Q&A of the Day – Should President Trump Replace AG Pam Bondi?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station page in the iHeart app.
Today’s entry: Submitted via Talkback: I am a longtime listener, and I really do value your opinion. I'm curious what you have to say about Pam Bondi. I hear so many complaints about her that she does not seem to be doing an effective job. She was our attorney general here in Florida for many years, and I would be interested in what you think about the job she is currently doing.
Bottom Line: Thank you for listening and for your question. Without a doubt, there are many strong opinions in conservative circles about the (nearly) first-year performance of AG Pam Bondi (she was confirmed on February 5th last year). Commonly the view is that she’s failed to deliver on expectations for her entering the job, and perhaps even on her own guidance. I do have an opinion on the topic and knew Bondi well from her time as Florida’s AG. My views, as always, are informed by the underlying facts... So, I’ll break those down first.
I’ve found that of all the highly visible cabinet posts the U.S. Attorney General is one of the most understood in certain aspects of the job but also perhaps among the most misunderstood in other ways. What I mean by that is most people are aware that the AG is the top law enforcement official in the country and broadly that it’s ultimately up to them to enforce federal laws. That’s the aspect of the job that’s commonly public facing. Then there’s the real day-to-day aspects of the job that in my experience aren’t as well understood.
The U.S. Attorney General oversees 116,000 employees across all U.S. states and territories. That’s roughly the entire total number of employees Carnival Cruise Lines has for example. In other words, it’s a massive operation to oversee with no shortage of moving parts.
This includes oversight of 94 U.S. Attorneys, all federal prosecutors, the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service, Bureau of Prisons, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (among others). This is the bulk of the day job and the non-public facing part of the job. I’ll start there because this is where AG Bondi has been particularly busy.
President Trump and most of his supporters have long been concerned about the “deep state”, or entrenched employees at government agencies that seek to operate on their own agendas as opposed to the elected administration's agenda and in accordance with the law. Upon taking office, Bondi identified this as being a central part of her role as AG. So, what has she done during her first year?
AG Pam Bondi has terminated over 6,400 employees within the Department of Justice from federal prosecutors, agents, and loads of career staffers that she and her department heads have identified as being problematic. It’s been the largest turnover of DOJ staff under any administration in U.S. history – and it happened within the first year. I’ve not come across anyone who’s voiced concerns about her performance who is aware of that not-so-insignificant fact. And as Bondi has been working to reshape the DOJ, it hasn’t been easy sledding.
Not only have courts attempted to intervene to prevent her terminations of career employees, but the United States Senate still hasn’t confirmed 10 of her 94 federal prosecutors. This means she’s been working with temporary, or “acting” prosecutors that aren’t her first choice, and that judges have, on numerous occasions, invalidated when they’ve sought prosecutions that many on the right have sought. In other words, Bondi has undertaken, and largely achieved a historic remake of the DOJ, while effectively having had a hand tied behind her back between the rulings of activist judges and Senate politics.
I’ll pause and pose a question to you about the agencies Bondi overseas compared to where they were prior to Bondi having entered office (or for that matter compared to your opinion of them during Trump’s first administration).
Do you feel better, worse or the same about:
- The FBI?
- The DEA?
- The ATF?
- Immigration Policy/Legal facilitation of deportations?
If on balance, you feel there’s been improvement in those areas- Bondi deserves credit for her performance with the non-public facing aspects of her job. The inverse would certainly be true too.
As a former entrepreneur/business owner and long-time broadcaster, from my perspective the most important role of a leader is to ensure you have the right people in the right places to have success. In other words, if I were in her role, my focus in year one would primarily have been where her focus appears to have primarily been. Weeding out the bad apples and working to surround myself, in the many departments, with the right people to carry out federal law enforcement and the administration's agenda. That’s no small task to do in an organization that is large; that’s also resistant to change and often hostile towards you.
The bottom line is that the AG can’t carry out all the important investigations and prosecute all the important cases herself. Like any leader of a large organization, she’s only going to be as successful as the team that she’s surrounded by. What I’ve described with what’s changed with the non-public facing side of her job is what didn’t take place in President Trump’s first term under AG’s Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr. It’s a lesson that was learned and it’s a lesson that’s been applied in the current administration. That takes us to the public facing side of the job...this is where Pam Bondi has been her own worst enemy.
Credibly is hard to gain and easy to lose. Not only has Pam Bondi not delivered to date on any number of high-profile prosecutions many conservatives have sought dating back to the Russian collusion days, extending through the coverup of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and extending to potential prosecutions related to what might be revealed with the Epstein Files...she’s publicly handled those matters – most notably expectations surrounding the Epstein Files about as poorly as could be. As we’ve previously discussed there simply was no excuse for what Pam Bondi said last year. As I covered on July 9th of last year...
It’s hard to imagine that on July 9th Americans could be more skeptical of what really went down with Jeffrey Epstein and company than say on January 9th. But it appears to be that way. So, as we’ve discussed, on Monday the US Department of Justice in conjunction with the FBI, issued an official memo, leaked through Axios, effectively saying that as far as Epstein stuff goes, there’s nothing more to see here. DOJ’s line is that he really did take his own life, he didn’t actually have a client list, and that effectively as far as Epstein - its case closed. Of course there’s only one (thousand?) problem with this. It's what I referenced to start the show yesterday. It’s not possible to reconcile this with what Attorney General Pam Bondi had already said. It was in a Fox News interview February when in answer to this question by Jon Roberts: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients, will that really happen? Bondi said: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. And now it’s said that the list that Bondi said was on her desk right now never existed? If this were any matter of significant public interest, this contradiction would present, at best, a credibility problem.
That’s no small thing. It still isn’t reconciled, and I fully understand those who’ve lost confidence in her due to those developments. You asked for my opinion about Bondi’s performance. Based on the facts as we know them, I feel that she’s excelled at the non-public facing side of the job while having failed at the public facing side of it. That leads to me being skeptical about her overall performance. Given that mixed review this is where, at least until more becomes clear, I pay deference to President Trump. He knows more about what’s going on than we do. He’s not so much as hinted about replacing her to date. What he did say at his 1-year anniversary presser is that certain officials haven’t communicated about the progress the administration has made well. That may well have been directed at many officials, though it’s likely most especially true of Bondi.