pI’m Bondi He didn’t kidnap a dog, exactly. But the twenty-year custody battle over a St. Bernard named Noah (nee Master Tank) wasn’t looking great for America’s potential next attorney general. In 2005, during Hurricane Katrina, the dog was separated from his family in Louisiana. Ms. Bondi, then a Florida prosecutor, adopted the dog from a charity that rescued him. When Noah’s original family found him in 2006, they refused to part ways with him until a 16-month legal battle forced them to accept it. She had indicated that the dog had been neglected before. The story attracted local attention when Ms. Bondi ran for Florida Attorney General. She lost the dog, but won the election and served for eight years.
When it comes to Donald Trump’s picks for his administration, a dog custody battle is unlikely to raise any eyebrows. Consider the competition: Homeland Security Secretary-in-waiting Kristi Noem once shot her dog, then bragged about it in a book. On January 15, when senators questioned Ms. Bondi, it was clear that she faced a relatively smooth path to confirmation. Unlike some of her fellow Cabinet candidates, the 59-year-old does not acknowledge any alien ideology or appear to be giving in. Foreign dictators Benefit of the doubt. Instead, Democrats are concerned about her long-standing loyalty to Trump and her cozy ties to corporate interests. “The issue at hand is your ability to say no,” said Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator.
Bondi’s rise took her away from Temple Terrace, the city she grew up in on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Her father was a teacher and mayor. During her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida, she thought about becoming a pediatrician. But she went to law school and got an internship at the Tampa district attorney’s office to close the deal.
She had a successful 18-year career there, winning convictions in some high-profile murder cases and doing part-time commentary on Fox News. Sarah Palin, then a vice presidential candidate and later a conservative star, endorsed her for state attorney general, which helped propel the relative unknown to victory. In that job, she promised to continue her predecessor’s work fighting the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s landmark health care legislation (the effort largely failed). She also took on less partisan work, such as shutting down “pill mills” and unscrupulous drug dispensing clinics that had previously been common in the state.
But questions about her independence began to arise. In 2014 New York Times He wrote about the growing business of lobbying state prosecutors. Fundraising groups, backed by corporate sponsors, have emerged for the campaigns of Republican and Democratic attorneys general. Dinners and weekends at the resort (all expenses paid) brought together donors, lobbyists and prosecutors. Mrs. Bondi, timesShe received nearly $25,000 in benefits from a Republican group between 2012 and 2014, reports show. She has dropped or refused to join lawsuits against companies such as Travelocity, the travel booking website accused of tax crimes, and with whom she drank and dined. (At the time Ms. Bondi denied that any “access” by lobbyists had influenced her office’s decisions; similar lawsuits against Travelocity failed in other states.)
Of particular interest now are its dealings with Trump University. By 2013, Trump’s for-profit college, which he promised would “teach you better than the best business school,” had been under scrutiny for years. Ms. Bondi’s predecessor had received more than 20 complaints from Florida students claiming they had not learned anything; She received one too. Florida was Trump University’s third-largest market in terms of sales. In August of that year, the New York Attorney General sued Trump University for fraud. In September, the Trump Organization sent a check for $25,000 to Bondi’s re-election campaign. In mid-October, her office announced that it would not pursue complaints. Trump and Bondi deny that the donation had any influence on their decision-making, and Trump later made a $25,000 repayment to his foundation, which, as a non-profit, cannot donate to political entities, in addition to a fine.
During the 2016 Republican primaries, Bondi became one of the first Republicans to support Trump. She was an advisor during the presidential transition in 2016; He defended him during his first trial in 2019; She joined a lobbying firm run by a major fundraiser after leaving her position. Her devotion to the president-elect is clear, though less so than, say, Kash Patel’s.
Mr. Patel, the man Trump chose to run FBIHe wrote a children’s book, where he pretended to be a wizard saving the honorable King Donald from the evil Hilary Quinton. His name came up repeatedly during Ms. Bondi’s Senate hearing. Will Ms. Bondi, who would be Patel’s boss, allow him to go after the “deep state” enemies that Patel is said to have assembled? She stressed that “there will never be an ‘enemies list’ within the Ministry of Justice.”
Bondi has views that Democrats don’t like. She refused to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, and described the criminal charges against Trump as “satanic.” But they will reserve their highest objections to Trump’s other picks; Some may vote to confirm it. She insisted that “the people of America,” not the president, “will be my client.” As she took an oath to give honest answers during the hearing, she told senators that the last four words were the most important: “So help me, God.”■
Stay on top of American politics with the we shortOur daily newsletter containing quick analysis of the most important political news, and Checks and balancea weekly note from our Lexington columnist examining the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters.
