Trump Picks Election Denier Pam Bondi As Attorney General

By Matt Cohen

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, is Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Justice. (Alex Brandon via AP)

President-elect Donald Trump named Florida attorney Pam Bondi as his new choice to lead the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The announcement came hours after Matt Gaetz, Trump’s original pick for attorney general, withdrew his name from consideration amid intense scrutiny over a current House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.

Bondi, a longtime attorney and former Florida attorney general, is a well-known figure in Trump’s orbit. She’s been involved with Trump since his 2016 campaign and was one of his main attorneys during his 2019 impeachment, over his quid pro quo phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She also occasionally advised Trump on pardons during his first administration — including the woman who orchestrated one of the biggest medicare frauds in history. 

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Bondi was one of several Trump lawyers who was spreading voting conspiracy theories and false allegations of election fraud. She was part of the Trump campaign’s legal effort to challenge ballots in Pennsylvania in 2020 and went on to spread false allegations of election cheating in the Keystone State. 

“All the good residents who are all supporting us in Pennsylvania, their votes don’t count by these fake ballots that are coming in late,” she said on Fox News. “And they are not letting us watch the process.”

Since 2021, Bondi has been chair of the America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) center for litigation and co-chair of its center for law and justice. AFPI is a conservative legal think tank founded in the aftermath of Trump’s first administration, made up of a handful of prominent Republicans with ties to the president-elect. AFPI was created to be something of a thorn in the side of President Joe Biden’s administration, filing a barrage of lawsuits to challenge his policies, like immigration and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. 

As one of AFPI’s leading figures, Bondi has spearheaded the group’s efforts to disenfranchise voters around the country. Under Bondi, AFPI led a multistate legal effort to overturn a pro-voting Biden executive order that expands voting access. AFPI also got involved in several election lawsuits in Arizona, challenging parts of the state’s Elections Procedural Manual (EPM). 

The DOJ is one of the main areas of radical transformation for the Trump administration — with a focus on using the department as a tool to punish his political enemies and erode voting rights. With Bondi, Trump has indicated that she is the best choice for him to carry out his vision of the DOJ. 
“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans – Not anymore,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”