Trump’s new AG pick didn’t sue Trump University — after he donated ,000 to her campaign
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Trump’s new AG pick didn’t sue Trump University — after he donated $25,000 to her campaign

The incoming Trump administration wasted no time Thursday after Matt Gaetz announced he was dropping his bid to become attorney general, announcing that former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi would instead seek the top job at the Justice Department.

Bondi, who served as Florida’s attorney general from 2011 to 2019, is both a seasoned public servant and a longtime Trump ally. Here’s what you need to know:

Ethical issues surrounding campaign money in Florida

Trump and Bondi have ties that go back more than a decade, to when Bondi served as Florida’s first female attorney general.

In 2013, when Bondi’s office received complaints from people who claimed they had been scammed by the future president’s seminars at Trump University, her political committee received a $25,000 donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. While New York brought lawsuits related to the seminars, Florida did not. Both Trump and Bondi have denied the donation was inappropriate or related to the charging decision.

It wasn’t the only campaign-related scandal during Bondi’s time in Florida.

Pam Bondi would play a pivotal role in the January 6, civil rights, and election issues
Pam Bondi would play a pivotal role in the January 6, civil rights, and election issues (Getty Images)

That same year, she persuaded then-Governor Rick Scott to reschedule the execution of convicted murderer Marshall Lee Fore to accommodate a fundraiser.

“I should not have requested that the execution be moved. It had been (delayed) twice,” she said then, Tampa Tribune reported. “I’m sorry. And it won’t happen again.”

A record of high-profile cases

Unlike some of the Trump administration’s other nominees, who lack direct government experience related to their government positions, Bondi has a significant record in public office and has shown a willingness to take on high-profile cases.

She helped appoint the special prosecutor who investigated the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

She too initiated a 2018 lawsuit against the makers of opioid drugs, litigation that eventually culminating in a $3 billion settlement with the State of Florida after leaving office. Bondi’s office too sued BP after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and helped Florida with a payout of more than $2 billion.

A staunch Trump defender and political ally

Since leaving office, Bondi has been a staunch ally of Trump throughout his administration, as well as multiple impeachment hearings and criminal investigations.

She served on Trump’s opioid commission and helped coordinate his response to moments when his administration was in danger.

In 2019, Trump hired her to help it fend off its first impeachment inquiry, amid allegations of a kickback deal to pressure Ukrainian officials to go after the Biden family.

Trump’s “parliamentary adviser” Pam Bondi says looming charges are weighing on him

During the investigation on January 6, Bondi appeared on Fox News and denounced the process as a “show trial” while according to information to be one of a number of Trumpworld figures offering jobs to one of the key witnesses, Cassidy Hutchinson.

That support has included latching onto some of Donald Trump’s most inflammatory claims.

At the 2020 Republican National Convention, Bondi joined the chorus of Republican officials accusing Joe Biden and his son Hunter of corruption.

“The theme of our party tonight is America, the land of opportunity,” Bondi said at the RNC. “But for Joe Biden, it’s been the land of opportunism, not opportunity. As a career prosecutor and former Florida attorney general, I fought corruption and I know what it looks like, whether it’s done by people wearing pinstripe suits or orange jumpsuits.”

In November 2020, Bondi was outside the Philadelphia Convention Center with Trump campaign officials as they alleged voter fraudand claimed that the Republican had won Pennsylvania even before the state had announced its election results.

The alliance continued after Trump’s election defeat, with Bondi chairing Trump-related political action committees and serving as Chair of Litigation at the America First Policy Institutea MAGA-affiliated legal advocacy group that has denounced the prosecution of Donald Trump as a “weaponization” of the justice system and sought to limit future legal scrutiny of current and former presidents.

The group has claimed that the pro-Trump crowd at the January 6 riot at the US Capitol was unfairly prosecuted as victims of a “two-tier” justice system

If Bondi is confirmed as attorney general, she would be in charge of the Justice Department’s sprawling Jan. 6 case, the largest indictment in U.S. history, as well as the department’s response to civil rights cases and allegations of voter fraud.

She would be third woman to serve as Minister of Justiceand the first under a Republican administration.