Last night, rumors began to circulate that Donald Trump would soon fire Attorney General Pam Bondi. This morning, those rumors transitioned to reports that he’d informed her that she’d be shitcanned soon. Now, Trump is reporting on his social media network that Bondi will be moving to a new job in the private sector “in the near future” and that Todd Blanche would be taking over on an interim basis.
Presumably, Trump made this decision after seeing how well Bondi was doing in the Above the Law annual bracket challenge as the lawyer most in need of having her license to practice law permanently stripped. For a president obsessed with projecting an image of strength, the ridicule of ATL’s readership was surely too much to handle.
But it could also be the fact that his administration keeps getting handed its ass in court, the Justice Department cannot miracle up anything but frivolous claims against the president’s enemies, and a bizarre rumor that Bondi tipped off Rep. Eric Swalwell about an effort to use the FBI to rehash his long ago relationship with a woman suspected of ties to Chinese intelligence.
Murder rates are at historic lows, though they’ve been trending down for decades now, making this boast similar to claiming this year marked an all-time low in people driving 1981 Honda Accords.
“Transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector” is brutal. Trump invented a fake new job in the administration when Kristi Noem got canned. Bondi isn’t even getting that courtesy. And if Trump hoped that this move could distract from the growing frustration in Congress over the Justice Department’s effort to keep Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein covered up:
This does raise the saliency of our aforementioned bracket challenge. Bondi is heading to the private sector a little prematurely, but this is the risk to the profession’s legitimacy. After supervising the Department of Justice as it racked up tons of documented instances of lying to tribunals and contemptuous acts, Bondi is poised to waltz over to a fat paycheck from a law firm who wants to put “former Attorney General” on their letterhead. And we can’t depend on the law firms to restrain themselves because they will just see the dollar signs they could secure by marketing themselves as having a former Justice Department insider around. The only way to protect the profession and the public is through ethics probes and licensing consequences.
Who replaces Bondi long-term? Blanche will take over in the short run, but despite Trump’s curiously capitalized description of Blanche as a “very talented and respected Legal Mind,” he isn’t considered the favorite. Early indications point to EPA Chief Lee Zeldin.
That would certainly track Trump’s preference for parking garage lawyers and insurance attorneys over those with actual experience.
There’s one candidate no one is talking about out there and Trump has already publicly expressed that he believed the man was capable of doing this job. He’s tanned, rested, and ready!
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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