A portion of me feels sorrow whenever someone loses their job. With that in mind, allow me a few kind words about Pam Bondi:
She may be the worst attorney general in American history, but surely not for long.
The “I miss Joe Biden” era is already upon us; a year from now, when an even more horrifically servile goblin is inevitably atop the Justice Department, the “I miss Pam Bondi” era will be in full swing.
That’s not very nice, actually. Let me see if I can do better.
How’s this? While Bondi will be remembered for presiding over the ethical destruction of federal law enforcement, anyone else whom Donald Trump might have nominated for her position would have done the same. Remember, she was his second choice for attorney general after Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz.
As much of a travesty as her tenure was, travesty was baked into the cake when voters elected a postliberal kakistocracy vowing “retribution” in 2024. The utter corruption of the DOJ was the most foreseeable symptom of re-empowering a civic cancer like Trumpism, and Americans did it anyway. Blaming Bondi for what happened next is like a four-pack-a-day smoker cursing the tumor in his lung.
See? I can be nice when I want to be.
Bondi was the third attorney general nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Senate during his two terms. The first, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the Russiagate probe to avoid a conflict of interest. The president never forgave him for behaving ethically, eventually fired him, then foiled his political comeback by endorsing Tommy Tuberville in the 2020 Alabama Senate primary. The second, Bill Barr, also drew an ethical red line by contradicting Trump’s claims of widespread vote-rigging after the 2020 election. The president pushed him out, too, and would have ultimately handed the Justice Department over to conspiratorial stooge Jeffrey Clark if not for threats of a mutiny had he followed through.
Repeatedly, to his dismay, Trump has discovered that his choices to lead the Justice Department just aren’t quite dishonorably ruthless enough to satisfy him.
It happened with Bondi, too. Despite her seeming resolve to carry out any task he assigned to her, no matter how corrupt, the president reportedly complained frequently to aides “about her inability to prosecute the people he hates,” especially former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The DOJ did try (and continues to try) to indict both, but a good postliberal like Trump will never accept procedural excuses for failing to produce the results he wants. His old lawyer, the notoriously amoral Roy Cohn, would have found a way and not let any rule or ethical standard obstruct him.
That’s the standard Bondi was up against. The president continues to search for a new Cohn, for a sociopath whose loyalty to him is so total that not even the law can restrain it. Every political appointee who serves him makes a devil’s bargain of trading their soul for power, but agreeing to serve as his attorney general is the purest devil’s bargain there is.
That probably explains why Trump’s announcement yesterday about Bondi’s departure, half-heartedly alluding to some “much needed and important new job in the private sector,” had the air of Poochie dying on the way back to his home planet. The president is so bitterly disappointed that his latest AG couldn’t contrive some corrupt way to toss the targets of his vendettas in jail that he can’t pretend to care what happens to Bondi next. Where’s his Roy Cohn?
