's request for a new trial in the sexual abuse case, saying the president had “not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings.”
An appeals court panel also upheld the $83.3 million defamation judgment, but this month Trump was permitted to delay his payment for now, as he has appealed to the US Supreme Court, asserting that he has "absolute immunity" for disparaging comments about Carroll that he made while he was president.
The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that Trump has "absolute immunity" for "official acts" taken while he is in office.
The investigation into Carroll is being conducted by US Attorney Andrew Boutros in the Northern District of Illinois; a nonprofit associated with Hoffman is based in Chicago.
The probe appeared to be Trump's latest effort to use the DOJ to enact revenge on his political enemies, a number of observers said late Wednesday.
"He’s using the power of the DOJ to go after his own victims," said US Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). "It’s a vile attack on the rule of law and a disgusting insult to victims everywhere."
Last month, acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced an indictment of former FBI chief James Comey, a longtime opponent of Trump. They accused him of “knowingly and willfully [making] a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon” the president; a year earlier, Comey had posted a photo on Instagram of seashells grouped together in a pattern, reading, "86 47." The indictment garnered criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.
Federal prosecutors also indicted Comey as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James last year, in cases that were thrown out by a judge. James won a $450 million judgment against Trump, plus interest, in a civil fraud case against Trump and his business in 2022.
At the news of the investigation into Carroll, journalist Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo News wrote on social media, "Sheesh, it never ends with Trump and his revenge tour and actual weaponization of the DOJ."
Elisa Batista, campaign director at the women's rights group UltraViolet, said, "We believe E. Jean Carroll, just as a jury of her peers did."
“Donald Trump has been caught bragging about assaulting women, and was found liable for sexual abuse,” said Batista. "The DOJ’s investigation is nothing more than another craven and corrupt attempt by Trump to silence survivors and his personal opponents.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'These Extrajudicial Killings Are Becoming Normalized,' Amnesty Warns After More Boat Bombings
"Not only are these killings illegal, they are immoral. People of good conscience cannot allow this to continue."
May 28, 2026
The Trump administration on Wednesday killed two more people in the eastern Pacific by bombing a vessel accused—without evidence—of trafficking drugs, bringing the death toll from the US military's illegal campaign of boat attacks in international waters closer to 200.
Amnesty International, which has spoken out forcefully against the boat strikes since they began in September 2025, warned in a statement Wednesday that "these extrajudicial killings are becoming normalized" as they fade from the headlines and lawmakers do nothing to stop the administration.
“Not only are these killings illegal, they are immoral," said Amanda Klasing, Amnesty's national director for government relations. "People of good conscience cannot allow this to continue, yet Congress has so far failed to halt, or even slow down, this lethal and unlawful campaign.”
The US Southern Command announced strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday and Wednesday, attacks that killed three people total.
SOUTHCOM called the victims "narco-terrorists" without any evidence. According to a tracker maintained by The Intercept's Nick Turse, the Trump administration's boat bombing campaign has killed 197 people since September 2025.
On May 27, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking… pic.twitter.com/qKvSjxpk3P
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) May 28, 2026
“Numbers alone cannot capture the unimaginable human toll of this horrific campaign of murder at sea," Klasing said Wednesday. "Every single person that the U.S. has killed at sea was arbitrarily deprived of their right to life, and they and their families have a right to justice. Lawmakers must do everything in their power to halt this campaign and hold everyone responsible accountable for their role in these extrajudicial killings."
“We are witnessing the height of lawlessness—a government taking military action to kill people who it unilaterally deems ‘criminals’ or ‘terrorists’ and then bragging about it on social media and stonewalling members of Congress demanding explanations," Klasing added. "Regardless of whether the victims committed crimes or not, killing them is completely illegal under both US and international law. Alleged criminal suspects should be dealt with by law enforcement who are bound by international human rights law, which prohibits using lethal force unless absolutely necessary based on an imminent threat to life."
Few of the nearly 200 victims of the US military's assault on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have been publicly identified. Earlier this year, family members of two Trinidadian men—Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo—killed by a US strike in October filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Trump administration.
"Rishi was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again and to make a decent living in Venezuela to help provide for his family," said Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo's sister. "If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable."
Ana Piquer, Amnesty's Americas director, called for urgent action from the international community to rein in the lawless Trump administration.
“Beyond US authorities, we need to see leadership from other governments in the region, as well as the Organization of American States,” said Piquer. "The international community must speak out firmly against these murders, which constitute a serious threat to human rights and respect for international law. Governments must immediately suspend intelligence sharing that may contribute to these operations. They further should suspend export licenses to any defense material that could be used to perpetuate these murders."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular