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justice department
Pam Bondi's Blind Obedience
As Trump's attorney general, Bondi has undermined her integrity, defined her legacy, and destroyed the nation’s Justice Department.
Feb 26, 2026
Incompetence will be President Donald Trump’s undoing. The only question is whether he and his minions will undo the nation first. Today’s subject is Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Bondi’s Blunders and Bluster
In her first year, Bondi has established an unprecedented record of destruction in the service of Trump. Servitude is more apt. Here’s a small sample:
- Thousands of experienced attorneys have left the Justice Department. Bondi fired those she deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump. Others resigned in protest over her directives, such as investigating the partner of Renee Nicole Good—a US citizen whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota killed—rather than scrutinizing the actions of her ICE killers.
- Bondi has decimated the department’s civil rights division, which historically investigated whether federal officers had used excessive force in killings like Good’s. As division head Harmeet Dhillon turned its mission upside down, more than 70% of its attorneys left. University of Chicago Law School Professor Craig Futterman explained that the Trump administration “is using a division that has a history of protecting the most vulnerable among us to wage an all-out assault on the civil rights of vulnerable people, including Black people, brown people, women, LGBTQIA folk.”
- Across the country, judges are chastising federal prosecutors for defying court orders and are wondering if the problem is incompetence, work overload, or the executive branch’s systematic attack on the judiciary. At least 35 times since August, federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to explain why it should not be punished for violating their orders in immigration cases: “Antiseptic judicial rhetoric cannot do justice to what is happening,” Judge Joseph R. Goodwin in West Virginia wrote, calling the warrantless arrest and imprisonment of thousands across the country “an assault on the constitutional order.”
- On Capitol Hill, Bondi refused to answer pointed questions and, instead, descended into bipartisan insults of the elected representatives who dared to challenge her. When ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law professor, told her not to filibuster through his limited time for questioning, she snapped, “You don’t tell me anything, you washed up loser lawyer.” She called Republican Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) a “failed politician” who had “Trump derangement syndrome.”
- Bipartisan outrage grows over Bondi’s incompetent and incomplete production of the Justice Department’s infamous Jeffrey Epstein files. It took Rep. Massie and a handful of fellow Republicans in the House to overcome the opposition of Trump and his congressional allies in forcing legislation requiring full disclosure by December 19, 2025. That deadline came and went before Bondi’s department finally produced files that included victims’ identities. The public learned on February 24 that the Justice Department’s belated 3.5 million-page document dump excluded files relating to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor, according to an NPR analysis and the New York Times.
Bondi’s Backstory
Understanding Bondi’s loyalty to Trump over her oath to uphold the Constitution requires a timeline:
- In November 2010, Bondi was elected Florida’s attorney general. From February 2008 to May 2011, her Office of Attorney General (OAG) received at least 22 complaints regarding Trump University, the Trump Institute, and related entities.
- In August 2013, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Trump, Trump Entrepreneur Institute aka Trump University, and the former president of Trump University for “engaging in persistent fraudulent, illegal, and deceptive conduct.” The Florida OAG said it was looking at the allegations.
- In September 2013, the Donald J. Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution to “And Justice for All,” a political group backing Bondi’s reelection. The donation, illegal for a 501(c)(3) private foundation, was personally solicited by Bondi from Trump.
- In October 2013, the OAG said it would not act on the complaints against Trump University or join the lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney general.
- In March 2016, Bondi became the first big-name Republican in the state to endorse Trump in the Florida presidential primary. A week later, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) filed a complaint against the Trump Foundation. Trump representatives admitted to the earlier illegal donation, blaming a series of clerical errors.
- In June 2016, Bondi’s spokesperson told the Associated Press that the attorney general was unaware of the 20+ complaints against Trump entities when she solicited the donation in 2013.
- In September 2016, the Washington Post discovered that Trump had paid a $2,500 IRS penalty for the illegal donation to Bondi.
- In December 2016, Trump announced that he was shutting down his foundation in response to the growing scandal, which now included claims of self-dealing.
- In March 2017, an attorney hired by the Florida Commission on Ethics found: “[I]t may raise suspicions that within a month after the New York Attorney General announced that New York would be filing a lawsuit against Trump University, Donald Trump contributed a total of $25,500.00 to [Bondi] or her organizations. However, in this case, there is no evidence that [she] was involved with the investigation or decisions regarding Trump University.”
- During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Bondi was one of his defense lawyers.
Bondi’s Blind Obedience
Announcing Bondi as his choice for US attorney general to replace failed nominee Matt Gaetz, Trump said, “For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans—Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime and Making America Safe Again.”
To Bondi, that mission means slavish devotion to Trump and weaponizing the Justice Department against his enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey, NY Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, six Democratic lawmakers who recorded a message to troops about not following illegal orders, and on and on and on. In some cases, the only check on her abuse of power has been the refusal of grand juries—consisting of ordinary citizens—to issue indictments that she had sought against Trump’s targets.
Bondi has undermined her integrity, defined her legacy, and destroyed the nation’s Justice Department. As with many members of Trump’s cabinet, her incompetence is catching up with her, but it’s taking a toll on all of us.
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Trump Promised to Drain the Swamp—Turns Out He's Best Friends With the Swamp Monster
When given the opportunity to seek justice for countless women and children who were trafficked, abused, and exploited by the world’s wealthiest, most powerful people, the MAGA movement and its leaders have shown a startling disinterest in accountability.
Feb 19, 2026
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s contentious House hearing about the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files offered a clear message to the nation: Sex trafficking of women and minors is perfectly acceptable as long as wealthy white men do it.
Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced late sex trafficker, fixer, and political networker, was found to have ties to huge number of the world’s elites on both sides of the political aisle—including Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Ehud Barak, Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, and of course, Donald Trump.
For years, Trump’s conservative backers have attacked LGBTQ+ people, drag queens, immigrants, and others, claiming a desire to protect women and children from rapists and groomers. Trump even boasted that “whether the women liked it or not,” he would “protect” them from migrants, whom he slandered as “monsters” who “kidnap and kill our children.”
But when given the opportunity to seek justice for countless women and children who were trafficked, abused, and exploited by the world’s wealthiest, most powerful people, the MAGA movement and its leaders have shown a startling disinterest in accountability. During her hearing Bondi tried desperately to deflect attention, claiming that the stock market was more deserving of public attention than Epstein’s victims.
For elites like Epstein, ideological differences were superficial. The real distinction was money, power, and connections.
Even the Republican rank and file is now mysteriously detached from the Epstein files.
Polls show that in summer 2025, 40% of GOP voters disapproved of the federal government’s handling of the Epstein files. But by January 2026, only about half that percentage disapproved—even after the Trump administration missed its deadline to release millions of files and then released them in a way that exposed the victims while protecting the perpetrators.
While some European leaders are facing harsh consequences for associating with Epstein, no Americans outside of Epstein and his closest associate Ghislaine Maxwell have faced any consequences, legal or otherwise.
That’s despite very concrete ties between the Trump administration and the sex trafficker. Not only did Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admit to visiting Epstein island after lying about it (and has so far faced no consequences), but Trump himself is named more than a million times in the files, according to lawmakers with access to the unredacted documents. Several victims identify Trump by name, alleging he raped and assaulted them.
And it’s not just Trump. Epstein was an equal opportunity fixer. He was just as friendly with liberals as he was with conservatives, including Summers, Clinton, and, disconcertingly for the American left, Noam Chomsky. For elites like Epstein, ideological differences were superficial. The real distinction was money, power, and connections.
Epstein was a glorified drug dealer, and his drugs of choice were the vulnerable bodies of women and children, offered up to his friends and allies as the forbidden currency he traded in. A useful moniker has emerged to describe the global network of elites whose power and privilege continues to protect them from accountability: the Epstein Class.
Georgia Sen. John Ossoff, who faces reelection in 2026, is deploying this label, understanding that voters—at least those who haven’t bought into the MAGA cult —are increasingly aware of the double standards that wealthy power players are held to.
“This is the Epstein class, ruling our country,” said Ossoff in reference to those who make up the Trump administration. “They are the elites they pretend to hate.”
He’s right. And if the Trump administration won’t hold them to account, Americans should demand leaders who will.
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Why Trump's Attack on Minneapolis Is Also an Attack on Our Elections
This armed assault on a major American city, coupled with a thuggish offer implying that the bully boys might be pulled back if state officials will betray their voters, shows the damage that can be done without outright canceling the midterms.
Jan 29, 2026
The nation has been convulsed by the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Millions now see with sickening clarity a lawless assault by federal officers on an American city and its people. As The Wall Street Journal editorialized, it is a “moral and political debacle for the Trump presidency.”
The videos were followed by a fusillade of lies from senior government officials. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti had engaged in “domestic terrorism.” White House aide Stephen Miller called Pretti an “assassin” who tried to “murder federal agents.” Border official Gregory Bovino declared, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” The instant impulse by these high officials was to bully and smear.
Another outrageous statement by a cabinet official has not gotten enough attention.
On Saturday, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz linking the violence in Minneapolis to a demand that the state give the Justice Department complete access to the state’s sensitive voter rolls, among other things. There’s no explicit quid pro quo offered—but anyone familiar with Grade B gangster movies won’t miss the implication. Certainly that’s how state officials have read it. Let that sink in: Federal agents have killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And the response of the attorney general of the United States is to use it as leverage to illegally access voter data. That is an unambiguous abuse of power.
That sense of crisis, consciously instigated, can create opportunities to undermine the election and sow doubt and division.
As my colleague Wendy Weiser has written, “What do voter rolls have to do with ICE? Nothing. But they have a lot to do with the administration’s ongoing efforts to meddle in elections.”
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon provided Bondi with the only legal and responsible answer (a simple “no”), describing her offer as “an apparent ransom.”
Make no mistake: The federal government has no authorization to demand confidential voter information from the states. In our constitutional system, states are responsible for maintaining and protecting voter rolls. Indeed, various state and federal laws limit how much data the federal government can collect.
But that hasn’t stopped it from trying. Bondi’s Justice Department has demanded access to the voter records of 44 states and Washington, DC, and it has sued more than 20 states for not complying. Two courts have already ruled on the side of the states.
Why would the administration want to hoover up this data? It would give election deniers new ammunition to push false claims of voting by people who are not US citizens. It would help the federal government pressure states into reckless voter purges, which would kick eligible citizens off the rolls just as November rolls around.
Plainly, it’s all part of a broader strategy to meddle with our elections. Last weekend, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Republicans are looking into yet another version of the unpopular SAVE Act—the bill that would require American citizens to produce a birth certificate, passport, or similar document to register to vote. At least 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents, according to our research. The bill narrowly passed the House but stalled in the Senate last year after massive public pushback.
Bondi’s letter is a gross escalation of this effort—an explicit abuse of this moment to coerce Minnesota to step into line.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) worries that this escalation is by design. Over the weekend, he warned that the “Trump administration is creating this mayhem, particularly in cities in swing states, in order to take control of the election.”
When Donald Trump took office the first time in 2017, he talked of “American carnage.” Shooting of bystanders, squads of masked armed men, terrorized immigrants, clouds of tear gas, vague claims of conspiracy, and more—all bring that “carnage” to life. That sense of crisis, consciously instigated, can create opportunities to undermine the election and sow doubt and division.
To be clear (and I get asked this a lot): Donald Trump cannot cancel the midterms. Presidents have no power to do that.
But this armed assault on a major American city, coupled with a thuggish offer implying that the bully boys might be pulled back if state officials will betray their voters, shows the damage that can be done nonetheless.
The dignified and angry public response from around the country to the latest killing suggests maybe something has snapped. It would not be the first time in our history that government violence kindled an even more powerful reaction.
It’s not only the safety and sanity of people in Minnesota that’s at stake. As we are reminded once again, our democracy is on the line.
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