2013, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office faced with a decision: whether to join investigations by other state attorneys general into Trump University, where students paid up to $35,000 for business classes that critics said were fraudulent.

Despite receiving complaints of exploitation from students, Bondi and then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris both declined to join the investigation. Both had received political donations from Donald Trump and denied that the funds influenced their office’s decisions.

Since then, the two former state prosecutors have followed opposite political paths. Harris attacked Trump in the 2020 and 2024 elections, painting him as a business fraud and threat to democracy. Trump won re-election earlier this month.

Bondi has spent the past decade defending Trump and attacking those investigating him. Now, if confirmed by the Senate, Bondi will be President-elect Trump’s attorney general.

A central question is whether Bondi will follow through on promises she made in television interviews to investigate what she called out-of-control federal prosecutors and FBI agents.

“The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones,” Bondi said on Fox News last year after Trump was indicted in Georgia accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “The investigators will be investigated.”

Bondi called the prosecutors who charged Trump with crimes members of the “deep state” — spreading a false conspiracy theory that DOJ prosecutors and FBI agents were part of a secret cabal trying to undermine Trump. Bondi, without citing evidence, said that since they were no longer “hiding in the shadows … they can all be investigated.”

Bondi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Current and former Justice Department officials have expressed mixed reactions to Bondi, whom Trump tapped to become attorney general hours after Rep. Matt Gaetz, who has repeatedly denied allegations of paying prostitutes and having sex with a minor, withdrew from consideration.

DOJ officials said they see Bondi as a much more favorable choice than Gaetz because she had a long career as a local prosecutor and Florida attorney general. At the same time, they see her as a Trump loyalist who they fear will not hesitate to carry out their push to investigate his enemies.

“I expect her to do exactly what Trump wants her to do,” said a recently departed senior Justice Department official. He added that members of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team are very concerned and are talking to lawyers.

On Friday, Washington Post, cited two people close to Trump’s transition, reported that Trump intends to fire Smith and the entire team that helped Smith prosecute Trump on federal charges of improper handling of classified documents and try to overturn the 2020 election results.

The Post also reported that Trump expects the Justice Department to investigate his long-discredited claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Former Trump Attorney General

Trump’s last attorney general, William Barr, dismissed Trump’s claims of election fraud in 2020 and declined to open Justice Department investigations, citing a lack of evidence. After publicly saying there was no evidence of widespread fraudBarr resigned.

When Trump tried to appoint Jeffrey Clarka DOJ official who supported his false fraud claims from 2020, as acting attorney general, threatened to resign half a dozen senior DOJ leaders. Three days later, Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to block the certificate of his defeat.

Bondi, meanwhile, supported Trump’s claims of fraud. She traveled to Philadelphia and held press conferences promoting false claims of widespread voter fraud and insisting that the election had been stolen from Trump.

“We know ballots have been dumped,” Bondi said. “We’ve heard of people getting ballots that were dead. That’s happening all over the country.”

Bondi also served as Trump’s defense attorney during his first impeachment trial, arguing that the president was unfairly investigated. During

Bondi is currently a partner at the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, where she chairs the firm’s compliance practice, according to company website.

Some Florida attorneys have defended Bondi, saying she followed standards as a state prosecutor. Dave Aronberg, State’s Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, told the Washington Post that Bondi will be much better for the DOJ than Gaetz.

“She’s hands-on and she’s also loyal to her associates, which means she’s not going to try to push someone out because they’re a Democrat or a career prosecutor who’s apolitical,” Aronberg told the Post. “She believes in the rule of law.”

The question now is whether Bondi, if confirmed, will keep his public promise that “the prosecutors will be prosecuted.” And, if she refuses to prosecute prosecutors for political reasons, she will be forced out by Trump like her predecessors.

A former DOJ official who worked in the first Trump administration said he didn’t know Bondi well but he did know Trump.

“I think whoever he chooses has an obligation to be loyal to him first and foremost,” he said. “That’s the key test for him. I don’t expect him to choose someone who will be honorable and loyal to the Constitution over him.”